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china1 005
I couldn't figure out how to turn on ANY lights in the hotel room it was pathetic I just sat by the glow of the tv.. Mmm warm..Hey Everybody!
My name is Nate. N-A-T-E. I'm from midwestern United States and I am going to be writing about my experiences in China. I got a english teaching job with TPR english in Zhongshan China. Zhongshan is about an hour and half ferry ride to the south and west of Hong Kong. I am a horrible author and you can save yourself a lot of time if you stop reading now. For the legions of you who continue (hi mom!) I promise to post poorly written puzzling garbage on a confusing schedule. I honestly have no idea who is going to read this so I will attempt to have some level of maturity.
The plane ride. I had to anxiously wait to begin my adventure delayed for four hours on the runway at newark airport. After we took off in our lovely 777 we flew for about 16 hours for a total of 20 straight hours in that tin can. I honestly didn't mind too much, the flight was smooth and I had my own personal movie marathon. We flew right over the north pole so we were in constant sunshine for the majority of the trip. During
My little room
My hotel room I thankfully came across my first night. the landing is when it finally got dark outside...and stormy...and foggy.. and overally pretty freaky decending in zero visibility.
Getting off the plane in Hong Kong everything changed immediately. I was suddenly a mute illiterate space alien visiting another planet. I wandered around aimlessly for awhile staring at all the chinese characters I couldn't read. I had to try and find my bags but they were past a swine flu check point at the airport. Apparently they are really concerned about swine flue, I had my temperature taken twice. After getting my bags I realized that I couldn't go back through the checkpoint to get on a ferry I needed to take to China in the morning. Making matters worse you can ONLY board the ferry at the airport as a transfer coming off a plane, meaning there was no way I could take the ferry to China anymore. Half an hour off the plane and I can't get to China, I have no cellphone, I speak ZERO chinese, I can't exchange my money (it was closed), and I am totally lost in Hong Kong. So far everything was going perfectly according to the plan. I called my folks
Street in Hong Kong
I don't know? Some random street. at a payphone at the airport and told them everything was running smoothly of course. I think my mom would have had a heart attack if she knew how baddly I had fudged everything already (sorry mom). I found a pamphlet with a picture of a ferry on it which became my new voice. I also managed to get 300 Hong Kong Dollars out of an ATM. At the time 300 Hong Kong dollars could have been anywhere between 2 bucks and 1000 dollars, beats me, but it felt like a lot.
I found a cabbie outside of the airport and tried to explain to him that I needed to go to China on a ferry. He spoke zero english but nodded reasurringly so I was sold. I jumped in the cab and we were going.... somewhere. After zipping around Hong Kong for about 15 minutes he stopped outside what appeared to be a large mall but it had pictures of ferries on it so I figured I was getting close. I payed the man (only 130 HKD sweet!) and walked out into the rain. I walked around a bit looking stupid with all my bags in the rain
The View
The view outside my hotel room. Pretty awesome. for awhile when some random teenage boy approached me outside the closed mall. Shockingly he spoke english and explained that indeed the mall connected to a ferry terminal and that there was even a hotel around the block that had access to the mall. I was on easy street from here on out. I managed to get the last available room at the hotel with my credit card. The next morning I took the ferry to China after a little exploring/adventuring.
I have now been in China a little less than a week. Everyone has been very kind and welcoming. I have been bounced around from Zhuhai and Zhongshan doing teacher training lately. TPR drives me around town to pick things up, I sorta feel like a rock star. I get a lot of stares although not from everyone. I was talking to another westerner in Zhuhai and some man litterally had a ciggarette fall out of his mouth when we walked by, hysterical. I never see other westerners anywhere in the city. I don't mind the looks, I do stand out a lot. I stare at other westerners too, its just soo rare. I am yet to meet
Hong Kong
This is looking back at Hong Kong Island from Kowloon where I was staying for the night. anyone even as close to as tall as I am, 6'3. Sometimes when I notice someone staring at me I will say hello (Ni Hao) or do something goofy and it's like I just shook their world.. "HOLY COW IT TALKS!!". Honestly though everyone has been super nice and very helpful. Good people!
One last story real quick about my time in Zhuhai. TPR put us up in a hotel next to a park with a bunch of basketball courts. One evening I noticed a crowd playing a pick-up game of basketball. I HAD to play. I tossed on some shorts and walked out to the court. Immediatly I was invited to play basketball with them. IT WAS AWESOME. I dominated, swatting balls and driving the lane like Lebron. They called me "meester NBA", too cool. I pulled it back a bit and we played some friendly basketball for a couple hours. I had a GREAT time. We said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways, I hope to go back there someday.
I will write more later when I have some more free time. PICTURES ARE UP!!! HOPE YOU CAN SEE THEM!!!. Thanks for listening, Zai Jain!
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kkoffel
non-member comment
1st impressions
Good to see your holding up so far! How do you shop for food?? How do you travel through the city?? How do you communicate?