Settling in

Thankfully yesterday was a lot better than the day before. We headed into Nanchang to secure a bed for Penny in a nice new air-conditioned Buick people mover. Very nice, very comfortable and very cool. We headed to a store called Metro, which turned out to be awesome. It was a store that had everything including food and better still it had western food and meat. Lamb, Veal, beef…it was awesome we bought some towels and kitchen utensils however the beds were a bit crappy so we headed home to put Penny to bed and I headed out into Nanchang with director Chen and the driver to hit some furniture markets. After a couple of hours we ended up with the perfect little bed for the girl and headed home.

This trip gave me an insight into why Chinese beds are so hard. Each time that Michelle and I have visited China we have wondered how the Chinese can sleep on such rock hard beds and have complained about them to all and sundry…well mostly to each other. Anyway you get the picture right…beds, hard. One shop I was in had a cross section of a mattress, like the types that you see in bed shops in Australia that show the inner springs etc. The Chinese version basically looked like a big Weetbix. It was a compressed natural fibre that looked like coconut husk, dog hair and dirt. I’m sure they aren’t though, although perhaps they are made from the compressed leavings from the floor of a breakfast cereal factory. Whatever they are comfortable they aint.

It’s Saturday today and we managed to get a car to head out to some thousand-year-old villages about an hour away. We headed off early after a good night’s sleep and drove through the hazy countryside. As the morning wore on the haze lessened a little and we arrived by around 9:15 or so. The villages are made up of 3 small groups of old buildings each clustered around a maze of thin alleyways. We headed off up one alley with a few Chinese tagging along behind goo-ing at Penny. One old man latched onto us and turned into a real pest leading us around and even at one point carrying Penny up some stairs (which made her burst into tears). At first it was interesting and he showed us into some museum type dwellings. They are 2 storey buildings with elaborate wooden framework banisters and screens with each dwelling centred on a central atrium or courtyard.



Creepy old guy in the background ------ karma, karma, karma creepy old dude.



The annoying guy just got more and more annoying and after we saw a 1700-year-old tree near the first village and he started to crack onto Michelle’s mum we decided it was time to leave. So back we came to Nanchang. A pox on annoying lecherous old Chinese men who make a nice wander through some lovely old laneways into a anxious experience. Oh well I’ll fire some appropriate karma his way----- by the way, those little lines are bad karma ;p

The drive

29th August 8 am

Well it’s the morning after the night before and what a night it was. We arrived in Nanchang at around 8:45 pm to find a crush of people pushing out of the station. We managed to negotiate our way out and into the arrivals hall where our lift was to be waiting for us. Well was supposed to be waiting for us. There was no one there to meet us at all. So after a quick scout around we made our way up to street level. This sounds simple but was made more difficult by the fact that there were three flights of stairs each about 15 or so steps up from the station to the Qian Square. Again no biggie apart from the fact that we each had 2 bags to carry. So after some sweating and straining up the stairs we reached the top to be assailed by touts asking if we wanted to “da che” or get a car somewhere. Now we were (or I was anyway) hoping that the van from JUFE (Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics) would be waiting but alas again no one was there to rescue us.

Eventually we gave in and took up one energetic old mans offer to da che. We walked off a ways and piled into his dodgy old VW Santana 2000 and headed off with its clean cut young driver into the night. Now Michelle and I lived in Nanchang for about 8 months in 2002-03 so we knew how to get to the campus in a general way, and knew what it would look like once we arrived. So we felt confident as we set off. No one there to meet us…well we can look after ourselves so we will bring the mountain to Mohammed.

This is when the problems started to arise. When you da che you are not getting in a taxi, you are in a private vehicle that is essentially acting like a taxi without having to pay to be registered. This might sound dodgy but we used them a lot last time and had no dramas. We headed through the familiar streets of downtown Nanchang, Bayi Square, the Monument to the Martyrs of the Revolution, and all the neon and glitz of backwoods China. We headed over Bayi da Qiao or August First Bridge (look up August first, Chinese communist history on Google and you will see why everything in Nanchang is called ba yi or August first) and into the Northern suburbs still familiar territory. After a short stretch we disappeared off my internal map.

