Qingdao/Huangdao: First Impressions

We arrived at our new home on Saturday after a short one hour flight from Shanghai to Qingdao on Shandong Airlines. The weight of our bags finally came back to bite us as we had to pay 400 RMB, about $60, because our bags were overweight. They could have charged us more, so we had to count our blessings. Also, our flight was delayed about an hour due to fog in the Qingdao area. I guess with the proximity to the sea fog is fairly common around here this time of year. 

In case you can't read that, it is a sign that says the airport is certified as a "Civilized Airport."

We were met by Fan, our contact at the Foreign Affairs Office at the university, and after a quick lunch we were brought to our apartment on the campus of the university, which is about an hour outside of the city of Qingdao. The place looked like it hadn't been touched too much since the last person moved out, and as a result it was quite dirty and the furniture was not arranged to our liking. The ceilings were high and the white walls were bare. It was cold both in temperature and appearance. 

There is, however, quite a bit of space and with space comes potential. We have a decent sized living/dining room, a galley kitchen, a big bathroom, and two rooms that could serve as bedrooms (although only one has a bed.) We have already been to three different department stores (2 in the downtown Huangdao area, about 15 minutes away) and one in Qingdao when we went there to get some medical tests that are needed for our Foreign Expert cards. Each time we looked ridiculous with how much stuff we were buying. We have bought some blankets and a space heater for the cold (we technically have heating but it is not very effective), some dishes and cutlery, some lamps (otherwise we just have super bright fluorescent bulbs in each room), a drinking water dispenser (can't drink the water), and countless other daily necessities. We do have a washing machine, but no dryer, so we bought a laundry rack to hang our clothes on. It has been an adjustment to wait for a day before things are dry, so we basically do one load a day. I'll post a video tour of the apartment later.

Our main living area when we arrived, it looks different now.

Making breakfast the first morning.

The school itself is big. There are around 35,000 students but all of them are on vacation now for the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival holiday, so the place feels like a ghost town. We still haven't explored most of the campus except for the area around our building. Our apartment is near the outdoor basketball courts and track, so we plan on using those quite a bit. Also, there is a long road of different shops and food stalls inside the walls of the campus that is less than a 5 minute walk away. Those are all closed with the exception of 2 small grocery stores, so we'll get a better feel for how useful those will be when the students return. Mountains surround the campus on at least two sides, and apparently there is some decent hiking we'll have to check out.

Other than that we seem kind of in the middle of nowhere. There are big roads with 3 lanes of traffic each way on all sides of the campus, but the roads are almost always empty and we barely have to look both ways before crossing. Planning for the future I suppose. One of our neighbors mentioned that it is really nice and quiet if you can stand the isolation. I definitely did not expect to feel isolated while in China, and since we have each other I don't expect we'll ever feel too lonely. Also, the pace of life can only pick up from here since no students are around.

Yesterday we ventured into the town of Huangdao for the first time, which took about 30 minutes by bus and cost us 2 RMB each, or about $.30. Not bad. We took a cab back which probably took half the time but cost 20 RMB total (about $3.00). We decided that most times we go to town we'll take the bus one way and a cab the other. I feel okay about spending less than $4.00 for both of us to get to and from town. In town there is a Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and a few KFCs, but that is about all that is familiar. There are a few good department stores though and I did see a few karaoke places we might have to try out (I'm only kind of kidding). Almost anything we would ever need we could get there.

We have yet to try to get into Qingdao on our own, but that is definitely a priority. When we were in Qingdao for our medical tests we talked about how nice it would be to live in an exciting city like that, so we'll try to visit as much as possible. School doesn't start for over a week and a half so we'll probably go into Qingdao twice, and maybe stay the night one of the times.

Anyway, those are the first impressions. Keep in touch with us! If you want to Skype my Skype name is jordan.bloem and Megan's is meganwaugh44.

Orientation Week in Shanghai (Part 2)

Wednesday, February 4

After our Chinese/teaching classes in the morning, our group headed off to what the orientation schedule called "Chinese Cooking Class," which didn't really teach us how to cook. We arrived at a community center to make dumplings, but all the filling and the dough was already made and it was our job to wrap up the dumplings. This is much harder than it sounds. The women who were teaching us must have been doing this for years because their dumplings were not only aesthetically pleasing but functional. Mine were neither. Nevertheless, it was fun to mess around a bit with the whole group. Also, they cooked the dumplings and we got to eat our handiwork. They were still delicious despite being ugly.

