別の外人

Well, what a busy two days these have been. I arrived in Shanghai early on Sunday morning, got off the ferry at 11am and was ferried away to the customs check and all that malarkey. Our bags got scanned, then we went through immigration (queues fairly small and straight-forward, I was convinced the guy would say something considering my embarkation card said I was here for study although my visa said tourist) and then passport check... Even the British guy who was travelling with me on the ferry and whose visa was no longer valid since he accidentally went through security in China while flying to Japan got through safely, thanks to the Chinese guy called Joe who acted as interpreter. We then waited in this lobby area for the bags to come off the ferry, then you had to show your luggage card to a lady to be allowed into the area, find your bag, and then go back to the lady who checked the numbers were the same. My bag was fine :D Then we walked up, had our luggage scanned again, and then after that, walked up a slope and we were finally in China :D

The temperature difference wasn't such a shock, as I had been out on the top deck of the ferry at about 9.30am, and felt the heat and humidity. At the top, was a guy in a smart suit, holding a piece of paper saying 'JW Marriott, Miss Georgie' on it xD which I found highly amusing. The guy took my bag, wheeled it through the dusty, broken street to the big car, where I found some water and a phone so I could call John to confirm I had arrived. The car then whisked me away for half an hour to the hotel, and driving through was surreal:
a) For the first time, it really hit me I was actually properly in a foreign country, not just in a place where people didn't speak English
b) Chinese drivers are NUTS: srsly, they just drive wherever the hell they like, and if there should so happen to be an unfortunate pedestrian crossing, well it's their life...
c) Pedestrian crossings apparently mean nothing. People wander across the road whether or not it's on green, taxis and cars go whether it's on red or green...
d) The meaning of poverty has altered in my mind now, after seeing rickshaw drivers, and guys on tiny bikes with masses of rubbish that they can get a few mao (10 mao = 1 yuan, 10 yuan = £1)
e) SO MUCH SMOG
f) Pavements in a state of collapse
g) People in pyjamas and slippers in the backstreets
h) Spitting
i) People just doing whatever they like, like cooking on the ground/road/roof/roof of a car or playing with a baby in the middle of the road

So... yeah.

Then I arrived, and I'm in the Chinese equivalent of Oxford Circus. I'm on the 34th floor, in my own executive apartment (oh yeahhhh) with a view over the city. I can see the tallest building in Shanghai and its cool changing rainbow lights when it's nighttime :D

Stayed here for about 2 hours, then went to the pub with John, Claire and their two kids. We went to a German pub and met up with a load of other expats... by Chinese standards the food was very expensive actually, and they didn't really speak/use any Chinese... but meh I can't complain, each to their own.

Then I was allowed to take the driver (they have two, I had the non-English speaking one) who took me to the airport to meet the others when they arrived. I waited at the arrivals gate in Terminal 2 (bit fun trying to tell the driver I wanted Terminal 2, he was dead set on going into 1 xD though I realised I can NEVER hire staff, I don't like telling people what to do if it's just something I want them to do, like drive or clean etc) and met Abi, Adele and Nerys :D Was lovely to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar city. We then had to find Connie, but none of us remembered which flight she was on, so me and Adele went searching, found out she was in Terminal 1, did the massive 15 min walk to the other terminal, found out her flight was delayed and would arrive in an hour, so walked all the way back to Abi and Nerys, who then came with us, and they sat at the Meeting Point while me and Adele went to the arrival gate of this terminal... no Connie. She had wandered off somewhere, but luckily bumped into us xD

Abi and Nerys went on the Maglev (magnetic levitation, goes up to 350mph) train back into the centre of Shanghai, while me Connie and Adele went back to Terminal 2 to where my driver was parked and they came back to my room to have a look. They got a taxi back, and I slept on stationary ground, with a PILLOW. It was amazing.

