Weather Forecast for the Next Few Days

I found this wee thingy to let you know what my weather in Shanghai for the next few days. Looks like it's going to be good for my trip out to the country! I did get a phonecall this morning to say - bring a jumper, the air conditioning on the train is way toooooo cold!

Number of Visitors

Mesothelioma

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!!!

Chinese class is over

So, today was my last day of intensive Chinese. For the last almost 4 weeks I have been spending every morning and afternoon learning Chinese (well, except weekends, and except my holiday to Beijing, and except the days I spent hunting for somewhere to live, or visiting the Chinese immigration office). In total I managed 84 hours of Chinese. My level is still very basic, but I've certainly made progress - anything is better than nothing!!

This morning one of my teachers, Christine, took me on a field trip. Firstly, I had to bargain with a shop owner over the price of cushions. I managed to get the price from 15 Yuan to 12 Yuan. As I bought 2, Christine said I should have got the price down to 10 Yuan each. I thought £1.60 for a pair of silk cushions was OK! I don't feel ripped off.

Next step on the field trip was a clothes shop - groan. It was fine though 'cos there was a big white cat to play with (I've been watching this cat for the last few weeks and he spends most of his time with his nose pressed up against the cage containing two white finches!!). Anyway, we just worked on my colours and sizes, didn't buy anything.

Final stop was lunch. We went to a Sichuan place. We had already discussed that I like my food là (spicy), and Sichuan food is well-known for being spicy. The restaurant was a bit different – you picked up a plastic basket and went to the vegetables, which were all on bamboo skewers. I got to take the vegetables I could say in Chinese, plus a few others I’d never tried – bamboo shoots in China are different from bamboo shoots in Scotland. I now understand how pandas can live on bamboo shoots. They are about 5 inches long and at least 3 inches in diameter. They seem very fibrous, and pretty tasteless to be honest! Then on to the meat; the meat is also on skewers, and kept in a fridge. I managed to say beef, but there wasn’t and, so I had to settle for pork. I didn’t fancy eating the chicken or the fish. It was a bit too ‘local’ for that. So after all that, we then paid – 40p, and waited for it to be cooked. Christine did ask me if I liked pig’s blood………I said no, but I was left a bit intrigued. You could help yourself to the condiments – salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, chili and chopped-up raw garlic. When mine arrived, I decided that unadorned was fine, even although I’d managed the words. It was very tasty, and hot – both temperature and spicy. I enjoyed it, even although my face went all red!

Well, need to stop there, I’ve just been invited out for a few beers by a couple of my colleagues – rude not to go!!

Rhona in Shanghai - the first few weeks

Well, here I am in Shanghai. The first few weeks have passed in a bit of a blur, helped along by learning Chinese all day every day.

I arrived in Shanghai 3 weeks ago - 3 weeks ago already! The biggest impact at first was that it is the complete opposite of Davydovo. I look out of my hotel window and all I can see is skyscrapers! Not quite the silver birch forest of rural Russia. Also, there must be well over 100 places to eat within 5 minutes walk - from Brazilian BBQ to Indian curry, as well as chinese, of course! Shanghai is buzzing; there are people, traffic (mainly taxis, bikes and mopeds) and noise everywhere.

So, my first visitor has come and gone. Sheila arrived a couple of weeks ago, and left this morning. I really enjoyed having her here, and she seemed to have a good time. She left me a list of places to visit when I have time.... We managed to make it up to Beijing for a 4 day weekend (see my picture at the Great Wall). We saw lots, but were a bit foot-weary. It was hot, hot, hot too, which didn't help the stamina. We managed to see loads though!!