Now the da che driver, not being a real taxi driver wasn’t sure of the exact location of JUFE and we had lost our way so we pulled over to ask. Some friendly locals pointed us off in one direction so we set off. This kept going for sometime, and we bounced from pillar to post looking for the Uni. Meanwhile it is getting later and later (around 11 pm) and Penny is awake and completely exhausted. We started to get a little worried when passers by told us that there were 3 universities called JUFE in the area??? So one by one we visited them and after finding two we told the driver (a patient but frustrated young fellow) to head back to Nanchang and find us a good hotel. He thought this was a bad idea and suggested that since we had come so far we should check the last JUFE on the list. So again we pulled over and asked a passer by. This one gave very detailed directions and we headed off again. We made a couple of turns and then things started to look familiar and out of the gloom and dust arose the gates of the real JUFE (and a more welcoming sight would be hard to come up with).

We drove in through them and around to the gatehouse of the foreign teachers accommodation. We eventually woke up Liu ayi (one of the caretakers) and she let us in. Once the gate was closed again and we were in the compound she let the driver have it. I think it was to the tune of “ of course you got lost! You’re not a real taxi driver so you don’t know where you are going. You are just trying to rip people off. Blah, blah, blah-ditty blah.” She then asked me where we had told the driver to take us, so I said the name of the University and she started again. “They knew and told you the right place and you got lost you idiot….and on and on.” We felt sorry for him because he had been good and helped us a lot. We tried to give him more money but to his credit he declined and eventually drove off into the night. So we are here and safe and we still have all of our baggage and limbs…not too bad really.

We eventually got Penny to bed and joined her at about 1am for a pretty average nights sleep. We awoke around 6 am with a desperate need to secure a bed for Penny.

Yuyuan- Serenity now

27th of August about 2:10 pm

I just got back from buying our train tickets to Nanchang for tomorrow… a bit of a change of plan, but its all good. We had initially planned to get a train that left Shanghai at 6:30 pm arriving at 6:30 am. However upon asking the lady at the ticket booth on the bottom floor of the hotel (another reason we chose this hotel) I was told “mei you” basically sorry none left. So I bailed out and headed back upstairs out of the heat and blaring white noise of the middle of the road advertising jingles coming out of the department store at my back and regrouped. Upon return I managed to secure 4 soft sleeper seats on the Shanghai – Nanchang train leaving at 10:00 am arriving at 8:30 pm. This sucks a little because it means that we will have to wake Penny up at 8:30 and get out to the campus so we can get her back to sleep in a strange place again…Oh well not much choice in the matter really.

This morning we had an epic walk to YuYuan, which is an old Ming Dynasty garden in Shanghai. It provided Michelle’s Mum Alice a chance to see some real Chinese streets rather than the neon glitz of Nanjing road. We walked along a dirty little street with a throng of people that just flowed out of the Shanghai metro. It was lined with breakfast stall packed with all the usual Chinese eats for the early commute. There were steamed bread (mantou), steamed pork buns (bao zi) of many various types, fried pastry sticks (you tiao), omelettes, spring onion pancakes, and pot stickers. I was happy as I had a chance to buy some breakfast on the run and had some xiang rou bao (pork and chive steam buns) and we all had some spring onion pancake (this is actually more like a chewy flat bread sprinkled with sesame seeds). It was a long hot walk but the garden was a lovely peaceful oasis in the dusty chaos of Shanghai. No touts trying to sell you “DVD, handbag, watch, T-shirt really cheap for you” on every corner. The garden is basically a series of elegant Pavilions, big shady courtyards, and pools full of fat golden carp. I have included some photos for your viewing pleasure.





So tomorrow morning should find us heading out to Nanchang. Queue the swelling communist music: The return of the courageous teachers to the heroic city.

Shanghai day one…it begins!

Michelle and her Mum have headed out into the retail madness of Nanjing road in the hopes of nabbing some bargains while I do the midday Penny sleep shift. It’s a nice break and I am happy to sit in the air-conditioned comfort and write up some entries for the blog. Yesterday was hell (as already mentioned) and just dragged and dragged as only a long haul flight can. Everything went well and there weren’t any real problems… it just sucked basically. Penny was great on the planes and in the taxis and has been a little angel the whole time. Not one tantrum or crack-up the whole time. Which is pretty amazing as us adults had some anxious moments due to lack of sleep.

