All over red rover

Asia ~ China ~ Shanghai

Well, I’ve done it, it’s all over. 6 weeks of intensive study in Shanghai have finally been pulled off – not without the occasional hiccup – and I’m ready to move on…

Last week was the craziest it’s been in Shanghai, beginning with New Years eve. We started off at an all-you-can-eat steakhouse, which had the best steak I’ve ever eaten, ANYWHERE. And no, I’m not just saying that because I’m steak deprived, it really was that good. 76 kuai (about $12 AUD) for as much steak and vegies as you can fit – and the best part was, they bring the steak right to your table and carve it up for you. Delish. After dinner we roused ourselves from the table (not easy given the fact that we were delirious on meat) and went off to find a cab. Given this city has more cabs than it does people, you’d think this would be easy enough – not so on New Years Eve. Eventually we got one (involved our tall foreigners running up and down the main road, I think we scared the other Chinese into thinking we’d mug them if they didn’t let us have the taxi) and headed back to the hotel, to meet up with the other group.

And that’s where the troubles really began. Jumped into another taxi with a different group of ppls and off we went. Despite having a Mandarin speaker with us, we ended up at the wrong place. As my clock struck 11.20pm, and we hadn’t managed to find another taxi, I realised I was going to spend New Years on the corner of a crazy street in Shanghai, with an even crazier group of people, AND I couldn’t see and vodka in sight… That was enough to spur me into action and off I bounded to find another taxi. We got one – a dodgy one mind you, but we got there. Who cares if we pay a dodgy taxi driver $9 Australian instead of $5 – at least I got my vodka!

We walked into our venue for the night – a rave in a Chinese Art Gallery – at 11.50pm and I got my drink in time for the count down. Small miracles. The rest of our night was primarily spent at the rave, before heading off to another club and then a different bar. Arrived in my bed at 9.30am New Years day, not a bad effort.

Class Photo

Other than that, my week was crazy, studying like mad for the final exams on Thursday and Friday. Exams are now over, it’s kinda sad but I’m ready to move on. Last night (Friday night) was spent celebrating and packing, ready to move on. You wouldn’t believe how much rubbish I’ve accumulated over the past 7 weeks, it nearly all fits in my bag. Kinda. Other than the hour it took to pack my bag, I spent last night farewelling all and attempting not to drink – I have to catch a ferry to Japan in 3 hours. Despite the determination not to drink, I managed to not get any sleep, which has the same effect, so I’m desperately hoping for good weather on the trip, do not want to be sea sick!

Next blog will be from Japan, woohoo!

xoxo Bobs

Brrrrr

Asia ~ China ~ Shanghai

My fingers are soooooo cold. What’s making me even colder is the knowledge that we aren’t even really into winter yet – it’s going to get a lot colder! I don’t know the exact temperatures, but they have definetley plummeted in the last few days. I haven’t resorted to my thermals yet – but it’s only a matter of time. Discussions on where to go for dinner, when to leave for class, what to do on the weekend all center around one thing – what will be the warmest way to do it (I can foresee a lot of 2 minute noodles being eaten in our room!). For some reason, the heating in our classroom isn’t working so well anymore, and it was almost icy today. To top it off, my cold is progressively getting worse, so I’m madly sucking on cough lollies to try and get rid of it. I’ve run out of mouthwash (dad’s suggestion on how to get rid of the cold quickly), and have – as per dads suggestion – gone out and brought myself a bottle of cheap spirits to gurgle. I forgot that I had ‘experiences’ with baiju last time I was in Beijing – I nearly throw up every time I attempt to gargle it!

