First Week at Work

Not so bright, but very early on Monday morning, I started my first working week in Shanghai. The bus for the factory leaves from in front of the hotel just after 6:45am. The bus normally winds its way to the factory for 8 o'clock - Shanghai is enormous an d the factory is in the outskirts. There are officially 17 million people in Shanghai, and they just laugh when I say that there are 5 million people in the whole of Scotland! I've been having lunch about 11.30 to 12 o'clock. Even at that time, there's not much choice left. The chinese people eat very early, and are all keen to quote - early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise (or at least the chinese equivalent!). The canteen lunch is, of course, chinese. A bottle of water, rice, a portion of vegatables and a serving of meat and onion in a sauce, plus a piece of fruit costs me around 3 Yuan - 20p. The chopsticks are free. The bus leaves work just after 5, getting back to the hotel around 6.30 pm.

My plan was to have a very quiet week, to get to bed early every night and survive the alarm going off at 5.45 am that way. It was a good plan, but I've no idea if it would have worked! Monday night, I spoke to Christine (Chinese teacher) and confirmed that I would visit her family next week during the National Holiday (Yes, next week I'm on holiday Mon, Tues and Wed - pretty good second week at work, I thought). So, next step - go and buy my train ticket. When I was planning my trip home in February, I sat on my couch in Russia and booked my train tickets around the UK. A couple of days later they arrived at my mum's and I got them when I got to Scotland. Not quite so simple in China. I had to go to the train station. OK, I have a map, I have a metro pass - off we go. I got off the metro at the Shanghai Railway Station stop, no problem - but where was the station. I expected to arrive on the metro and then go up to the station. Hmm, not quite. I followed signs through a rabbit warren of tunels, and eventually popped up to the surface in the middle of an alley. I had been cheating, and following people who had luggage, but they were going in both directions now. I guessed right, then changed my mind and went left, and found out I'd been right the first time! I eventually worked out where the entrance to the train station was - but you had to show a ticket to get in - so the booking office wasn't inside! I found the booking office. There were 3 queues, and I chose one. I stood in line for 20 minutes, then in my best chinese asked for a ticket. I also produced the bit of paper Christine had written the name of her town on. So far, so good. Problem was - he wouldn't sell me a ticket. I worked out that I had to go 'over there' to get it. Over there was 'over there'. So, I went 'over there' which was outside, and saw a sign saying ticket office in english (OK, it said ticket buying, but I understood). I followed the signs, and came across another queue. I'm getting a bit wiser so, asked someone if I could buy a ticket for the 2nd Oct to Lu Cheng here. We, me, the bloke I approached, and the crowd we attracted, realised that this was the bus ticket queue, not the train ticket queue. OK, but where is the train ticket queue - oh, 'over there', thanks very much. 'Over there' was where I had just come from! After a few more chinese conversations and much arm waving of 'over there', I ended up back where I started - but 1 queue down! Ater 20 minutes or so, I got my ticket!! It cost nearly £2 and 3 hours, but I got it!

The week's excitement wasn't over, as I had a welcome meal out with my new colleugues last night. We went to a new restuarant in Shanghai called the King of Ducks. Guess what's on the menu? Yes, we had duck. We also had many other chinese specialities. In the photo above, I am tucking in to duck's tongue. Interesting!!!