OK so yesterday we started at the Kingsford Smith Hotel in Brisbane and headed out to our domestic connection to Sydney departing at 5.55 am. The alarm was set for 3:45 and the taxi booked for 4:30. All went well and we arrived at the domestic terminal with about an hour before departure. However we had to stand in a queue back almost to the entry doors of people checking luggage through to international flights. So time passed and we edged closer and closer to the front until there was just one more person in between us and the desk. That was when they called our flight to Sydney and asked all people yet to check in to move to a different counter. There was a mad rush and basically a QANTAS guy came and ushered from the front of the queue we had stood in for the better part of an hour and lead us to the back of a line of people that had just arrived a couple of minutes before…needless to say there was much raving and gnashing of teeth. We ended up being among the last few to board the plane. The flight itself was uneventful…thankfully and Penny was pretty nonplussed about the whole thing.

The flight to China however was just long, long, long, and boring. It was an eleven-hour flight straight from Sydney to Shanghai and with a 2 year old to entertain it was a slow moving hell. Penny, to her credit did really well and managed a little sleep which in turn loosened the screws on us and allowed a little down time. Anyway enough about the boring god-awful flight that really wasn’t that bad already. We went out into the streets this morning and headed down Nanjing Road to the Bund so that we could gawk with the rest of the tourists at the architectural obscenities of Pudong. It is a strange sight made all the more strange by having the austere British formality of the Bund at your back. Sort of like looking out of the window of a Rolls at some glammed up kids parading down the other side of the street. It is always worth a look.

The Chinese are ga-ga over Penny. Even in Shanghai they want their photos taken with her. We had lunch at a restaurant just off Nanjing road and the staff all had to get their mobile phones and cameras out to take Penny’s picture. She, as you can imagine, was unimpressed but put up with it fairly well. There were a few lip trembles but no tears. By the end of the meal she was running around and laughing at the waitress. Kids eh?

By the way, the food was great…sticky Shanghai short ribs, braised da baicai (like wombok, or white cabbage), double cooked eggplant and some omelette and tomato for Penny. Magic…ah its good to be back in China!

The view from our hotel overlooking Nanjing Rd East

A shot of the girls from the Bund across to Pudong

The long haul

August the 25th about 10pm

Sorry about the delays everyone…well we are officially in China and thank God. What a day dredged from the bowels of hell! We hit the road at 3:45 am in Brisbane this morning and we have just got settled in 7th Heaven Hotel on Nanjing Road and it is about 10.00 pm (which adds up to midnight in Australia). So it’s been a 20-hour marathon of travel with a taxi a domestic flight, a shuttle bus, an international flight, and another taxi. We just needed to jump on a boat and a train and we would have had the lot covered.

Poor little Penny had reached the end of her tether by the time we checked in and the waterworks set-in. She had been a Trojan all day and had even managed a couple of hours sleep on the plane. The flight seemed to last forever and was exacerbated by the little plane on the flight path which was barely inching along on the map, obviously something to do with the whole watched kettle and all that. So anyway, here we are and as I type this Queen’s “We are the Champions” is blaring out on the neon explosion of Nanjing road…nice sentiment I feel. Anyway I am going to hit the sack before I cry.

The holding pattern

Its Sunday the 17th and I have been in Toowoomba now for just over a week. Its still cold with the top temp reaching around 15 or so, with the wind factored in probably about 11 or so. We are in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. Our flight out on the 25th is so close so we are just kind of grinding through the days until it arrives. The long days in 'the cold hell,' as Michelle has described it, have been punctuated by visits from friends and family.

Today Ben, Sally and Sunday met us in Queen's Park which was great and highly enjoyed by all involved. Most importantly by Penny and Sunday. We also had brunch with Michelle's Dad and Lynne on Saturday so our weekends have been full at least. These little encounters add some warmth to the wait.

We have found ourselves watching the Olympics which is something of a first for Michelle and I. I guess its because we get tantalising glimpses of China which seems to be hovering just out of our reach at the moment.