Hard at work making dumplings.

Following the class we headed to Xin Tian Di, which literally means "New Heavenly Place," and is basically a really cool shopping/dining pedestrian area. All of the shops and restaurants are made of old Shanghai homes that were converted and refurbished. The buildings were a cool mix of European and Chinese architecture. Our guide said that to Westerners it seems very Chinese, but to Chinese it seems very Western.

Most of our group in Xin Tian Di.

Our dinner this night was at a Uighur restaurant. Uighurs are a Muslim ethnic minority in China who come from the far western province of Xinjiang. Their native language is similar to Turkic and they look more Middle Eastern or eastern European than Chinese. The food here was decent, but I think I prefer traditional Chinese food to Uighur food. They did do a song and dance for us, and even pulled a few of our group on stage to dance. While they were dancing the men made no expression and all I could think of is Borat. They looked very Kazakhstani. 

Two of our fellow teachers, Liz and Paige, dancing with the Uighurs.

Thursday, February 5

On Thursday a bit more than half the group gave practice 20 minute teaching lessons. Megan and I did not do our lesson on the first day, but we played the part of students in the class who didn't know much English. This was particularly difficult for the teachers who would be teaching kindergarten, as we had to act both ESL and 5. I'm not sure how convincing we were as students, but it was very helpful to watch different teachers and their styles and ideas. 

Following the teaching practice we took an excursion to the Shanghai World Financial Center which is the second tallest building in the world. Upon arrival, Megan looked up to the top of the building from the base and immediately became quite nervous about the prospect of going to the top. She grit her teeth and did it though, although it was pretty funny to watch her jog from one end of the observation deck to the other so she could wait for the next elevator down. 

The World Financial Center from the base.

Megan not very pleased while waiting in line to get down from the observation deck.

For those of us who did take some time to look out the windows the view was impressive, but it was hurt by the haze of pollution over the city. On a clear day (if there are any), I'm sure the view is much better. I saw a sign that said that we were in the highest observation deck in the world, so even though Taipei 101 is taller, people can't get as high as we were in this building. Right now a building is being built right next to the World Financial Center which will be significantly taller. The arms race continues.

The view from the top.

We had dinner free this night so Megan and I had planned to meet with her friend from high school, Heather, who is currently living in Shanghai. Although Megan and I waited at the wrong subway station for 45 minutes angrily waiting for Heather to arrive, we eventually realized our error and took to the subway one stop down where fortunately Heather was still waiting for us.

We stopped by Heather's apartment which she shares with two other people, a Spanish guy and a Chinese girl. They weren't home but we saw the whole place which seemed pretty comfortable and in a good location. We then went out to dinner at a local restaurant and had my favorite meal of the trip so far. I kept eating even after I was full because the food was so good and Heather asked, "Have you had enough?" I had, I just couldn't stop eating. It was good to catch up and talk Singapore.

Heather by the door of her apartment.

Megan and Heather in front of Heather's pink building.

Friday, February 6

The last day of orientation started with us giving our practice lessons. I gave my lesson on transitional words and phrases (However, Additionally, On the other hand, etc). I had the students to an exercise where they had to fill in the appropriate transitional word or phrase at the start of a sentence based on the context. The lesson went pretty smoothly, but at times I became flustered by certain questions that were asked. I'll need to learn to think on my feet.

Megan gave an example of the first day of class for her lesson. She gave a brief introduction of herself and then set up an activity where the students interviewed one another and then reported back to the class about what they learned. The purpose of the lesson was to get a feel for the students' overall English ability and to get introduced to the student. We both felt that the practice lessons were valuable practice for what we'll be faced with soon. However (<-- transitional word or phrase!), I don't think we can know exactly what to expect from a class until we start. 

We had the afternoon free and after a nap we went to a cool little shopping/eating area near a road called Taikang Road. We ducked back into a back alley and were immediately in a different world. There were lots of art and photography galleries, mixed in with cafes and bars. Meanwhile, there were families who lived above the shops and galleries just wandering around. We were immediately disoriented because the area was just a bunch of alleyways and nooks with cool stuff around each corner.

Part of the Taikang Rd area.

That night we met up with Heather again at a bar but called it an early evening as we had to depart our hotel at 8 am the next day to get to the airport for our flight to Qingdao! All in all it was a very useful orientation, and I feel much more prepared to teach than I did before the week. All the other new teachers were easy to get along with and we had a great group. Too bad we're all heading to different places around China.

