Blogs from Chengdu, Sichuan, China, Asia - page 77

As an English teacher, the one thing I missed out on was Shanghai's real business environment. When I set out for China back in September, my goals were to learn as much Chinese language, culture and business practice as I could in their changing place in the world. While I never got lazy (well, I did give up the job search pretty quickly), I regret that in not having a real job, even if just for a short while, my business experience came from little more than griping friends and haggling at a fruit stand - not exactly resume noteworthy. So upon arrival in Chengdu, I summoned my inner Ol’ Man and told myself to quit being a bum and get a friggin’ job. When I first met Tashi and he got all excited about having ... read more

Tuesday 15th January After a fairly sleepless night, Rags suffering from toothache and Judy getting a neck ache from the high pillows, ending up using her jacket as a pillow, we headed out into the cold dark street at about 8am. It only took us 15 minutes to walk to the air ticket office where a bus was waiting, and still waiting until almost quarter to nine even though it was absolutely full. The bus trip was absolutely amazing with the sun coming up over the valley as we meandered our way out of Lhasa past villages and through a long tunnel that passed through a mountain, to reach the airport after about an hour. Rags was a little hesitant flying in China but Sichuan Airlines dispelled all his fears - quick check-in, a modern plane, ... read more

Last week, Stephanie taught her last class for the term and Cody finished up his lessons, officially beginning our winter holiday! Since then we’ve been continuing to explore Chengdu, finishing some last minute visa business, and preparing for our upcoming travels. This week everything needed for changing Stephanie’s tourist visa ‘L’ to a work visa ‘Z’ was in order, including the foreign expert certificate, residence permit from the local police bureau, and the letter of invitation from the school... everything save one. The medical exam. So on Monday, we went to the hospital that deals with foreigners in southern Chengdu with Bobby, a representative from the company that hired Stephanie (who is quickly becoming our friend). Here, after the necessary paper-work, and paying the 291RMB fee (US$40), Stephanie played a rousing game of ‘Mystery Door Medical ... read more

Howdy amigos, and Season's Greetings. What we've got here is a compilation of the many questions posed to us through comments and emails. Following each 'Q' is our shot at answering. There are quite a few, so if you get to a topic that doesn't quite float your interest boat, paddle on by. We hope you enjoy, and please ask as many more questions as you can think of; we'll try to get at them in the next Q&A post! Have you sung any karaoke? A quote from the Rob Gifford book “China Road” states “where there are people there is karaoke.” Unfortunately, we haven’t encountered as much as we had hoped. We always seem to choose the empty bars. We did however stumble upon a karaoke bar in Hong Kong where we played dice, and ... read more

A few days before we boarded the 25hr overnight train from Guilin to Chengdu (Nov. 28), we were tying to nail down a concrete definition of the word lost, what it means to be truly lost. After some debate we decided that being truly lost is when a person has no idea where she/he is, is not even able to locate her/himself on a map, and has no tools to help figure it out. We exited the Chengdu train station with our packs on our backs, and a heinous cold in Stephanie’s head, eager to find a hostel which we hadn’t booked prior to arriving. Outside the train station doors, people were EVERYWHERE. We muscled our way through the crowd which didn’t hold the hostel touts we were counting on. We managed to grab a map ... read more