Wow! We can't believe that it has been almost a month since our last update, and that is because this is the first time we have had a bit of a chance to stop to reminisce!
Very briefly, after our TESOL courses were completed, we were in what is called a "Golden Week" in China, where basically everything stops. The Chinese National Day, October 1st (Anniversary of the Founding of Modern China) coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival where everyone leaves for a week to travel to visit family and celebrate by eating moon cakes (pastries filled with various things). We could not contact many employers, or anyone for that matter for the whole first week of October as most schools were closed. We took some time to relax, but mostly to try to track down employers.
After the end of the Golden Week, we received multiple responses and tried to decide where to relocate to. We had thought about a Language Center in Shenyang, but it was quite remote and cold in Northeast China. We decided not to go, for that and some other reasons as well; a major miscommunication led us to Zhuhai airport where we were told that we had only a flight pre-booked to Shanghai and no further! Not wanting to be stranded in a huge city of 20 million people without further arrangements, we opted not to fly. It turns out that poor communication (not uncommon) was responsible for the lack of information that would have had us transferring to another airline and then on to Shenyang. But, with no way of knowing this, and no one available to address this huge concern, we had no choice but to not go. It may have been a blessing in disguise as we had several more days to compare places. We opted by the end of the next week to fly to a language school in Hangzhou, about 75 miles SW of Shanghai. It is here that we have been for almost 2 weeks!
Before we left, we had some very light travel around Zhuhai. We went to see the Fisher Girl and Haibin Park again, but this time walked up a very steep hill/mountain where we could see almost all of Zhuhai, and way out to the Sea towards Hong Kong. It was beautiful, and we'll post pictures soon. We also saw many other interesting things, like a wedding in the park, and Hello Kitty themed everything (much to Marie's delight)....
So, again, we have been in Hangzhou, where we flew from Zhuhai directly to almost two weeks ago. As soon as we arrived, we were taken to our apartment. The apartment and the school are in Xiaoshan, an area that used to be a different city from Hangzhou, but was incorporated in to it about 6 years ago, and is growing rapidly. Hangzhou is at the mouth of Hangzhou Bay, a water body that juts pretty far inland South of Shanghai. The major downtown is about 30 minutes by taxi away from here. It is based around a huge lake called, aptly enough, West Lake. It was dredged and beautified over 400 years ago, and is a major tourist attraction. There are a couple Starbucks in that area (also much to Marie's delight) as well as a Dairy Queen, a Papa John's and a Subway! We have not had much time to explore the West Lake area, but will do so soon.
As far as our apartment, it is pretty spacious (3 bedrooms) but oddly furnished. It is on the fifth floor (6 up from the ground) with no elevator. The six flights will definitely be enough motivation for us never to buy too much or be able to get too fat! We are about 10 minutes walk from the school. In order to get there, we have to fight all sorts of foot traffic from ridiculous drivers that pay no attention to crosswalks, to scooter motorists and bike taxis that hog the sidewalks. There are around 6.5 million people in this area (Zhuhai had only 2 million!) so it is obviously much more crowded.
At the school, we immediately started teaching the next morning after arrival. There are classes with kids as young as 3-4, Kindergarten classes, Elementary and Middle School students, as well as adults! We have gotten trial by fire which has made settling in and getting all the necessary ducks in a row quite challenging. In fact, we are still working on many things which is why we have not had a chance to write as we've been trying to get settled. Right now, we are teaching 5 days a week, with the weekends the busiest days. Monday and Tuesday, we both have off for now. We will have the usual Chinese "Golden Weeks" off - the Mid-Autumn Festival just past (first week of October), Chinese New Year (January or Feb. - depending on the Lunar calendar) and the Spring Festival (first week of May). We also will have off two days for Xmas, and one for New Year. There are several peak times where we will bump up to six day weeks, but no more than the max number of teaching hours per week (unless OT is desired). So, it will be busy, but we will try to adjust. As well, we will again have more pix soon, and hope to get a better camera in the not too distant future for both pix and vids of the area and our travels.
In the meantime, our apartment is next to a very nice park with several pagoda type buildings. It backs up to a canal and river walk. There are a ton of overpriced Western stores with faux-designer items. The square where all the stores are is affectionately referred to in Chinese as "Stupid Rich Tourist Shopping Plaza". We will not be buying many things there. Though, the weather is getting in to the 50's here now (much colder than the South in Zhuhai) so warmer clothes will be necessary. When we flew here, even though we had relieved ourselves of enough things to be able to drop an entire suitcase, we still had to pay quite a bit for overage for our luggage. China Southern Airlines' domestic carriage allowance is quite small. In fact, we are lucky that we even caught our flight. It left 15 minutes early; apparently, this is not uncommon.
We are trying to find good places to eat, and our favorite so far is a small place with a few tables owned by a Chinese Muslim family. It appears to be much cleaner than most places, with no pork served. They have all the raw goods to choose from - meats, veggies, tofu, spices and noodles. One simply puts what they want in a basket, and they cook it in a huge pot up front. A huge pot of soup/dinner costs the equivalent of about USD $1.50. Next door, there is a place called Jack Hut that serves very good smoothies, shakes and Chinese Bubble Tea, as the restaurant is BYOB. Many places in China are, as there are no rules against drinking anywhere, or smoking anywhere! Again, we are trying to figure out the neighborhood.
One very good thing is that, even though this is a much larger city, there are places of refuge outside of the West Lake area. There are little areas for public exercise in the parks that we try to use that have Chinese-style Nordic Track sort of machines. Also, there are as usual many people in the park in the early morning doing Tai Chi. To do this at some point would be nice, as well as taking Chinese lessons. We are still looking in to this through the school.
Again, though, we are still trying to catch up on sleep and get over colds. There is no real insulation in most buildings, so it is pretty cold even with the heat. As well, there is constant noise starting as early as before 6 AM! There are construction noises, street vendors shouting their sales pitches, people loudly running around greeting each other, music from exercising, and even fireworks going off at all hours. As could be expected since they were invented here, Chinese fireworks are ubiquitous. But, not only does everyone have and use fireworks (real huge and impressive professional style fireworks - firecrackers as they call them) but they are set off for all occasions. So, births, weddings, promotions, reunions, birthdays, anniversaries, everything! Since there are millions of people here, there are almost always fireworks, and they are very large, bright and LOUD! Sometimes, it is hard to hear during class because of this. It would seem that their constant use would diminish their meaning and importance, but this does not seem to occur to anyone but us. Though, just like Eastern toilets, and the general lack of much hygiene/manners it is something to get used to....
What we find here is that we are stared at much more than in Zhuhai. Even though this area is much bigger, we are in a section of the city where there are not many non-Asians. So, we definitely stick out. Not only that, but we are trying to get used to things that shock us. There are, all over, what were politely once referred to as Houses of Ill Repute. Not only are these not hidden, but apparently tolerated and possibly encouraged. We can not say for sure, but things are indeed very different on many levels. Even the fact that there are no traffic lights at some huge intersections, with constant beeping from everyone and no real rules of traffic being followed seems not so strange in comparison.
We now have intermittent access to email/Net use. But, this will change in the near future. In the meantime, we will update when we can and add more pix. For now, we'll add a couple that we took before leaving Zhuhai, and again will add the mountain views soon.
Until we update again, please take care and be in touch!
-Jon and Marie
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