It was my birthday on the 14th which we celebrated with some quite decadent chocolate cake...delicious. Michelle and I headed out the night of the 13th and had a steak at Fibber McGees here in Toowoomba. The steak was good but the main memory of the night was the cold. We only had to walk a couple of hundred metres to the car but it was so cold we almost found ourselves running. Of course that will all change when we hit Shanghai next Monday.

Current forecast for Shanghai is showers and a minimum of 29 max of 33.
Toowoomba on the other hand is clear with a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 15.

Toowoomba in all it's splendour...

Well here we all are in Toowoomba...and yes its cold!!! Brrrr! I finished up at MBF on Friday (shout out to all of you still chained to the desk) and jumped a Greyhound up the range to Toowoomba. I left at about 4pm and arrived into the cold night at around 6.30 ish. It was great to see the girls and Penny was happy to see me, thankfully. She has been all mum, mum, mum of late so I didn't know what to expect.

I caught up with my parents and Sue and Ally (my two sisters) as well as my cousins and Uncle Bob and Aunt Leanne. We stood around in the cold expanse of Queens Park and chatted as the wind whipped by. I would guess that the maximum before the wind chill factor was about 12. By the way, excellent playground for little tackers. I can gauge these things now...

We have limited access to the net while here so the blogs may be a little sparse until we head off on the 25 th.

Meanwhile in China...

The days roll on towards the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympiad and the news is full of stories on China. I thought that I would list a couple of the headlines from the last few days-

"Athletes assured of Safety after China attack" - ABC news Australia
"Bush says its important to engage China" - Washington Post USA
"08 Olympics : How Nigerians can stay out of Trouble in China" - This Day Online Nigeria
"Terrorists in China kill 16 police officers on morning jog" - Voice of America USA
"Air Pollution still troubles China ahead of Olympics" - BBC News UK
"China's quake region delighted to see Olympic torch?" - CTV Website Associated Press

Some interesting topics there most of them cover fairly obvious ground although I'm not too sure about the one involving the Nigerians....

A big weekend

Last week at work...bring it! I had a pretty action packed weekend. Michelle and Penny headed off to Toowoomba on Saturday morning and Mark and Mel arrived back from Thailand in the afternoon. All of this took place through the mild haze of a hang over as I had partaken of some drinks with a few work folks...thanks to all who attended...on Friday night.

We had an early start on Saturday morning with Penny waking at around 6.30 am (much to my head throbbing delight). We then spent most of the morning packing up and arranging everything for the trip to Toowoomba. Boxes of toys and towels and clothes and food and ...well, lots of stuff. We carted it all out to the cars (cold hangover sweat and all) and stuffed it all in with a minimum of repacking. It was sad to see my two girls driving off into the distance, and the knowledge that I wouldn't see either of them for a week made it all the more depressing. Oh well, what are you gonna do eh? Thankfully they are now safely settled at Michelle's Mums in Toowoomba and doing well. I'm counting the days till I see them next.

Mark and Mel arrived back at around 1.30pm looking tired and tanned. It was good to see them and hear about their holiday in the sun and I'm sure that they were happy to be home. Hopefully the place was looking OK I don't think that Penny trashed anything... except maybe Charlie's confidence. A quiet afternoon eschewed with a lot of cable TV and a couple of beers to take the edge off . There was some drama when Mel sliced part of her finger off while getting dinner ready. She did a pretty good job of it even managing to cut through part of the nail bed...ouch! Mark was on the case and had it washed and bandaged. Meanwhile the piece of nail nestled amongst the sliced celery on the cutting board. There was a fair bit of blood but not the kind of cut that could be stitched. So it was bandage and ride it out. Poor Mel. Dinner was lovely even though the nail didn't make it into the stock.

I got up after a sleep in, well a small sleep in but 7 am is pretty good in my opinion, and felt that I should do something with the day. So I set out to stock up on some foodstuffs for lunch. I didn't want to be in Mark and Mel's hair all day but as everyone was at Splendour in the Grass at Byron I found myself at a loose end and basically ended up in Mark and Mels hair for the day...such good hosts.