Us with Jerry, our Chinese teacher.

Orientation Week in Shanghai (Part 1)

NOTE: Unfortunately we do not have the internet working on our laptop yet, so I am posting this using the computer that was provided for us at our apartment. I don't think we're going to put photos or video on this computer, so this post won't really have any of our photos. Hopefully we'll figure it out soon and add some.

EDIT: Due to my IT expertise I was able to get the internet hooked up to the laptop. I have now added our photos and videos!

Sunday, February 1

Our flight arrived in Shanghai at about 10:30 am after almost 30 hours of travel including layovers. We were met at the airport by a CIEE employee who led us to a bus that brought us to our hotel, where we arrived around noon. Our hotel was called the Faculty Club, and was located on the campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which has a nice little campus tucked away in the middle of Shanghai.

Our room at the Faculty Club

In an attempt to stay awake for the rest of the day, Megan and I decided to explore the area surrounding our hotel after unpacking. We found the nearest subway station, some malls, and a few decent grocery stores that we used once or twice during the week to get fruit. With the aid of Xing Ba Ke, Chinese for Starbucks, we stayed up until around 8 before a jet-lag induced sleep.

Monday, February 2

SUPER BOWL MONDAY! I woke up around 5 am due to the jet-lag, but we didn't have to be anywhere until around 8, so I clicked around the internet for a while and found that the previous blog site had been blocked. I spent the next few hours trying to figure out how to make it work with no luck. When Megan woke up around 7 we flipped through the channels and found the Super Bowl being broadcast in Chinese. I couldn't understand the announcers, but on a 20 yard completion from Ben Rothlisberger to Heath Miller down the middle I heard "piao liang," which Megan said means "Beautiful!" and is frequently used during sporting events. I was able to watch about half of the first quarter before we headed down to breakfast.

Our orientation started with our first Chinese lesson. Our teacher was a student at the college who was studying to be a teacher of Chinese as a second language. Her name was Jerry, which she chose because it sounds like her Chinese name. I'm not sure if she knows it is a man's name or not. We followed that with a few lectures from a woman who has been teaching English as a second language for about 20 years. She has only been in China for a few years, but she had ton of knowledge on how to teach and manage a classroom. She basically taught us how to teach on Monday and Tuesday morning.

After lunch at the hotel we had free time until dinner. Megan and I used this time to explore the Bund, which is sometimes called "Shanghai's architectural museum." On one side of the river is a road is lined with European style buildings from the early 1900's. These were used by the European powers who had a presence in China at that time. Across the river is the modern business district with the Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center, the second tallest building in the world.

Megan and I at the Bund.

The Bund at night (I didn't take this picture).

We met back with the group for a welcome dinner at a Sichuan restaurant. Sichuan is a province in the central part of China and its cuisine is known for its spiciness. At times I was a bit spicy for me but I sucked it up and most of it was excellent.

Our Sichuanese meal.

The meal was concluded with a performance by Sichuanese face changers, which is a sort of combination of dancing and magic where the dancers instantly change their masks. Here's an example, although the guy we saw seemed more impressive than this guy:

Tuesday, February 3

Today we had more Chinese lessons and teaching classes until lunch. After lunch we took an excursion with our group to the Bund again (perhaps we should have read ahead on the schedule before going the day before) and the West Nanjing Rd shopping area. This time around we did go into some of buildings in the Bund, the coolest of which being the original HSBC Bank building, which is still a functioning bank. After working for a while at a bank I though about how cool it would be to work in a bank that basically doubled as a museum. Cool stuff.

The HSBC Bank building.

A cool lion in front of the HSBC Bank building.

The West Nanjing Rd shopping area was fairly uneventful, mostly just high end shops that no one really wanted to shop in anyway. Our Chinese orientation leader, Kelvin, said that if the girls wanted to do any "special shopping" Jerry could take them. Megan and I spent most of the rest of the time joking about what he could have meant by "special shopping" and why only the girls could go.

Dinner was at a vegetarian restaurant called Jujube. This was definitely Megan's favorite meal of the week because we did not have deal with any questionable meat. Also, I've noticed that the bits of chicken or beef in a dish in China often seem to be the bits that we would discard in the state like very cartilidge-y or boney pieces. Anyway, it was nice to avoid picked through that. The food at Jujube also imitated meat, so we had tofu Peking duck, fish, and other dishes. Delicious in my mouth.

