Advertisement
New photos on:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/ …..I have detailed before the constant last minute amendments to schedules at the school & changes without warning to daily activities. It's part of the Chinese experience &, it seems, a way of life here. An unexpected phone conversation with a young woman at 10.30pm on a Saturday evening, roughly translated from the Chinese. ”I saw you at the One Bar last week, you were singing there with Steve...” … “Yes”... “I want to know, can you sings songs at a (???)” … “I'm sorry, what was the last word” … (She switches briefly to English)... “a weeding” … “Huh? Oh, hunli?” (a wedding?) ... “Dui, (yes), hunli”… “Maybe. When is the wedding?” … “Tomorrow afternoon” … “No, I can't” … “Why?” … “I have classes tomorrow” … “Oh, OK, thank you” .....
…..and talking of weedings, I mean, weddings, Margaret, one of the Chinese English teachers, tells me another teacher wants me to play at a wedding. I find out who it is, a lady teaching grade 7 who has been limping around for the past few weeks with an injured foot. Again, she doesn't speak any English to speak of, so to speak...
Start again … I manage to slow her down enough in Chinese to discover that, the wedding is at the end of May, (thinking ahead this time), it's her daughter's wedding & it's in Nantong. That's about 3 hours east of here by bus! I ask how long she wants me to play. “One song is OK”. Just one song! OK. Any particular song? No, just a foreign, (make that English), song suitable for a wedding. She explains, they will drive me to Nantong, feed & water me at the wedding, put me up in a hotel for the night & drive me back the next day. It's impossible to imagine in a country of immigrants like Australia, the USA, or the UK for that matter, being a foreigner could be such a commodity!.....
…..after a flurry of construction in East Yangzhou, when the count of construction cranes visible from the nearby Wenchang Bridge over the Grand Canal was up over 50, I thought things would calm down a bit. New 16 & 20 storey apartment blocks, hotels & commercial buildings finished & the cranes taken down. I had a count recently &, (remember these are all new constructions
underway), I lost count at something over 60!.....
…..a flurry of activity also on my computer connection problems. They haven't tried to fob me off with, “We can't do anything about access to foreign websites”. The man has been round on two occasions, “pinging” & texting back to HQ & I tried to discuss it with their engineer but my technical vocabulary & the fact she wouldn't slow down limited our exchange to SMS. Still, something's happening, I just don't know what at the moment.....
…..I must find some time to work out some material with the loop pedal I bought last year! We, that's Steve & I, now have 2 regular coffee bar gigs, one at Lavazza in west Yangzhou, another in a quirky little coffee shop run by a Chinese couple closer to the city centre. Both are once every fortnight as we are both busy trying to study too. I joined Steve for a special night at the small “One” bar but told him & the manager I won't play there again unless they have a special “non-smoking” night. I notice in there even a large percentage of the women smoke, unusual to see in
China, (unless, maybe, you frequent bars). After so many years of foul air in England & Australia, before smoking was finally banned, I have no desire to turn back the clock. We also discovered another Filipino band, this time at a new restaurant & entertainment area near Slender West Lake. They made it an open invitation to go & join them so I intend to call their bluff.....
…..due to schedule rearrangements for the Yangzhou half-marathon this Sunday we get Friday off but as Thursday was a Friday we have to do the Sunday “English Club” classes on Saturday afternoon & Thursday arvo's classes on Sunday afternoon... Does that make sense ? ... I thought not …..
.....I score big-time this week. It's the Lao Dong Jie, Labour Day or May Day holiday. That's Thursday & Friday. Wednesday was a normal day but with afternoon classes cancelled, to allow the kids to go home early for the holiday. All my classes are in the afternoon that day! Oh, on Monday & Tuesday the kids had Chinese exams so, yes! all my classes were cancelled then too. I even find time to get out in the Spring sunshine. My
friend, Shen Yue, has some time before her son goes home from school on Wednesday & insists I should see the big new park not far from the Daming pagoda…..
