別の外人

Right, so sorry for serious lack of updating... it's been an entire week, I'm frankly appalled with myself, although I understand why I haven't, everything has been so epically busy.

Last time I wrote, it was just coming up to the weekend. We ended up trying to go out, but as we didn't know where was good to go to, we ended up wandering for miles and miles (about 5/6 in total) looking in vain for a bar. Nothing special, just a bar... we eventually found a jazz bar, but drinks were about £7 so we were not impressed. We walked back to People's Square (this was Friday night), I wandered through the underground bit to get to my exit and went back to the hotel. I love that hotel, it's so gorgeous :D If only I could afford to live there permanently... well I say that but I do actually want to live proper Shanghai life, not just 'rich businessman/expat' life.

On Saturday, ended up having to wake up early (which was unpleasant since we were out late the night before) as I needed to catch John before he went away for a few days. Spoke to him and Claire, gave the kids their presents (Lara loved her doll, and Liam apparently liked his toy, but he didn't open it while I was there as he was sleeping) and then went to the apartment block to meet the landlord. I arrived there, and the landlord was not there... I was like WHAT as he said he'd be there at 1.30. I ended up getting lost trying to even find the block, as I'd only been there once before, and then when I found it I had to negotiate my way past about a million building sites and piles of rubbish/construction detritus. Got there, he wasn't there, and it was 1.33pm. Very unimpressed, I rang him:

Me: Where are you?
Him: I came, you weren't here so I left.
Me: But I'm 3 minutes late, why didn't you ring?
Him: You weren't here.
Me: How could you leave the building in 3 minutes?? It takes 5 minutes to leave it.
Him: Come back at 4pm.

... I didn't really have much choice in the matter. Connie and Nerys and everyone were going to the Carrefour, and I really wanted to go, but I had to now wait around for another 2 hours. I faffed around on this road, getting to know it all a bit better, went to the hotel where Adele was for an hour or so, played Phoenix Wright (now COMPLETED OH YEAH AS BECCA WOULD SAY 'I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN') which was ace, and then went back to the flat for 4pm. At 3.50pm, got a phone call:

Him: Where are you?
Me: I can see the apartment building.
Him: You need to be here now.
Me: Why? I said I'll be there for 4 to sign my contract.
Him: Oh, you're not doing that today, come back tomorrow for contract... today there is a man coming to change the locks, you need to be there. He's outside now.
Me: I'll be there in one minute...

... Got there, the locksmith only spoke Chinese and needed the keys to the flat... WHICH I DON'T HAVE. AGH. He seemed surprised I didn't have them, but as I was meant to collect the keys from the landlord today, it was a bit confusing and annoying. Passed my phone to the key guy... who also was a shit locksmith as locksmiths are meant to be able to open locks if you've lost the key. This guy was scared bout breaking the lock but we were meant to get a NEW LOCK. Made no sense... my new flatmates apparently came along later in the evening and gave the keys to the crappy locksmith.

That evening, went along to the hotel on campus for a bit, before going back to the hotel for my final night there... so sad, but I was only registered with the police to live there until Monday anyway, so only miss out on one night. Packed, and went to bed at about 1am.

The next day, got up at 8am, brought my massive suitcase (only half full though) to the metro station, slid it under the ticket turnstile, dragged it onto the metro, up stairs the other side, then wheeled it along for the 20 minutes until I got to the flat. When I arrived, my flatmates were there who gave me the keys to the flat, and I started to doss around until the landlord arrived at about 10am. I went through the contract with a fine toothcomb, made sure he had filled in all the specifics himself before I signed it (even though he told me to sign it first, I was NOT having that), specified my terms, negotiated the price, reminded him of what I still needed, and after all that, gave him the money and received a receipt for my payment. I now have an apartment :D

It's pretty nice, my mattress is rather hard (though it's softening up now after having friends come over all week), bathroom isn't very clean and I didn't have my sofa chair when I moved in (though I have it now), but otherwise it's good. Went to the hotel again, the others came round and helped me pick up my stuff to take it to my new flat. After that, me and my flatmates had to go locate a police station as you only have 24 hours to register with the police after arrival (although they had illegally been here for a week), and we tried so many places...
Place A: Really small, full of smoke, 3 people inside who all wittered at me in Shanghainese, said I couldn't register here, wrote an address down in very messy writing.
Place B: We couldn't read the address, so we tried the police station on campus, but we weren't allowed to register there.
Place C: Was near Shanghai stadium and we got a taxi from campus to this one, it cost 22 kuai which means it was about 4/5 miles away. We were on the right road, but this police station wasn't right.
Place D: Other end of the road, was the correct place :D Though just getting the residence permit was hard...

