別の外人

Wow. This Sunday will be the 3 month anniversary since I left the UK for a year... it's weird, the majority of the time it feels like it is going fairly slowly, but time is starting to pass much more quickly now as we've all become accustomed to China. Last week in particular flew by... Last Monday I was moaning about only having 2 kuai in my purse (20p) and this Monday I was moaning about only having 1 kuai (10p) in it. Some things, like my poorness after a weekend, will never change...

Today me, Abi, Adele, Jo and Nerys performed our dialogue thing in front of the class, and although there were one or two corrections made by the teacher (usually to do with pronunciation variations) generally it was ok. One group comprised of some of the Japanese women did an amazing one, a mock interview for becoming a zookeeper, and one of the interviewers was a panda xD The lady actually wore a panda hat, it was incredible and so Japanese.

In comparison to one of the other groups who adlibbed it as they blatantly hadn't prepared anything, we were amazing at Chinese haha. But then the teacher found that there were 3 people who weren't in a group, one of them was poor Vera who hadn't skived or anything, but actually had cleared not being in class the previous week on cause of being in Beijing. The teacher said that during our 20 min break, she could either prepare a dialogue with the other two guys (in the style of a job interview, like everyone else did) or they could dance/sing in front of the class. In the end everyone opted for dancing... fortunately (or unfortunately?) the speakers didn't play the music, and Vera told our teacher she was unable to dance without music, so she's got until Wednesday to prepare something with the other two.

I love afternoon classes :D Even though we only have an hour of proper sunlight after classes finish, it means I get to sleep more in the morning, which is definitely my priority :D Popped across towards the centre of Xujiahui, to Metro City, to the post office on Tianyaoqiao Lu which has an international parcel collection desk. Fun times, coz the woman from the post office in England had written 'small packet' on the top of the package to indicate the shipping classification presumably, but the people in China presumed it was my name. Hmm. Obviously. Had to explain that the reason my name on my passport and the name on the paper were 'bu yiyang' was coz my name is not small. Ridiculous China. Eventually got it though, with tinsel and last birthday card and other fun things :D While in town mooched into Watsons with Nerys and bought hand cream; I have never bought it before in my life so now feel positively middle-aged... and just wait til I read Private Eye tomorrow, the world shall implode haha.

This evening, went to Jing'an with Jo for food and youzi, my meal was interesting... it sounded much nicer than it actually was and I read all the characters and everything *pride* 红烧牛肉盖浇饭 but it tasted like a beef stew bizarrely haha. Had carrots in it and everything... Oh well you live and learn.

Class at 6am tomorrow >_<

...and now today is Sunday. 3 months in. Kind of can't believe it, still getting used to some things, still doing new things (like bus transport), but in another way I feel like I'm coping fine and can do whatever without stressing bout it all too much. Have figured out which foods are actually good (I tried another dish from the Uyghur restaurant, similar to the previous but the first two characters were different and vair complicated, it was gorgeous :D So having that again), have attempted cooking glutinous rice, worked just about ok, and have adapted to bus travel. Although that said, there was an utter bus fail this morning (at like 8.30am) in Xinzhuang, was trying to get to Minhang Stadium to watch the 2009 Shanghai Marathon as Connie and Jo were running in it, and the metro from Xujiahui to Xinzhuang was fine, but then got to the bus bit outside and there were loads of stops, no bus numbers on the signs, no numbers on the buses either, and... NO BUSES. *hums Arctic Monkeys*

Eventually one turned up, it was the one that said it was meant to go to Minhang Yundong Gongyuan but of course when I double-checked with the driver, nope it didn't go there at all, I wanted the 753. There was no 753. There were millions (ever-so-slight exaggeration there) of Chinese people milling about, running to any bus that dropped people off at the metro station, demanding to be let on, but the drivers didn't let anyone on and just parked the bus, sometimes with people on, and then wandered off. Great. I waited for over half an hour at the station for a bus, there wasn't even one bus since the first one, and there were about ten different queues. Unimpressed, I wandered out onto the street and flagged down a taxi, because by this point Jo has rung me saying she's just finished which was AGH annoying, the taxi driver knew exactly where to go, and took me as close as was possible what with the road being shut for the marathon. He seemed a bit confused though:
'Oh, we can't go any further... what's going on...'
Me: 'It's the Shanghai International Marathon today, some of my friends are doing it'
'But you're not?'
Me (thinking well obviously not, I'm not in shorts and lycra now am I): 'No, I'm going to watch... just let me out here'
Obviously there wasn't much information about it going around on the news, in fact according to Connie and Jo, the motorway that was shut for it had cars on it piled well back, despite the fact that it would be closed for a good 3/4 hours, and so everyone was reluctantly out of their car, waving and saying '加油' (jiayou), like the Japanese 'ganbaru'. Dodged some policemen, arrived onsite, where the girls eventually found me watching the men's marathon winners cross the line... they both did really well, with times of around 2 hours, really good for two months of training a few times a week :D