….time to catch up on the studies I haven't done. I get a email & feedback sheet congratulating me on 90% in my first Spanish assignment. Let's not get too excited too early though. Mi Español est á todavía no muy fluido.....
…..I notice it has become my job, when foreign teachers' have a flat tyre, to phone the old man who will come to the school to fix them, saving a long walk pushing the bike over the bridge. It's harder to communicate by phone, with no hand gestures or other clues available if the meaning gets lost. Still, progress, in Chinese & in this trimester's Spanish, sometimes seems painfully slow, especially as Steve, after 2 years of pretty intensive work I have to say, is now teaching some of the other foreign teachers Chinese. Despite being a musician of sorts my grasp of the tones is skill somewhat sketchy! I think the old man's hat indicates either a hidden level of fluency in English or a
complete lack of knowledge.....
…..Tibet, or Xizang as it's known in China, is a destination as exotic as you could ask for, despite the restrictions that we know are imposed on travel there. Sofi, our English teacher from Argentina, is keen to go before she returns to Argentina in July. Some of us have said before, oh, we must go to Tibet but it's taken someone to start the ball rolling to get a small group together & organise the trip. We can fit it in between the school break up & the Summer Camp. Although it's technically & I realise, controversially, within China it's still a two day train trip from Shanghai to Lhasa. There is no high speed train link there but it is accessed by the world's highest railway line, with pressurised carriages. The soft sleeper option is around $200, not too bad for a trip of nearly 4,500km:
The train from Shanghai to Lhasa also made its debut in July, 2006. The train to Lhasa from Shanghai departs every day at 19:52 from Shanghai Train Station, and arrives at Lhasa Railway Station at 19:15 on the third day after about 47.5 hours covering a Tibet railway map
We can go from Nanjing, via Xi'an & Golmud, to Lhasa distance of 4373 kilometers. Its operational speed is also 120 km/h, 100 km/h over sections laid on permafrost. It costs around RMB1300 for a first-class sleeper berth, about RMB850 for a second-class sleeper berth and half that for a soft seat.
Like each Lhasa-bound train, the
train to Lhasa from Shanghai is also especially built for the high altitude environment and equipped with advanced facilities, such as air-conditioning, supercharging system, oxygen supply, altitude display, etc. The train is also tightly sealed so as to firstly keep the inside air pressure normal and secondly prevent passengers from littering. Besides, all the carriages are installed with double-paned windows and ultraviolet filters to protect passengers from ultraviolet radiation.
(http://www.tibettravel.org/tibet-train/shanghai-to-lhasa-train.html?gclid=CPuVttW1jL4CFZAsvQod6BcAVQ) …..it's not going to be a luxury cruise but if there are 4 of us hopefully we can book a soft sleeper, 4 bunks in your own cabin … with a door! I hope the windows are clean for the promised scenery. The trip includes a visit to Zhumulangma Feng, probably better known to most of you as Mount Everest. Only the base camp, (not to the top in a 7 day trip!). There's also Rongbuk, the world's highest monastery, (around 5,000m), Yamdrok
Tibet train
Some details I managed to find Lake, Nyenchen Kangsar glacier, not forgetting Lhasa & the Potala Palace, which I have wanted to see for a long time. The next blog could see me feeling on top of the world.....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0377s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Neil Donaldson
non-member comment
Speed of construction
Hello Dave, I was interested to hear of the speed of construction and the number of cranes on the horizon. What a contrast to sleepy Adelaide where they have been digging a new drainage ditch - waterway at the end of Old Port Road. SO far it has taken around 2 years with still no end in sight. Businesses that have been along that stretch of Port Road for 20+ years are packing their bags and leaving due to the speed of construction. If Australians were put in charge of building the Great Pyramids in Egypt they would have taken 100's of years to construct. I reckon they must have one man and a shovel to do the job.