Following dinner we went to a Chinese acrobat show, which was without a doubt the highlight of the week for me. I'll have to have a full post on this later. Just a teaser though: they had something called "The Ball of Death." No one died and it was awesome.

I'll post the second half of the week later. Megan and I are about to head out to buy some stuff to make our new apartment a bit more homey.

This is China

This is China.

On Sunday night I turned a corner blinded by the scaffolding of an ongoing construction project when I was startled to see a car taking the same corner in the opposite direction on the broad sidewalk. I moved; the car was bigger than me. Apparently negotiating pedestrians on the sidewalk is easier than negotiating the traffic on the road.

While at the Bund yesterday a few middle-aged ladies approached Megan and asked to have their photo take with her. They told her she is beautiful. Their clothes were simple and plain. They seemed to be tourists from a distant western province who were visiting Shanghai during the Spring Festival. They probably hadn’t seen blonde hair before. Megan posed for three pictures with the women. We leave quickly after that as to not attract a crowd.

While riding around Shanghai our bus slides in and out of traffic, through the pillars that hold up the elevated highways above us and around the walls that outline ongoing construction projects. We are on the basement level of a city growing upwards around us. We take the ramp onto the highway and more is visible. Like the cars in the Jetson’s we soar in the midst of the skyscrapers, not below them.

At the Sichuan restaurant we sit around the table and turn the lazy Susan to observe each dish that has been served. The colors, smells, and tastes are foreign. We discuss what we might be eating: duck?, pork?, tofu?, probably all of the above. Our guide stops by the table and confirms or denies our hypotheses. Each time I look down to eat what is currently on my plate a new dish appears on the table by the time I look up. A new topic of debate. Orange slices, something we can all confidently identify, signify the end of the meal.

We are walking down the West Nanjing Road Commercial Area. “This is the most upscale shopping area of all Shanghai,” our guide says. Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci stores are all around us. Our guide darts between two such stores and within 20 meters we are in a different city at a different time. “This is how common Shanghaiese people live.” Three storey buildings line narrow alleys with clothes drying on lines out of windows. Neighbors sit in doorways and chat, one woman helps another with laundry. The alley dead ends. We turn around and return to modern Shanghai.

The host of the Shanghai acrobat show steps onto the stage in a wedding dress. “No one will ever forget the story of Rose and Jack” she recites but doesn’t understand. Megan is convinced she said “…the story of Russ and Jackie.” Two acrobats emerge and swing around a curtain hanging from the ceiling to the theme of Titanic. They swing over the crowd like a 3D movie entering the movie theater. I actually could have reached out and touched them from our front row seat. I will never forget the story of Russ and Jackie.

This is China.

And we’ve only been here 3 days.

Safe Arrival

We have arrived safely in Shanghai and have been here about 2 days now. I haven't yet been able to post a real entry here yet because of the initial trouble of the Chinese government blocking the other blog site and since then just being so busy.

Our travels went about as well as could be planned. We did not have a single delay, and on the longest flight (LAX - Seoul) Megan and I slept for the majority. All in all, it took us about 29 hours door to door. 

A sign in the Seoul airport near the food court.

Megan creating her most delicious happiness.

We arrived at the hotel, which is actually on a college campus, at about noon. It was a struggle to stay awake most of the day, but we explored the area around the hotel for most of the afternoon and managed to fight off the jet lag until 8:30 pm.

Orientation has been good so far, if I have some more time this afternoon I'll post more about that. 

This Blog Has Moved....Back

Well, we've safely arrived in China, but I soon realized that the Chinese government has some sort of block or firewall or something on Wordpress.com, so I won't be able to make any posts over there. Therefore, I'll be posting on this site.

Some people had trouble reading this site earlier, my only advice would be that if it doesn't work just try again soon. When I was posting here earlier I sometimes wasn't able to see the page either, but then if I'd hit refresh or just try again in a few minutes it usually worked fine.

I'll have some real stuff up here in a bit...

This Blog Has Moved

A few people have had trouble accessing this blog, so I've moved it over to WordPress.com. I'm still playing around with the features there, but it seems to have some good potential.

The new URL is: www.bloemsinchina.wordpress.com.

Thanks for visiting; hopefully once we're in China we'll have some interesting content. (We depart on January 30).