The next day, woke up at like 7.30am, got changed, faffed around a bit before braving the metro for the first time to get to Xujiahui. Found out it was 5 stops on Line 1, takes about 20 minutes, and luckily I found the correct exit (there are like 14) in Xujiahui to end up on Huashan Lu. Walked along it, southbound at first, before realising I was meant to go northbound, and carried on, trying to find the university. Fortunately, I spotted Jo waiting near Ke Song Fang (Croissants de France), who was waiting for Jennie, while I was meant to be meeting Adele and Connie at the Huashan Lu gate. Jo took me there, and then the 7 of us all went to register together.

It was a bit of a nightmare, registering actually, since I had none of the right paperwork, since it was all out of date, so I didn't even have a letter of acceptance and everyone got confused as my student number is a 2010 number. Ended up running up and down 4 flights of stairs inbetween getting photo taken for student cards and doing the placement test, I'm in the Primary Intensive class which means we are going to learn 800 characters this semester and move into Intermediate :D Still a lot of problems, but eventually it worked after I found Ning Yi (my Chinese teacher)'s mate Gu laoshi :) Still not completely convinced that everything is ok, but meh we'll see :)

We went for lunch at a little restaurant near campus, pretty good food, bit overpriced but still good, and then we wandered around, trying to buy a phone and stuff (we all have Chinese phone numbers now :D) before heading back to mine. When back in People's Square, we walked up some side streets for food, before finding a street seller who made us egg fried rice for 50p, not bad :P tasty too, though I think there was a lot of MSG xD

Eventually slept at about 11pm last night, once everyone had gone. Will post about Tuesday and Wednesday on Wednesday :D xxx

Adapted from an email sent to Tori:

So, the boat... well, getting to it was the first problem xD After I stopped talking to Tori on msn while in the youth hostel on Thursday evening, I ended up staying up til 2am writing the backlog of blog entries, oops :P The French guys were still lurking around, giving me booze from some of the stash they had (Japanese beer isn't great but meh I wasn't complaining, plus one can is hardly gonna do any harm), which helped me to stay awake til it was all written. Went to bed, the hostel was nice, my room was basically empty except for one Taiwanese girl, only problem was that the lights in each bed didn't seem to work, and I could hardly turn on the main overhead light and wake her up, so I ended up fumbling around in the dark to make sure I had everything ready for the next day, packing my bag and so forth. Woke up on Friday at like 7am which was nastyyyyyyyyy but loads of people were already up faffing about, and I figured if I got up early enough then the communal showers would be empty (and they were THANK GOD you know I don't like communalness and baring my NEKKID self to strangers isn't my idea of fun EUGH NOOOOO) even though they're as weird as all hell. Managed to swipe some rice from the counter which was my breakfast... so much rice... I miss potatoes. And CHEESE. AND MILK. Three portions of rice a day... not so fun.

Left the hostel at like 8.30, braved a Japanese commuter train (well actually three) with my 10kg backpack, 4kg handbag and 30kg holdall, which was interesting to say the least. I kept getting stared at, it's so weird, coz Osaka is like Manchester in size and international-ness, but yet from the way I was stared at you'd think it was bloody Biddestone haha. There was a massive gap between one of the trains and the platform, and all these commuters just pushed past me Sad times. Eventually I got to Bentencho, which is a station on the Osaka loop-line (I had to go from Shin-Osaka to Osaka, Osaka to Bentencho and Bentencho to Cosmo Square) and I discovered that
a) THERE WERE NO ESCALATORS OR LIFTS: IT WAS TOTAL HELLLLLLLLL
b) the subway platforms were somewhere completely different, not in the same station, and of course there were no signs telling me where to go, so I had to ask the station manager in Japanese, who looked puzzled (coz it was actually /that/ far, but of course the maps don't give any such indication) before giving me vague directions of 'cross the road, go straight for a bit then turn left'