As per normal, we’re continually exploring the different food options. Today, we discovered that there is an upstairs part to our dining cafeteria – and it is so much better than where we’ve been eating. We have a sneaking suspicion that upstairs is only for the 3rd and 4th year students, and the teachers, but whenever anyone looks like they are about to approach us to tell us off, we just play dumb and keep eating. I have dumplings and fresh noodles for brekky – only cost 4.5 yuan (about 75 cents Australian). Tonight we are going to head out to our new favourite local restaurant – it has pics on the walls, so we just point at what we want – 3 yuan (50 cents) for a plate of dumplings. We’ve noticed a lot of the long term students that are staying at our hotel down in the lobby at about 7pm, waiting in their pyjamas. Turns out, most of the local restaurants will home deliver for free, and it’s just a matter of meeting the bike rider (‘delivery man’) at the door – now how do you say home deliver dumplings in Chinese?! Might just be the next thing I learn…

Strange apple juice that Kylie found at the supermarket, has black jelly 'pips' all the way through it, doesn't taste too bad

We spent last weekend getting to know a little of Shanghai… I had to get a visa extension, so we caught the metro to the right area, and I left everyone shopping, whilst I went off to find the visa place. I had asked my teacher where it was – and he wrote down the address and said to catch a taxi, it would be too hard to find. Stubborn as I am (and determined not to hand over the $2.50 for the taxi :)), I pulled out my map and walked. Took me 5 minutes, and it was sign posted all the way. I think Chinese teachers, just like their Australian counterparts, think that blondes can’t be trusted with maps… After a bit of shopping, our little group (Kylie, Paulina, Johnny and me) headed off to the Pearl Tower, where we spent the rest of the day. The Oriental Pearl TV Tower is a huge tower that can be seen all parts of the city (including from our bedroom window), provided the day is clear. From the top, you can see all of Shanghai and surroundings (once again, provided the day is clear, which is unusual). We managed to pick a fantastic day, and spent a great deal of time at the top, taking photos and just looking and looking and looking.

Oriental Pearl TV Tower

Classes are steadily getting harder, although I’m beginning to understand more. I’ve been feeling as though I’ve been picked on more by the teachers than anyone else – one of my classmates confirmed it yesterday. No idea why – there are heaps of people in my class the are basically fluent, but my name is easy to remember, and I’m sitting in easy view of the teachers. It means I have to always be paying attention, and am continually corrected, but at least I’m going to get the most out of this. It certainly is dispiriting when there are near-native speakers in the class (I’m only doing beginners Chinese, but some of the students have Chinese parents, and have been speaking Chinese in the home since they were kids), but everyone is struggling with writing the characters, so I guess it all evens out (I have some advantage in this area because of my Japanese studies).

Which reminds me – I have now successfully completed level 12 Japanese at Monash – woohoo! And with that note, I’m off…

xoxo Bobbi

Run little man, run!

Asia ~ China ~ Shanghai

The little green man in China doesn’t let people know they can cross the road safely – he suggests that they run as fast as they can to the other side – for that is all the traffic lights are over here – suggestions. The little green man not only runs – he also warns you just how many seconds you have left – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – and then a SLAM of oncoming traffic! Wrestling with the traffic is sometimes an adventure – in my limited Chinese I have made many friends – I attach myself to a local whenever attempting to cross the road, and once safely across, point at them and then me, and say ‘pengyou’ – friends.

Me and Mum munching on vegies

As usual, my trip has been centered around food – and what a feast we’ve been having! Dad and I have been making daily breakfast meetings, where we sample the different Chinese foods on offer – we’ve had dumplings for about 5 days in a row – YUM! The other night we went out to celebrate my birthday at M on the Bund, a well-to-do restaurant in modern Shanghai, where we dined on interesting, non-Chinese, menu. The drawing card of the restaurant was evidently the view, not the food or value. After our dinner, we all trotted off to the hostel that Tash and I stayed in last time, and had a drink from the roof top bar, fitted in a lot better!