When we arrived, we got constantly redirected from room to room, it can't be that hard surely, every single foreigner has to do this ffs!! Eventually arrived, told they were shut for lunch so we sat down and waited... then this random woman entered, told us in Chinese that the other woman was the Chief of Police of this section and that we needed to go with her. We needed to have a photocopy of our passport, a photocopy of our visa, our temporary residence form from a previous hotel, our passport, our visa, a form from SJTU, a copy of the contract we signed, a copy of the landlord's contract, a copy of the landlord's residence permit and a copy of the landowner's ID. So much stuff... I ended up making friends with the Chief's 7 year old daughter who was fascinated by the fact I was Western, had never met anyone Western before, and liked my Chinese name. I gave her an old train ticket I found in my purse, which was from Bath Spa to Chippenham, so she ran off to show her mum, who came back in, said a few words to me in Chinese and then decided not to charge my flatmates the fine of 500RMB (£50) a day for every day that registration was overdue. They were pleased about this! At the end of all that, got my passport and this document with a stamp on it back, and I couldn't even keep it, as I had to hand it in the following day at my medical in order to try and obtain my year long residence permit and try and extend my visa.

After that, went to Shanghai Indoor Stadium metro station by metro to meet Jennie, as we both needed to go to IKEA. I bought some pillows, a duvet cover, a lamp, but I still need to go and buy a bin, another pillow and some lightbulbs... Yes I forgot to buy lightbulbs. I'm special... I thought there were lightbulbs in it but no of course not. That night, went to bed about midnight in my new flat, as I had to wake up early the next day to be on campus for 8am to go for our medical.

My first week of class will be in the next update :)

Again, sorry for the delay in posting, have fallen behind a bit with the last few days of hecticness... gah really actually can't wait to start class and get a bit more time (maybe) :P Though that said, I know that as soon as we start, I'll get tired and run out of time and agh yeah.

On Tuesday, we decided to all go to Jing'an, where Jo lives, to go look around, see her flat and just generally explore a new area. We met up for breakfast of dumplings (I think a pattern is starting to emerge now) and then went to try and get a mobile phone or a sim card etc from the large market we have in Xujiahui, called Metro City, but there were so many really crowded floors, full of fake merchandise (and overpriced at that) that we ended up going next door to the Best Buy, where we all came away with a phone and sim card for about £30/40 :) Pretty good really... I mean yeah we could have got it cheaper in a market, but I don't think any of us wanted to run the risk of ending up with a fake, crappily made one which would fall apart within a few days. After that, we reemerged from the massive building, and went to find a bus stop.

Now, none of us knew this (except Jo and Connie most probably), but Chinese buses have no rhyme nor reason. There are 1000 different bus lines in Shanghai, but no central record, and no way of knowing where each bus goes from a certain stop, and no way of knowing which stop has which buses unless you find the stop you want. We wanted bus 830, but we couldn't find a stop this bus stopped at anywhere. Plus you don't put your hand out to summon them, they just stop and you run to it, jump on and drop 2 kuai into the box. We ended up getting on a random one that some guys said went to Jing'An, and we made it safely :D We walked along some small streets, some street seller streets, and some busy roads, before going up to Jo's apartment. Inside it's gorgeous, outside it's very Chinese, and the lift is a bit scary, but meh mine will be like that :P She seemed so at home there, and I can't wait to move in my place now, and finally unpack my suitcase :D

We got lunch in Jing'an, from some random street-side cafe, for about 50p, which wasn't half bad. In the evening, went out for Jennie's birthday, which kinda failed... we went to a nice restaurant on a street near me, and then walked all the way along Nanjing Xi Lu towards the Bund, walked down the Bund, and saw very few bars (and the ones we saw were like £5 a glass of wine). We know there are 100yuan all you can drink offers out there, we just haven't found them yet... We saw many touts and this one beggar girl with a mother. I think she had no legs or something, Connie and Abby thought she was just standing in a hole xD We ended up walking about 5 miles, doing the veryyyy long way round back from the Bund, but ended back up in People's Square which was good. Adele, with her blisters, was especially pleased we made it back before the Metro shut.