I wandered along, discovered the only way to cross this busy city road was via an overpass, again with what do you know but NO FRIGGING LIFT AAAAAGH so I dragged the suitcase up about 30 steps, so much pain, then down the other side (there were about 8 exits, thank god I ended up picking the correct one in the end xD), got to the other side, wandered on down left and there was still no indication on a subway being anywhere nearby, so I ended up asking more random Japanese people where it was. Eventually found it, wandered on through, found a weird ticket machine; I needed a ticket for 240 yen, but I only had a 1000 note with me, and I couldn't see any option indicating that you didn't need exact change... Eventually some woman came past and I did the old 'TASUKETE' (help meeeeeeeeee) on her, and it worked, thank God xD Found the platform... and what do you know but there was only a 30 STEP FLIGHT OF STAIRS

I got half way up, and physically couldn't go further, fortunately some kind Japanese guy saw me struggling and helped me lift it up the remaining steps. He looked very shocked when I told him how heavy it was... I think he was also proud he could carry that much weight xD Subway itself was fine, packed with commuters fun fun, got to the terminus station and tried to find this bus stop with a free shuttle bus to the ferry... except there were 4 exits, obv just north, south, east and west. Ridiculous. I chose East, came out and saw a bus stop, except it said chocolate something on it (in my mind's eye I pictured a Japanese chocolate factory xD), and so got very confused... that was until an English looking guy (who later turned out to be from Nottingham) came wandering up behind me with a massive backpack on. Then out of nowhere some very excitable Chinese guy ran up to us at top speed and told us to wait while he brought the bus. The bus turned out to be like a Faresaver minibus, with like 5 steps to get onto the bus with xD Bad times... but the bus guy excitably again grabbed my bag and hoisted it onto the bus before I could say anything.

Got onto the bus, arrived at the port, which was a bit shit to be honest, it made me think that I'd be travelling to Shanghai on just some old fishing tug, gave the suitcase to them to put in the hold, and went through security. Despite the customs problem in Japan, I reported it in Japanese to the customs guy, and thank GOD he ripped the paper out of my passport. I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee...

The ferry itself is really cool, pretty big, three decks, it's more like a boat than a ferry. I am staying in a Japanese style tatami mat room with 6 others... that might not sound great, but it's a fairly big room which is built to hold 16 people so you know Actually the entire passenger contingent of the ferry is very under-booked, I reckon they must make a large amount of their money through freight transportation. There are probably about 50 passengers and there are supposed to be 350... so yeah, very empty. It's nice though

First day and night, pottered around, ate various meals in the restaurant, chatted to the English guy I met who is going round the world for a year and has just started, and to two Australian girls who are travelling for 4 months round Asia. In my room there is also a Japanese/Chinese joint national lady and her 3 year old daughter (cute but annoying when she keeps running over your bed, as we're only sleeping on thin futon mattresses on the floor), a Japanese lady who just wanted to see how far it was to China (good a reason as any xD) and a French girl who's travelling with her boyfriend for a year and a half, after having worked 2 jobs for 3 years to save up enough money. The room itself is like... well, have you seen Spirited Away recently? The room where Chihiro/Sen sleeps is very similar to this.

Second day and night, this is when it got interesting. I am now writing this on Sunday morning my time, and I am now 7 hours ahead of you. At breakfast, chatted to the first English guy and the Australian girls, we looked over my guidebook to Shanghai. Lunch, got chatting to another British guy who's from Kent, and an Australian guy from Perth. We ended up all going up onto the top deck to watch the sunrise and drink beer (I'm having to force myself to drink beer, as they don't really have much else, and what they do have is either baijiu which tastes like a mix of liquorice and nail polish remover, or really really expensive wine) together The French girl and her boyfriend joined us, and for a while an elderly French couple also joined us, who are cycling round the world for 2 years. We ended up having a massive 'gaijin' (foreigner) gathering out on deck, with every non-Chinese/Japanese person joining us there. We then all counted our remaining yen, which only had to cover one more meal, and I had the equivalent of 9 quid left, and a 500ml can of beer was £1.30 in the vending machine...