We then got an incredibly expensive taxi back to Jing'an via Panyu Lu, like 90kuai (£9) which when you're used to paying only £2, £3 at most, is a lot... shows how far away blooming Minhang is from everywhere. Dropped Connie off, I accompanied Jo back to Jing'an as she asked me to, not really that sure why though xD We then headed to Starbucks for coffee (or in my case, yummy hot chocolate) and chilled for a bit, before me and Jo headed off for Grand Gateway mall to try and find her a coat... like it did for me, C&A pulled it off again :D And it's really nice :D

I could have gone out last night, because Abi, Robbie and Nerys did, but if I had gone it would only have been to see Abi's outfit, which I heard consisted of hotpants, a waistcoat, high heels and a hat. I hope Nerys helped to fend all the men off her and her leggyness :P Instead got an early-ish night, once I got back from Jing'an by bus. Didn't do any work last night though, but since I have been working this week it should be fine. Also had a bizarre job interview, got my friend a job offer because she's more mature than me and I am not v suitable to teach middle-aged businessmen English...

Tonight will be a night of relaxation and sleep, as it's starting to get cold again. Currently sitting huddled in a hoodie on my bed, planning tea tonight (people be impressed with me please) which will probably be 蛋炒饭 (egg fried rice) accompanied by vegetables on a stick with nice spices on them :D Yay warming and healthy food. My water is all working again, no building works hopefully for a few weeks, even though there is someone with a gong a few floors down... I hope it is a gong not a man with a hammer. And then tomorrow is Jing'an Monday Studying yaaaay ^__^

Once more, well done Jo and Connie, very very proud of you both for your fantastic achievement :D xxx

Last two weeks have been weirdly busy, despite doing very little indeed, I do apologise. Well I have done something every day, but usually that something has turned out to be hanging out with Jo, eating youzi and watching British comedies. That little reminder of home is really helping :) Thinking about my daily routine, most days have been spent either in Jing'an with Jo or here with Jo, woo :D

Everyone is still struggling a little atm with missing home, especially with Christmas approaching, and lots of people are talking about going home for the week we get off for Christmas. On the other hand, my plans are to go to Beijing to stay with Rosie, Bonny and Egle and see Jess lots :D Which should be really fun if it works out. Can't wait to see Jess, I wish she had come to Shanghai, as it seems that she's a bit left out there in Beijing; her 'crowd' as she put it are spread all over East Asia but come February when Laura arrives and we go visit her, it'll be a bit more like the old crowd reunited :) Been looking at a lot of old photos as well recently, well I say old, as in pre-China photos. Watched the epic video of Becca with the pepper grinder haha as well as the amazing one of Laura dancing and stealing my phone... haha.

Currently got a picture of the White Horse at Cherhill (pronounced Cherrill) set as my background, love it :) It is such a gorgeous view, and brings back memories of my Dad with disastrous kites, my brother climbing the obelisk or threatening to run down the ridge at full speed across the White Horse. Ah memories... Also watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, loved how it was filmed in Lacock, was literally bouncing up and down on my bed in my excitement 'ahhhh me and Jess stood there... ahhhhh me and Laura went to the pub just down that road' :D Made up for the fact that loads of people met up in London WITHOUT ME which is most sad... looking at their pics on Facebook made me quite jealous.

