Living in China Round 3

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We arrived safely in China after an eleven hour flight from Seattle to Seoul, Korea and a 90 minute flight from Seoul to Shanghai. Once we arrived we got through customs and received our bags quite quickly.

We hit our 1st bump in the road when we called the Howard Johnson hotel to pick us up. I had booked it on the Wyndham Rewards website so we could get mileage for Rapid Rewards, they offered “Free Airport Shuttle” and it was the most reasonable in price and proximity to Pudong Airport. Well it seems the website lied as there was no free shuttle and it would take 40-60 minutes to get there. For those of you who know China it was located near Pudong not Hongqiao the airport on the other side of Shanghai. So we cancelled the reservation and now were without a room at 9:30pm. Pete went over to the hotel counters and found a decent deal within 15 minutes and then we were on our way to bed after being up about 24 hrs.

On Tuesday morning, we got up and ate the free “Western Breakfast” provided with our room cost and decided to get to Hangzhou earlier than later as we didn’t sleep much (only about 5 hrs combined). We then took the shuttle back to Pudong airport, hoped on the shuttle that took us across town to Hongqiao airport which has the high speed rail station with trains to Hangzhou and the rest of China. We were on the train within 45 minutes after arriving the station.

When we arrived in Hangzhou it was quite nice that the school sent Leo from the International Office and a driver who were waiting at the train station exit with a sign to take us to our apartment. With so many bags as you can see in the photo it would have been 2 taxis and our rusty Chinese language skills getting us there. Later we found out the school would have picked us up at Pudong Airport even though our flight arrived at 9pm. Three other teachers that arrived the same week we did had this service but it was also their very 1st time to China.

So far things are going “somewhat smoothly”. We chose our apartment on the 5th floor so we will get lots of stair climbing in this year. We have a small but functional kitchen, living/dining room, one larger bedroom, one smaller bedroom with a twin bed, enclosed balcony, and a bathroom with a tub (but won’t ever soak in it). This is the 1st time our washing machine is in our bathroom and not on our balcony. Also we can have two of us in the bathroom while one is showering due to having the enclosed tub, another 1st.

All nine of us foreign teachers live in the same stairwell of our building which is another 1st for us. Brian is from Dallas, TX, Mike is from Orange County, CA, Stephanie is from Milwaukee, WI the three of them are first timers to China. Susanna is from Georgia and she is married to Johannes, from Sweden. He is an architect working for a Chinese company. They will return to Sweden in January after her one semester contract. She taught at this school last year. Another returning teacher is Julie, who is to arrive today she is also from the US but not sure where. The last couple is from Ireland and they will arrive this week and teach Freshman who start on Sept 19th.

We got our teaching schedules on Friday and we both teach 2nd year students. Pete teaches all morning classes 2 on Monday, 1 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday and 2 on Friday with Thursday’s off. I teach 3 on Monday, 1 on Tuesday and 3 on Thursday with Wednesday and Friday off. The school does a good job of blocking our classes together. Each class period is 90 minutes long which is the same as last year.

Pete meets with each of his classes once a week and I meet 3 of my classes twice a week and 1 class once a week. Pete has mostly English Writing classes with English Majors and mine are English Speaking and Writing with Non English Majors. We start teaching on Tuesday as Monday in China is Mid Autumn Festival, a holiday about the moon and the fall harvest. This is the earliest it has been celebrated of our time in China but since most holidays are based on the Lunar Calendar it does change it year.

We booked our 1st trip of the year leaving Sept 29th and returning October 9th. We will fly to Singapore and also travel around the area probably to local islands and get up to Malaysia also.

We hope to keep you updated with our time in China, being our 3rd time moving here some things just aren’t as shocking anymore to us but it doesn’t mean that they don’t annoy us any less. I have already had times where I am frustrated with the way things are here but I keep reminding myself that is life anywhere, right?

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Comments

[Kris]

nice!
Sounds like you're off to a great start with a helpful school and a really nice apt! Maybe if you bleach the tub you can soak in it?

[Paulette]

Place looks really nice
Hey guys -glad to hear you arrived safely. Pictures of your apartment look nice - that would cost you about $1200 to $1800 a month depending on the neighborhood in Chicago! Here's to great travels this year!!!!!!!

[Peggy]

WOW
Your apartment looks very nice!!!! Pretty modernized! Love you...enjoy!