The return

Together again.

Well I'm back. I arrived at Brisbane airport at 4:35 pm on the 2nd of July, about 29 hours after getting into the car outside the apartment at JUFE in Nanchang. I was supposed to be landing in Brisbane at 12:35 however a swine flu related delay in Shanghai of two hours meant that I missed my original connection and had to wait in Sydney for three hours for an available seat. Anyway it was all worth it when I landed and saw Michelle and Penny waiting for me at Brisbane.


Getting ready to ride the rockin' chicken.

So we are all together again and staying with Michelle's mother Alice in Toowoomba while we get organised. The cold here has been a shock after the heat and humidity in Nanchang. There were storms and heavy rain the day before I left and it seems that they continued after I left. In fact Pingxiang, the town I visited with Jorvik was flooded - http://english.sina.com/china/p/2009/0702/252842.html - (scroll down to the pictures of Pingxiang). He is OK though, the magnificent Zhou family mansion is of course on a hill, so they were safe from the flood waters.


Penny loving Queen's Park in Toowoomba.

We have started the whole Centrelink shuffle and I have been to the Toowoomba office 3 times in the last 2 days...yay! Hopefully payments will be forthcoming and we will be able to head back to Brisbane and jobs and a house before the baby arrives...

Sorry about the lack of pictures in the last few posts, I will add them once we are up and running on our PC again (told you so).

Last night in China

Well tomorrow is go day and I am ready. The bags are packed the last parcels mailed and the apartment is an empty shell again. It's been a strange couple of days actually. People have been saying goodbye and dropping by to go through our stuff. I managed to sell most of the big stuff and we have been mailing boxes over the last couple of months so the place really is empty tonight. I took some photos of the place to demonstrate just how spartan it is but forgot that I have already packed the card reader in the bottom of my bag. Doh! Now I love packing as much as the next person but repacking bites! So this post will be picture-less until I get home and upload.


The bag, room to spare.

I had my last trip into Nanchang today to pick up a Qi Pao (Chinese traditional dress, you know the slinky ones, yeah those ones) for Michelle and feared that I might not make it back alive. As I set off the sky opened up and pelted big thunderstorm sized drops that had the gutters swimming in moments. Luckily I got a cab right outside the gate and we set off. Its an extra long journey at the moment as the closest and most convienient bridge, Ba Yi (August First) bridge is closed. So we have to take another bridge to the Northern suburbs and then make our way through the city to the South where I needed to get the Qi Pao. All the while the storm raged and the sheets of water across the roads deepened. Actually I am constantly amazed at the lack of drainage on the roads here, although with their history of damming rivers perhaps the roads are sources of cheap hydro power? Anyway I made it there and back in one piece and managed to get the Qi Pao too.


This tornado, water spout thing was seen in the sky just days before I left...perhaps an omen?? Definitely weird!!

So tomorrow I head off to the airport (thankfully not through the city) at 11:30 for my flight to Shanghai at 1:30. Then it's off to Pudong International Airport for the flight to Sydney at 7:35 pm. Then I'll come up smiling on Thursday!!

Wish me luck and I'll see you all soon.

The last few weeks

Jorvik eating pigs liver noodles (breakfast on Saturday) which are better than they sound.

It has been a fairly busy couple of weeks...at times. At other times it has been quite monotonous and boring. I had exams to mark for the last written exam which was held last Wednesday. All of the classes in first year (about 600 students) sat their writing exam and all of their papers were then marked by us. Apparently we had to mark them in the same way as the Chinese teachers do. This means that each teacher has a section of the exam to mark exclusively. This sucks because some of the teachers had multiple choice, black and white type sections and others (read- me) had paragraph type sections with multiple criteria to mark. Actually the whole exam was a sham in my opinion and easily the worst exam I have ever encountered as a teacher or a student, but this is not the place to go into that.

After I submitted my papers I went on a little trip to a nearby town called Pingxiang. It is about 2 hours to the Southwest of Nanchang by fast train. I went there with a guy that has been a great help to us over the course of the year. His name is Zhou Wei and his English name is Jorvik. He has helped us with Tao Bao and any number of other little problems that pop up here. So I went to his home town and met his family and some friends. It is a nice place, smaller, quieter, cleaner and basically just nicer than Nanchang.

The outside of Jorvik's house...

...and the inside.

Jorvik and his family.

An old temple which is now a museum.

The square in the center of town.

It is near the border of Hunan province and the food of the region reflects that style more so than the salty, oily, crappy food in Nanchang. In a word the food was "good." It was a short trip, we arrived at about 7pm Friday and returned by midday Sunday. during this time I was treated to many special Pingxiang "treats" as Jorvik called them. I was also lucky enough to stay at Jorvik's home...or mansion I should call it. A huge three storey house in a secure gated community on top of a hill in the North of the city. The chandelier in the lounge room was the size of a car. His parents were perfect hosts (in the Chinese fashion) and ensured that I was comfortable and well fed. Jorvik was my guide and showed me around town, temples, markets, the old sections and the new. All in all it was a good, although really hot day in Pingxiang.

A Pingxiang treat, Gui Lin Gao which is a kind of tea flavoured jelly served with honey. My favourite!!