So, events here in China... Connie and Jo are still in training for the half marathon which takes place on Sunday, good luck to them :D It's blooming nasty trying to train now, we've had some rather epic torrential rain and it has definitely gotten cold now. On the plus side I discovered (after spending a while with Jo's aircon before getting it to become 'warm') that mine also acts as a heater :D I have also now officially shut my curtains to keep in the heat. Have written a long itinerary (or in Westcountry itiner-rary) of my planned travels of the next few months. I need to book Cambodia flights THIS WEEK AGHHHHH

We went to Suzhou, it's about an hour away by train, it was pretty but empty. Actually properly empty... we went to the temple of mystery, and ordinarily I love temples, I love the sense of spirituality, of peace and tranquility, the same as I get in old churches in Britain to be fair, but yet in this one, there was nothing. It gave me quite a feeling of unease, as if something quite horrible had taken place. I know that the temple is all reconstructed in the design of the original temple that stood on that spot pre-Revolution but there should have been something left of the original in terms of atmosphere, but no, not one thing. The other thing is that I have decided that I really don't understand Taoism: Shintoism has bowing and clapping yes, but I don't know, it feels right? At Nikkou it felt how it should. But here people properly kowtow to these hundreds of statues, and I hope the reason it felt weird was just because it was all artificial. We also got horrifically lost somewhere in the vicinity of a main road and Suzhou University down a backstreet, and found some more fake pagoda things. Least we didn't get ripped off by rickshaw people... unlike some people mentioning no names Abi : It would have been nicer were it not RIDICULOUSLY cold, with epic amounts of rain, and were I not suffering from some horrific cramps. We had to walk from one side of the city to the other, which took about an hour and a half, in the cold windy rain. Fun times.

The builders are still faffing round but fingers crossed they are at last DONE, PROPERLY DONE HUZZAH. They came round at 6am this morning (which isn't even funny), rang the doorbell at 7am which made me distinctly unimpressed. It said on the board downstairs the water would be back on by 7.30pm, but I checked at 8pm and not only was there still no water, but also a massive space where the final pipe was supposed to be. Which even to my unmechanically minded brain didn't quite make sense... Went and rang the landlord, had a whinge at him, located some plumbers (called them 'shui gongzuo ren' haha) and had a whinge at them, result being... WATER FINALLY HALLELUJAH. I'm getting quite irritated by everything constantly being under repair. I swear the whole of China is under repair.

Some things give me hope though, such as a 25p corn on the cob, all hot from being freshly cooked in the skin, yum yum yum eating it while wrapped in a big coat, walking down a Shanghai street :D Getting on a bus and understanding when the stops are announced in Chinese. Going for food at a nice restaurant with my language exchange partner and her roommate, even if they did insist on ordering nasty tofu dish. Curling up in bed and sleeping for 12 hours, as I did on Friday night. Yay :D

Last night (Saturday 21st November) went to a flat party for a classmate's surprise birthday party, which was really nice as there were loads of our classmates there who are mostly Japanese and Korean, so it was necessary to speak for the most part in Chinese. I can feel myself very very very gradually improving (as my exam results also would seem to indicate, yay 62%, 60%, 80% :D) at speaking Chinese... who knows, maybe by the time I get back to the UK I might be able to hold down a proper conversation ahaha.

Have to do a group presentation tomorrow in class, well it's more a dialogue, our version of a job interview. It might go ok, who knows, but me and Nerys (and Abi before church) spent the day writing it and writing it out, so fingers crossed that our grammar is up to scratch. Have spent a lot of time also buying lots of random cute stuff while Jo bought the best thing I have literally EVER seen. Discovered the joy of Nutella hot chocolate too, purchased from a foreign supermarket in Jing'an metro station. Need to buy an advent candle and go to the post office tomorrow to collect a parcel, and also have to buy some last stuff to send to England as part of my 'Secret Santa' so watch out, Bath people :D Hopefully this impending cold will hold off long enough to let me do everything I need to do... also need to speak to Laura soon, has been too long. Miss you all xxx

Right, so this week was my first week at class.

Monday, ended up getting up early (again AGH I HATE THIS SO MUCH) for the medical, which was... let's just call it interesting and leave it at that. Well actually that's no fun xD

