Blogs from Shantou, Guangdong, China, Asia

I made it down to breakfast slightly earlier. There was a bit more choice and while it was nice to see new things on offer, I was a little disappointed some of the offerings I had enjoyed the day before weren't there. I loaded up my first plate with a rather large amount of stir fried greens, a boiled egg, sausage, youtiao (fried dough stick), and some fried veggie dumplings. The sausage was a cheapie processed one so pretty meh. The dumplings, boiled egg and youtiao were good, but the best bit was the stir fried greens. So tasty. As much as I like eating traditional Chinese breakfast food, I enjoy eating what is in my opinion non traditional foods too. I am definitely not one of those people believe certain foods have to be eaten ... read more

I tried searching for the proper name of this bridge but i only found 1 flicker entry and a yahoo search of the name from the flicker entry gave me the yangtze river instead... So.. from the flicker entry: Syantse Bridge. I can't say i know much or even anything at all about this bridge but i saw it and i loved it. So quoting somewhere off the web: 'Each pier of the Syantse Bridge has a history of hundreds of years and the whole bridge was first built in the year 1171 in China’s Song Dynasty. It was built as a float bridge linked by 84 huge boats and beside two banks of the immense River Han at that time. For the late hundreds of years,the reconstruction and decoration has not been stopped. Till Ming ... read more

During my CNY reunion dinner my Aunt made a comment about having me over to Shantou when the school holidays hit if i have not found a job by then. The immediate thought that flew into my mind was 'Wow! I'll be dead if i have not found a job in one month's time!' And here I am now, standing at the immigration queue in Shantou. I suppose this is a good thing; i would not have stayed with my relatives if my Aunt was not with me. Afterall, I have never met or spoke with any them.. I mean... i knew they existed but I did not know their names, age or how many of them where there. They, my relatives, are the kids of my late grandma's younger brother. Which also means that, yes, ... read more

The flight to Shantou was my 9th time using the Beijing Airport, so I guess I’m pretty much an expert now. Everything went smoothly, I took public buses to get there because I had all day this time. It took about an hour and a half, and it only cost about 50 cents, not bad considering I went all the way across Beijing. The flight was a little less than three hours. When I got to Shantou it was just stairs to walk off the plane and basically through a doorway that went to the parking lot, very small. Naomi was waiting for me outside the door. I didn’t check anything so we went right to the car where her parents were waiting. I was pretty nervous because they don’t speak English. Although I can communicate ... read more

Every so often I look back at my previous blog posts and I feel like I'm reading something from someone else, that is the rate at which my mind changes. Last update I was talking about how I love teaching and I want an easy life. To an extent this is true but I'm seeing why I love teaching, because it's a nice job and because it involves not doing a whole lot. It's piss easy and that's pretty cool. However now I'm feeling like I want a bit more. Maybe I would be ready for a proper job. For I have realised that I love this country and I love learning Mandarin, and these are things I can't really deny in the future because they have been true for a long time. I have been ... read more