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Published: August 20th 2008
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Shanghai is literally the other side of the world from our hometown in Toronto, Canada. A 12 hour time difference (12 hours ahead). So we landed on Saturday at 3:30 pm Shanghai time, 3:30 am Toronto time. You can imagine the jet lag. The first few days we tried to sleep at the appropriate times, but you have to listen to your body and do what you have to do (ie: waking up at 4 am, and many naps during the day). I'm happy to report that as of last night we're getting pretty adjusted to Shanghai time and had our first "normal" sleep, which makes things a little easier.
So, maybe I should start at the beginning.
Sat, August 16th:
Arriving here was definitely a surreal experience. After months of planning, anticipation, and struggles we touched down in China through the smog and rain after a 14 hour flight. Thank goodness we flew first class! Not only was it such a long flight, the week before our departure had been full of stress. How hard it was to sort our possessions into what would be stored versus what was going to come to China (since we're renting
our place out), the actual move day seeing our life as we knew it packed and sent away, a lot of tearful goodbyes with family and friends, little to no sleep at all, and many times having to dig down and find inner strength to carry on.
Back to the flight, it was wonderful! For the first time in weeks we had nothing to do but relax, eat, read, sleep, watch movies - a mini holiday after the rush and before the shock! It was also such a smooth flight, which helped with my nerves.
We were picked up at Pudong Airport (which was easier going then expected - signs were in both Mandarin and English and customs went so smoothly) by a driver with a normal size car, and us with 6 months worth of stuff in tow. I didn't think we'd fit, but after some strategic packing and me half sitting on Ollie's lap, we were off!
The driving in Shanghai is unreal - picture a 4 lane highway, but instead somehow there's 5 cars across, no one obeys lane markings or pays much attention to signals, instead just weaving back and forth dangerously close,
honking if they're REALLY close. And there's no seat belts in the back of taxis. It took about 45 minutes in bouts of heavy traffic to go from the airport to our hotel in Puxi, downtown Shanghai. But we arrived safe and sound!
To our satisfaction the apartment-hotel is quite clean and spacious. It's not the Ritz by any means, but it's roomy, well appointed, and comfy, more so than anticipated. We have a fully serviceable kitchen with pretty decent appliances, a large living room with a desk in it, internet access, a bedroom with good storage, and a clean and well appointed bathroom. Lots of room for us to unpack and make it home. Originally they had us on a smoking floor facing a construction site, and the room stunk of cigarettes but we were able to switch it for a room facing a park on a non-smoking floor. Unfortunately for the bellman he had to load and unload our heavy stuff twice and not understanding any English it was hard to explain to him why. This was the first urging for us to brush up on our basic conversational skills. Generally we find that very few people
speak any English. So far it seems that the only locals who do are the ones working in the hospitality industry in nicer hotels and restaurants.
The biggest initial obstacles for us to get used to so far are:
1) The oppressive heat! Think amazon rainforest. Hot, muggy, and sitting heat. Afternoons have been reaching 45-48 degrees Celsius with the humidity. Certainly different from the cool Toronto summer we'd been experiencing at home.
2) The smell. The air and the water certainly have a smell which is hard to explain. It's very different from the (seemingly) odourless air and water in Canada. It penetrates everything, outdoors and in, and it's inescapable. I think that the longer we're here we'll become accustomed to it and eventually won't even notice it anymore.
3) The language. We don't speak Chinese, many people don't speak English. And thus we must learn chinese. I can't wait for the day I can carry on a basic conversation with a local!
Sun, August 17th:
We did some exploring and discovered our hotel is in a little complex housing a super chic furniture and accessories store, a laundromat, a convenience store where we bought lots
of water (need it in this heat!) and which also sells such tasty products as "dried spicy duck tongues", and deep fried something on a stick, among others. Happily, there is also a Starbucks! But we’ve yet to try it out as we were a little hesitant to get anything with water or milk without asking a trustworthy local first.
I find the whole Starbucks phenomena strangely fascinating. They all look exactly the same on the interior, no matter where in the world you are, and generally the products are the same too. How comforting it is to be able to sit in one and pretend you’re somewhere else for a little, if you need to.
The food and water situation is something that will take time to get used to. How lovely and free it is to be able to turn on the tap and brush your teeth like we can in Canada! Here we're using bottled water to both drink and brush our teeth, as we’ve been told to, and only use the tap water to shower and wash up. How strange and slightly nerve racking. But there’s only so much that you can do and
we’ll be living here for 6 months, and it’s not like you can shower with bottled water! You have to be safe but also adjust and be reasonable.
We’d yet to find a grocery store that sold anything resembling western or international food. So far we’d only been able to buy safe bottled water and things like bottled orange juice. If it weren’t for the rations we’d packed in our suitcases (like soup, crackers and peanut butter) we wouldn’t have eaten all day! Now that we’d had the water situation settled next on the priority list was a place that sold decent food. Being a strict vegetarian and healthy person definitely impacts what I choose to eat, although it’s not like meat-eating Ollie has any interest in dried spicy duck tongues either!
Today we had our first meeting with a new coworker of Ollie’s, and a local Shanghainese woman. She had graciously offered to meet us on the weekend to take us shopping for our new cellphones, a necessity since we want to be able to contact home, and also since I’ll be out and about while Ollie’s working during the days. Our old-school Canadian cellphones are on
CDMA networks (darn you Bell, Telus, and Rogers and your monopoly!), and thus as soon as you leave the country you’re on ridiculously expensive roaming fees. International GSM phones are the way to go, especially if you find yourself traveling a lot, like us. It was a darn good thing we had help, because there would’ve been NO WAY we could’ve purchased cells here without a local mandarin speaker. None of the store workers spoke a lick of english and the process involved going to two separate stores - the first to actually purchase the phones, the second to register and purchase a SIM card, and register the SIM card and purchase minutes. Interestingly any store within a shopping centre or mall only has one cashier PER FLOOR. Once we had chosen our phones the shop lady took us on a walk to the other side of the mall to make the purchase. Again, good thing Ollie’s coworker was there to explain! So now we are the proud owners of two new chinese cells, and unbelievably I can call home to Toronto for 30 minutes long and it only costs 10 RMB, or $1.50 Canadian!! Dirt cheap.
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