We arrived at the building at the godunearthly hour of 8AM SO NOT NATURAL and parked outside was a bus type thing. The first thing that came into my head was 'death bus' o_0 then we thought it might take us to the hospital, but no, apparently it WAS the hospital... which was odd. We had to show a random pamphlet (though I'd lost mine and talked my way past it), were given a number on a piece of paper, and had to queue. Then we were given a checklist to make sure we had our:
passport
visa
residence permit
passport photos x 3
student card

which of course we all did, and then in groups of 5 we had to move chairs and sit on chairs in a hallway, where they checked we had all the right shiz, and then we were moved in small groups into another room with tables and chairs (SO MUCH MOVEMENT) and given long and complicated forms to fill out (do you have TYPHOID?? WELL DO YOU?? What about the PLAGUE?? I felt so medieval... and wanted to sing Weird Al 'get medieval on your hiney' lalala). You'd be half way through the multiple page form, and then someone would finish and get to go and talk to someone about the form, so a seat would become free, and instead of getting new people to sit there, they'd make everyone move up a seat. CONSTANTLY. Eventually I went up to the desk, they took things off me, gave me more things, sent me to the next person... times by 5,and eventually you end up with a form the medical people have to fill in (apart from your temperature, height and weight which we're meant to know, and Jo guessed her weight and the guy CHANGED IT how harsh T_T)

Then we went to someone who took away our passports and residence permits, who then sent us to the SURPRISE BLOOD TEST woman which was not nice. She tied a piece of plastic cable round my arm, then quickly stuck the needle in and took blood (no idea how much, I wasn't looking, after I knew she had a clean needle I shut my eyes and repeated 'bu yao bu yao' over and over again). We then were given cotton wool and told to hold it on the site for 5 minutes, but yet we had to instantly move from one wooden chair to another. Then we sat on more corridor chairs, and then were sent to the medical van. We had to put on sterile blue plastic things over our shoes to keep the van sterile, but we put them on OUTSIDE and stood on the dirty ground in them before going in... First thing, bras off and time for chest x-ray. I had to take off my St Christopher pendant, first time I've done that since leaving, not doing it again. Was a bit weird, and then I went for an eye test and blood pressure test. I took a while to answer the eye test questions as I can't do left and right very well normally xD Finally was ultrasound (I saw my insides on a tv screen, was so bizarre) and an EEG which felt like being clamped to a table before torture. Then, we were free xD Went to go get food (pink wafers, yum...?) coz was feeling a bit faint as you're not allowed to eat beforehand, and then it was time for class.

Class. We were told this level would be perfect for us... how ridiculous. We 'learnt' as our grammar point,

'tai hao le' which means 'how good'. We did this at Christmas in Leeds... plus we spent an hour and a half (one period) on one lesson, and didn't even finish it, whereas with Ning Yi we did 2 lessons in an hour. We came out bored out of our minds as we even knew all the vocab. In the afternoon, Adele and Jo decided to go sit in on someone else's class to check out that level, but me, Abi and Nerys stayed and studied. That evening, we panicked and researched how to switch classes.

The next day, I was suffering a bit from some dodgy food from a street noodle seller near the university, and didn't go in. By the evening, was feeling a lot better so studied ready for class the next day. Jo went to the office to try and switch classes, and ended up being moved into the complete beginners class, aka the 'ni hao' class. This is ridiculous, as she's so good at Chinese.

Wednesday morning, we all got up early to go to the office and try to move class, we eventually got through to the guy that we needed the timetable for another class after the first period was over, so we decided to go and buy our new textbooks for the new class instead of launching into the harder class with speaking class, which is definitely our weak point. Then it was off to Kesongfang (Croissants de France) for cakes and naicha/other random drinks :)

On Thursday was our first day of class at the correct level... it was definitely the correct level. There are some lovely Japanese women in our class, our friend Snow from Guam is in the same level, and there's a cool guy called Igor. Which is an awesome name. However very quickly class gets boring because we move so much slower in China than we did in Leeds... sadly enough. Listening class was actually really hard as well as really boring, and we've been told we should buy the cassette tapes so we can do the work outside of class... come on, 20th century and all, why not CDs?? Still, we're learning new stuff now, so yay :)

Friday we only have class in the afternoon, which was nice, but we ended up having to get up at 8am because we had been told that in order to transfer to a higher level class, we'd have to sit another placement test, so all week we had been frantically revising for this exam. We arrived, and were told that in fact we didn't need to do a test at all. I think it was thanks to Jo, who mentioned the fact that the teacher from the lower level class said we should move and the teacher in the higher level class said we'd be fine in her class, and since we haven't really stood out as not being up to scratch, we're all officially now in Elementary 3, like pretty much everyone else from Leeds, bar I think 3 people. Yay ^_^ Class made us quite sleepy as we'd been up for a fair few hours already, and after class we went to the supermarket and then back to our respective homes to get ready for the night out :D