Went and had seared beef with rice for tea which was tasty, then went back up on deck with more beer. We all got through a can or two, chatting about random things like Australians always saying 'eyyyy' or serial killers in Tasmania, before someone decided we should go liven up the karaoke going on in the posh bar downstairs. It was pretty much empty, with about 5 Chinese guys there singing Chinese love songs... until the Australian guy decided to sing 'Golddigger' followed by 'Sexual Healing' and it went downhill from there. During the Marvin Gaye song, some Chinese couples came in and danced... so bizarre xD We then all sang 'Livin on a Prayer', well the Australian guy, Andy, screamed it. Hilarious xD As the last song, we did 'Let it Be' as the Chinese guys seemed to know some of the lyrics, and we were all swaying together xD There was one very creepy Chinese guy though, who wore a red t-shirt and kept videoing us and trying to get really close to us, aghhhh. Karaoke shut, we were kicked out, and we all went back up out on the top deck to continue with the drinking.

We all pooled together our last few yen and wiped the vending machine completely out of beer, ended up taking off our slippers so the soles of our feet got stained green, and had Andy teach us 'Soulja Boy' under the light of the full moon xD

It got to about 1am, and we all decided to call it a night except for one British guy and the Aussie, so I went to bed and fell asleep so quickly.

Right now it is 8am Chinese time, 9am Japanese time (I have just put back the clock) and we're bout 3 hours away from arriving, so I have started to pack up everything. I was originally so nervous about this boat, but now I'm so glad I did it xD On board, there is no time pressure, you have as long as you want to do whatever you want, so it's quite surreal when you can think 'Hmm, shall I go put some socks on? Meh, I've got 2 hours to decide...' and if we had more yen, all the British and the Aussies agreed that we'd have stayed for a few more days in the No Man's Land of the Sea of Japan.

~At the time of posting I am in Shanghai, will post that tomorrow :)

OMG THE BOAT IS SO EPIC

A LONG TIME WILL BE SPENT ON THIS BOAT

IT WILL FEEL EVEN LONGER AS IT'S A BOAT

I'M ON A BOAT

I'M ON A BOAT

TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK... ok I'm done

THE BOAT IS SO EPIC. THIS IS THE ROOM WHERE I WILL ok enough capitals be with 15 other random women. If I survive the journey, I will be proud and have gone on a frigging multinational BOAT. Wahay.

(Best bit is, before I even get on the ferry, have to get from Utsunomiya to Osaka, get metro to where I'm staying the night and then get metro to port)

On another note, today I booked a youth hostel in Shin-Osaka, booked the ferry (waiting for confirmation) and ordered an external hard drive to back up all my shiz on. Got a night in a ryokan to book yet, hopefully tomorrow :)

Buttttt once I arrive, I get this for a few days :)

The sexy hotel

... I've stopped spazzing out for now. Yay ^_^

Since last posting, I found out I managed to fail my re-sit, and so I am instead going to Shanghai for the year. I am staying in the JW Marriott for a few days immediately upon arrival. However, the arrangements have all been epically complicated:

a) my old JW202 form is no longer valid, so I have to get a new one when I get there
b) I've changed to single honours
c) I had to find somewhere to live, as the university has run out of accommodation
d) My visa is currently only valid for 90 days
e) I need to stay in Japan for a week - currently going to Nagoya and Utsunomiya
f) I need to get from Osaka to Shanghai
g) I have £2000 of RMB to take with me, whoa.

Point f) has been the most complicated, since I found a very good price flight, but the company only allows you to pay with a Chinese bank card, and I can't open an account til I get there. I want my residence permit, but I have to register with the police first, scary stuff.

Butttttt it seems to be getting sorted out:
a) I have got somewhere to live, hopefully.
b) I have a visa
c) I have money (but no credit card, idiots still haven't replied)
d) I have booked a place on the ferry from Osaka to Shanghai, heh
e) I have a holdall for my luggage
f) I have bought loads of underwear. Yay ^_^

So, with under 2 weeks to go, just gotta figure out what I still need to do:
Buy bras (have one new one :P but need more)
Buy deodorant/Marmite/Calpol/Strepsils
Figure out what Dubai ban
Figure out costs of Japanese trains
Buy hand luggage bag
Get more yen to pay for ferry.

Hopefully, that's it :D