View from the roof top bar

Of course we’ve been doing a lot of shopping as well, and my understanding of Chinese numbers is coming along in leaps and bounds, as are my bargaining abilities. Each day we have found a new souvenir to pack up and take home – my pack just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Best of all are the Chinese supermarkets – a new phenomenon over here. They not only contain all the different fresh fruits and groceries (including extremely fresh fish (i.e. live)), but also mini k-marts, with everything from bikes to dvds. School started yesterday, and it’s already a struggle. I’m rooming with a friend of Kylie’s, Ling, and we’re having a ball. We’ve been learning by trial and error all the different customs of the uni – from the smartcard food cards, through to where the supermarket actually is. And how to portray that to a taxi driver… Food on campus is good, average $1 AUD per meal, and there are also a couple of restaurants on campus, with more only a few minutes away. Weather has just turned cold, it’s gunna be a tough winter, thankfully we went out and brought scarfs, gloves and beanies yesterday. Classes are difficult, but should be rewarding.Kylie has now joined me and mum, dad and Chuck have just arrived back in Australia. It was a fun family holiday, but now it’s time to start living the life of a student backpacker – no more 5 star hotels 🙁

xoxo Bobbi

Dancing with Panda’s in Chengdu

Asia ~ China ~ Shanghai & Chengdu

So a 10 hour plane trip doesn’t seem that long when you compare it to some of the long hauls that we’ve done (namely Australia – USA), but man, any flight over 3 hours is a long flight! Before we even left Australia we had our first embarrassing experience- dad walked into the ladies toilets without realising. We quickly took off and pretending we didn’t know him – he got shoo-ed out soon after! We flew Qantas, so service was reasonably decent (although Chuck really didn’t like her vego food – chickpeas and cous cous, ugh! [says her hehe]), but the entertainment was top notch. They have a new entertainment system – movies on demand – so you can watch whatever you want, when you want it. Chuck got her fill of movies!

All things done and said, arrival into Shanghai was easy and quick. After filling out the health card (“do you have sniffles?” “no [sniffle sniffle]”, “do you have a fever” “no [ooh it’s hot in here]! we got through and out into the arrival hall. After picking up our bags, we ran the gauntlet to get through past arrivals – so many people! We we’re supposed to pick up our tickets for our flight – so we grabbed a phone card and attempted to ring the dude… and he spoke only Chinese! I knew that this trip would be a great way to practice my ‘barely-there’ Chinese, but I didn’t realise it would be this soon! Stumbled through the phone call, and we arranged a place to pick up the tickets – my Chinese worked!!!

Family waiting for taxi in Shanghai

First hotel was interesting – a typical Chinese hotel, complete with a fantastic little restaurant. Little to no English though, so it was interesting to see what we got to eat! Up early the next day for our flight to Chengdu, just made it to the airport on time (as usual, whoops!). Chengdu was awesome – we went on a tour to see the pandas first up. They were so incredibly cute – we got to wander around and see the babies, and then have out photos taken with the olympic panda…

Chuck & I with Panda in Chengdu

Train trip was sooooo long. But not unbearable. In usual O’Riley fashion, we stumbled onto the train, bags flying and feet tripping. Caught a taxi from our hostel to the station – just imagine the four of us, two large backpacks, 2 even larger suitcases, a small wheely suitcase and numerous handbags and bags of food all fitting in taxi – with a huge gastank in the boot! Taxi drivers at the station thought our driver was a legend for fitting us all in the car – I wasn’t so happy with a bag of coke wedged under my chin. Train trip was fun – the four of us in our little cabin, venturing out for dinner and lunch. Chuck went through 2 ipods, but the rest of us slept, read and slept for the 50 hours.

Dad shopping in Chengdu

Now we are living the life of luxury – I booked us into a 4 star hotel and man, is it class! Gold fittings and marble everywhere, Chuck and I have the executive room, on the nice nice nice floor, whilst mum and dad are on the ‘ordinary people’ level. Hehe. Now we’re all relaxing after a taxing day of shopping, enjoying the offerings of room service and cable tv – this is the life!

xoxo bobbi

shhdtm

Chinese language

All over red rover

Brrrrr

Run little man, run!

Dancing with Panda’s in Chengdu