Night out was epic: first we went to the hotel and drank some beer there, then went to a student night bar thing which Connie had been given a flyer to previously, which was a 5/10 minute walk away from campus. It was pretty good, packed, but they had a 15RMB offer on on some drinks which was good. We got some seats, I saw some people I recognised from class, then I saw Connie talking to people who I thought were randomers, so thought 'I wanna talk to randomers too' and wandered on over to some random guys who turned out to be HORRIFICALLY posh, (prob didn't help that they went to Durham for BA and Masters) in Shanghai to 'rediscover themselves' (their words not mine) and in suits. I left quickly :P Ended up chatting in French for about an hour to this half French half Chinese guy, and kept trying to make Abi talk to him in French too, poor girl was not happy xD Nerys got to speak German to a Swiss German bloke, and then I think the bar was shutting as everyone went outside to a pavement and tried to get a taxi, we ended up, all 5 of us, fitting into one taxi, going a long way to this random bar someone had told us to go to, I think it was Sophie, and eventually came out of the taxi onto this fairly deserted street in the middle of nowhere. There was a bar, we went in, and lo and behold there were some of the people we knew.

Turns out the bar was in Jing'an (which is FAR from Xujiahui), but we got free drinks and the bartender was awesome, if very random. He was called Ian and he bust a rap for us (well several) which was bizarre. We then got another taxi and went to a club and danced for a bit, til some random Chinese guys came and started being pervy, at which point we left and ran up and down the taxi queues asking them if they'd take 5 girls in one (there must've been a police station near by as they all refused). In the end, me and Jennie got one together to my address and she walked back from there. A very cheap night :D Fell asleep after 4am... whoa.

Next day was woken up at 11am, all confused, by an AIR RAID SIREN. Seriously. Air raid sirens. Incredibly loud, the siren itself must have been nearby as it seemed to permeate everywhere. This was terrifying. It was apparently the first time since 1946 that there has been an air raid siren sounded anywhere in the world, but yet weirdly enough I still was able to recognise exactly what the sound was... And then I panicked. Didn't know whether to run to a metro station, stand in a doorway like you do for an earthquake, didn't know how to tell if it was a drill or a warning... so I looked out of the window. THERE WAS NOBODY ABOUT AND ALL THE CARS WERE DRIVING IN ONE DIRECTION. I then proved my geekiness by... checking on Google. Luckily 2 weeks ago in the Independent, they said that there would be a city-wide drill in Shanghai. It is apparently the first 'National Defence Awareness Day' and this drill will happen every year from now on... Just my luck that it was the first one when I was here. It's basically a macho show against Taiwan.

That afternoon, after I'd recovered a bit more, we went to People's Square to go shopping... I think I need to change my standards a bit, as I wanted to buy clothes but while looking around could only think of the Western-style stuff I wanted to buy. We ended up going and sitting in People's Park, drinking naicha and eating meat off a stick. We then saw lots of pieces of paper attached to hedges and walls with people reading them and other people standing by them, so we wandered over to one poster that was all by itself. They were lonely hearts adverts, well sort of... they were for parents to go along and look at, to find a partner for their child, introduce them, and hopefully get them married before they got too old. We were looking at this one sad poster, of this fairly unattractive 30 year old guy, when this old guy wandered up to us, and then we realised he was this guy's dad... and even worse, his son was standing nearby!!! We were terrified we'd end up with some sort of Chinese husband, so we hurriedly left, and ended up walking into this massive queue for Haagen-Daaz who were selling commemorative Moon Cake flavour icecream at an extortionate price. How random. We eventually left, went home for a nap then everyone came round mine for food from the street sellers near me, and then beer :) We also had some fun discussions about the previous night, including being told that we were singing crap songs in a taxi at 3am xD Mostly cheese, so we listened to a load of cheese til everyone went home at about 1am.

Sunday, today, I actually did nothing, which was wonderful. Was in bed til about 4pm, went out to get food, then came back. Some of the others came over for a bit (and food) but that was it. I really think I needed a day of just nothing, as I've been busy every day since leaving England on the 28th August. And now I feel much more well-rested. Tomorrow I don't have class til the afternoon, so I'll get lots of sleep tonight too. We've made vague plans for next weekend, we'll see if that ends up happening :)

And a quote... "Oh, he's Kazakhstani? Is his name actually Borat?" - oops *blush*

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 :)

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