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Published: February 24th 2008
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Time for Me to Fly
Here I am, bleary eyed, but excited to be leaving for China at 4 in the morning. Where should I begin? Much has happened since leaving the States last week. I arrived in Shanghai following my 14 hour flight ordeal to find that my luggage did not arrive with me despite repeated assurances from the airlines that this would not be the case. Bummed out, but determined not to let my China experience start on a negative note, I put the luggage out of my mind, telling myself that it would arrive in the near future. I continued out the airport gate to meet with Kelvin, my enthusiastic and somewhat scatter-brained orientation leader from CIEE. Despite the many Kelvin jokes that my group-mates and I would make over the coming week, the reality was that Kelvin was invaluable in helping us adjust to life in such a strange new environment. After a short ride to the hotel, and a brief introduction to some of my group-mates, I collapsed into bed, hoping that my luggage would arrive sometime the next day. The next morning everyone in our group of future teachers began to get to know each other better, and we started taking survival Chinese lessons as well as lessons on how to be effective English teachers in Chinese
View from the Top
This is a view of the Oriental Pearl TV tower in the heart of downtown Shanghai that was taken from the top of the Jin Mao Tower, the tallest building in China. schools. I seem to have lucked out with my school placement because it is a fairly prestigious international school that is close to Shanghai and also there are three others from my group that are being assigned there as well. Everyone else went to separate schools, and some were going to be the only English speaking teachers at their respective locations.
In talking with all my group-mates, I soon began to realize that the one I got along best with was my roommate Aaron. He is a law school graduate from New York who is going back to school next year to pursue a further graduate degree in the hopes of becoming a professor. He is very intelligent, witty, and humorous and our senses of humor and taste in DVD’s match up well together. I also like the extremely nice British couple who is going to be assigned to the same school as Aaron and I. Their names are Matt and Michelle, they have been together about two years, and they would be sharing the apartment across the hall from Aaron and me once we reached our final destination. The rest of the group participants were also very nice and
Highlight of the Week
I cannot even begin to describe how cool the Chinese acrobatics show was. Here you can see a girl supporting herself entirely with one arm atop a tower of chairs while doing splits in the air with her legs. The balance and strength required were hard to believe. sociable, and as I said, they will be scattered throughout China, so they will be a good network for when I want to travel in the future to other locations within the country. My luggage did not arrive the second day that I was here, so at this point I was becoming increasingly bummed and worried about my personal hygiene. Fortunately, I had enough to get by on in my carry on bag, but if the luggage did not come soon, I was going to need to do some serious shopping for clothes and toiletries. This was also going to be a problem since I had failed to convert any currency at the airport because I was looking for my luggage. This meant I would need to take a trip to the Bank of China where the lines are interminable and try to conduct an exchange with someone who probably would not speak much English.
On day 3, things took a turn for the better when my luggage finally arrived and I made it to the bank to get some yuan with our extremely helpful Chinese teacher Faye. Along with Kelvin, she was instrumental in seeing that we all survived
Bronze Speartips at the Museum
These bronze speartips date back almost 4000 years and are covered with amazingly intricate carvings. our first week in China. At this point, we also began to do some touristy things in the afternoons that were very interesting. We went to the Jin Mao tower, the tallest building in China. They are building an even bigger one next to it though, which should be completed by the time of the 2010 Shanghai Expo. We went to the world-famous Shanghai museum, home of countless treasures from China’s history. We participated in the lantern festival, which is celebrated on the night of the first full moon of the lunar New Year, and was the cause of much revelry in Shanghai’s old quarter. You can see from my pictures that decorations consist of hundreds of lighted paper lanterns, many of which are shaped like the Chinese zodiac animals. Among these, the rat was of course the most prominent. Since it is the year of the rat, I have seen cartoon rats all over everything here. Our group also had a chance to stroll through some of the nicer shopping districts in Shanghai along West Nanjing road. There were so many western brands, both real and fake, and so much consumerism, that it was easy to forget we were
Jin Mao Tower
Here is a view of the Jin Mao Tower from the ground across the river. It is actually the shorter looking building that is second from the right. The building beside it is slated to be China's new tallest building and will be finished by 2010. in a “communist “country. The highlight of our week was easily seeing the Chinese acrobatics show. I have never seen or even imagined some of the insane stunts that were performed repeatedly here. I only managed to snap a few pictures, because the rest of the time I was on the edge of my seat with apprehension and awe! The week wound down on Friday as we completed our orientation and said our goodbyes. We managed to drag Faye out for an entertaining Karaoke session on Friday night, and overall we were sad to be leaving each other’s company so soon, although it felt like a lot longer than a week that we had been together. Saturday we departed for our final destination of Changzhou City which I will cover in more detail in future posts.
Until then - peace out,
Chris.
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Mom
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Great Pics!
I for one enjoyed looking at your interesting pics! Send some of the actual school so we can see where you work. I know you're busy. Hope you feel better. Love, Mom