Blogs from Huangpu, Shanghai, China, Asia - page 7

City Shanghai, China Language Mandarin Currency Chinese Yuan - 5Y = NZ$1 Climate high 35c - low 27c -hot and very sunny Awake early (around 6am) we thought it would be a good idea to venture out along the Bund and witness the early morning Tai Chi and other morning exercises that the Bund is renowned for. On the way we passed a lovely bakery that sold wonderful pastries and great coffee. We bought three varieties of goodies and 2 coffees for our breakfast. All up a total of about 42Y or approx NZ$8. Jennie’s typical excellent navigational skills were sadly lacking after such a yummy breakfast and so after an unscheduled 1-2 kilometre scenic detour - it was too late to witness the early morning Bund activities. Instead we decided to carry on walking towards ... read more

I am currently sitting at the Hongqiao Airport. FREE WIFI! I left the hostel this morning at 11:30-11:40. Last night I was able to take my suitcase over to Tristan's so I can travel light to Beijing. Yesterday Xuzhi invited me over to her parent's home in Jinshan District which is about an hour away from People's Square. I took line 1 from People's Square to Jinjiang Park, where I met Xuzhi at a McDonalds. From there we took a bus to Jinshan District which was about a 40 minute ride. Xuzhi and I took a nap for almost the whole ride. When we arrived at Jinshan District I noticed that it was a lot more peaceful than the center for the city. She lived in a complex all the way at the top and her ... read more

This morning I woke up at 7:40 am naturally. The plan was to wake up at around 10-11, but that didn't happen. I decided to make use of the extra time to go back to the airport to buy a SIM card and a phone card. The SIM card was 150 RMB and the phone card was 100RMB. As soon as I activated my phone I notified my friend Tristan and Xuzhi that I made it into Shanghai safely. I got pretty hungry around 10am, so I went over to the Burger King in the terminal. I like how they prepare your food as soon as possible; not like that shithole Burger King on Pershing in Stockton where they take a year. Xuzhi told me that she was at the International Traveling Health center to get ... read more

*** Last Entry - thank you for bearing with my erratic updates! I hope reading was fun. *** For my last day in Shanghai, I decided to walk around and see as much as possible. I started the day with a walking tour down the riverside of the Bund. I started with the area up by the Suzhou Creek - a smaller tributary feeding into the Huangpu River. Apparently, this used to be a cesspit, but there has been a lot of pressure to clean it up and now, though I should imagine it's far from clean enough to drink or swim in, it's no dirtier than most inner city rivers. On the far bank of the Creek are the Broadway Mansions - an exclusive 1930s apartment block for rich foreigners living in Shanghai. The Foreign ... read more

While working at 北京新东方扬州外国 语学校 or Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School at Yangzhou, we have enjoyed many generous offerings from the institution. Field Trips. Early spring, sometime between mid April and mid May, every student in every school in the province of Jiangsu (population base of 74,000,000 people in 2008) goes on a field trip. 1st grade all the way to Seniors in high school receive the opportunity to explore outside the intense study-based pedagogy of their school walls. Traveling two hours south and east of Yangzhou to a city called Changzhou, six bus loads of third-graders (half of them mine) and I visited a dinosaur theme park complete with a Jurassic Park-style entry gate. They call dinosaurs kong long or ‘scary lizard’ and after our mandatory ten minute to see dinosaur fossils the kids ... read more