On Wednesday, after I went to see my new flat (have changed from the previous one as the girls dropped out and it would have been all boys) which is on Guangyuan Lu, still pretty nice with a double bed etc, we went to Qipulu, a massive 'fake' market area, and when I say massive, I mean massive... all the streets around this massive store complex with lots of complex narrow corridors selling everything for an alright price, better once you've haggled them down, were selling loads of random stuff. The entire area was buzzing with life, people shouting for customers, dodgy looking guys siding up to you to offer you 'DVD, watch'... unnerving. When we all met up at the metro, Jo was already outside waiting for us, accompanied by a Chinese lady. We all presumed Jo knew her, and so chatted along to her in Chinese... turns out the woman had randomly started talking to Jo, and we're almost definite she was trying to sell us her cheap Maybelline-ripoff makeup, Mary Kay. We were a bit nervous she was gonna try and charge us for being a guide, as she did lead us to the general area we needed to go to, though we haggled the prices ourselves (Roxy flipflops for £1.70, cute parasol for £1.40). Once we got into the large market, me and Connie managed to get rid of the lady, but very politely of course, and we wandered through the narrow corridors of stalls. There were 5 massive floors... so intense.

Every time we stopped at a shop, the owner sitting at the door would jump up immediately and presume you wanted to buy it. The expression 'women keyi yidianr kan kan ma?' proved very useful. We got an entourage of sonme sleazy looking man who wanted to sell us his shit watches, and some woman who kept trying to lead us to her stall. We mostly ignored them, because we didn't want them to become our guides, but if they got too forceful, we did do the whole 'bu yao' thing, though these people just ignored it. Eventually we lost them, and came away poorer, but with clothes (me and Abby managed to haggle this one skirt she really liked down from 95yuan (expensiveeee) to 50, basically half price :D SO impressed, as she offered us 65 as her last offer, we went to walk away, and so got it for 50.

Walking down the street, people needed the loo... turned out it was a communal squat trench, or as Nerys called it, a 'canal'. The door was propped open... I didn't even venture in xD We then tried to find a Western shop with western style toilets, saw a KFC and that also turned to be a squat, but in its own cubicle. We then caught the metro back (though while walking through the station, we came across some shops that sold these demonic-eyed barking dogs... SO FREAKY).

When we returned, we dumped out stuff in people's hotel rooms, then ventured on out to find the supermarket. I have a supermarket fairly near my flat, yay :D Not that I'll be buying much from there, but some things were great value... 29p for the large size bottle of beer, anyone?? :D Fish so fresh that it was still alive, interesting fruit and veg...
...and all I ended up buying was a bar of 'Dove' (like Galaxy) and some washing liquid. What an exciting life I lead xD Went back to the hotel, washed my clothes from the flight, Japan, ferry and China, and felt very proud.

Thursday, we arranged to meet outside Shanghai Tiyuguanzhan (Shanghai Stadium Station) at 1pm, so I was fully intending on getting a proper lie-in... but for some mental reason I woke up at 8.30am. Pain :( We went first to a roadside seller for some xiaolongbao, and then to IKEA, bought some cheap nice things, and I bought a duvet for my new flat :) Jennie has now got a flat sorted, with my landlord actually I think, which is great :) We then explored campus a bit, went to locate the swimming pool, which was fairly abandoned with lovely green water (it's only open June til August), sorted out Abby and Nerys' internet and tried to sort out their keycard problem, before me and Jo went home. Stopped off on the way to pick up some mantou, yum yum, then ended up walking all the way from Huaihai Xi Lu down Panyu Lu before getting onto Guangyuan Lu (my road) and then Huashan Lu for the metro and bus stops. Jo went off to try and find a bus stop for her bus, and I came back to the hotel and chilled. Tomorrow is the entrance ceremony, and I think we get our student cards, yay :)

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

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 ^_^