Pictures from the last few days together in China

 

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Back online

Well things have changed a lot around here. Michelle and Penny are safely back in Australia and I have just finished my first week alone in our little house. I haven't been able to post any blogs because of the Chinese government has blocked all of the blogging sites for the last month or so. Apparently it is supposed to stop people getting the word out about any possible June 4th, 20 years since Tiananmen type gatherings. The government here is so reactionary and paranoid...oh well seems to work for them. I'm not sure that it actually had any effect anyway. The students here have been so indoctrinated into the Chinese government's version of reality that few even know what happened in Beijing in 1989. So the sites are still blocked and I am blogging through a proxy which doesn't seem to let me add any pictures.

Anyway back to the present. It's hot and lonely here. Michelle, Penny and I headed off last Saturday, flying into Hong Qiao in Shanghai and then taxi-ing to Pudong where Michelle and Penny were to board their flight. We arrived early and sat in an Italian restaurant and had dinner. Penny seemed fairly oblivious to it all but Michelle was dreading the flight, and I was dreading the thought of being so far away from my girls. Eventually we bid a teary farewell and Michelle and the little traveller walked through the gates into immigration. I waited outside the gates for a little while (just in case) and then headed downstairs and jumped in a cab. I took a hard sleeper back to Nanchang overnight so that I could make it back in time to teach some catch up classes on Sunday. It was a hell ride actually. As per usual there was a snorer on the second bunk. He may actually have been a world class snorer and I would'nt be surprised if he snored for China at the last Olympics. It was like someone sawing really old dry wood...all night.

Thankfully it has been a busy week so I have managed to pass the time quickly. I have all of Michelle's classes and my own to teach so my days have been full. Next week is the last week of teaching and then it's time to get everything together and get ready to go home...bring it on!

Back in the holding pattern

Not much to report from here at the moment. We are doing the same old same old really. Work, mark papers, make lesson plans, sleep and start again the next day. Penny and Michelle are coming back early so we are trying to get everything organised for that. They will come back on the 30th of May leaving me to finish everything here before returning on the 5th of July. Our travel insurance only covers pregnancy related claims to 26 weeks so we thought it best to make sure that Michelle was home by that time. It will leave me with two weeks of double classes and then some more exams to mark before coming home. It should be Ok as by then most of the classes will be exams or review classes for the end of semester.


We have been mailing a box a week home and are up to box four. It is amazing the amount of crap that you can accumulate in a relatively short time. especially when you have more disposable income than you are used to...We are trying to get some 'China' type household decorations for our new digs (where ever they may be). Last time around we bought them from various markets and shops on our travels around China; Beijing, Lijiang, Chengdu, Xian etc. This time its pretty much been Nanchang, Nanchang and Nanchang, (and a brief sanity restoring sojourn in Hong Kong) so we are using the wonderful taobao to accumulate our Bobo (Bohemian Bourgeois) stylings.


May day is coming up which means a long weekend this weekend which is nice. We have Friday off this week which rocks as I usually teach 3 classes on Fridays. Sweet.

The holding pattern continues and soon Michelle and Penny will be back home in the comfortable and familiar surrounds of the wonderful land of Oz.

On a different note, although one that is close to my heart, the weather here has been as variable as usual. We had a few scorchering hot dry days, some more rain and now we are back down to about 22 degrees. Lets hope that it doesn't drop any further as the winter woolies were in the first box that was sent back home!

Good news and more travels

Most of you will already know that Michelle is pregnant. She is 18 weeks pregnant and this was the real reason for our initial trip to Hong Kong. I say initial trip because we actually went back again last week. Michelle went to see a Doctor in Hong Kong as we don't really rate the medical system (or hospitals) in China. She had a couple of the usual tests (well usual in Australia) and the doctor wanted her to come back for a couple more. The end result is that everything is fine and we are expecting a little boy on or around the 14th of September. So good news all around.


Wandering along Nathan Road near Mong Kok (hee hee!!) station.

We got to spend a little more time in Hong Kong this time as Michelle wasn't able to travel for 72 hours after one of the tests. So unfortunately, well fortunately really, we had stay for a couple of days longer. With the sawing snores of the awful cabin invading harridan still ringing in our ears from our last train trip, we decided to fly both ways this time. Basically it was a more relaxing and much easier experience all round.


A double-decker tram in Causeway Bay, near Jardine Street markets

Penny got to play in numerous playgrounds, wander through lots of lovely parks and basically just really enjoyed herself. Which was great. She really came alive with the other kids in the playgrounds and we cant wait to get her back to Oz and regular playground visits.


A playground...what do I play on first???


Its all mine!!


On the second day there was a little rain which didn't worry Penny too much. She proceeded to 'clean' everything with some of our tissues. This consisted of wiping a soon sodden tissue over all wet surfaces. In fact she "cleaned" for about three quarters of an hour.


Yep, still cleaning...


Up the stairs and then...


Down the slide.

We also had enough time to check out some markets and head up to Victoria Peak to check out the view, which was awesome.


An awesome view from the top

Another piece of beautiful scenery.


The Mid-levels from uphill for a change.


Peak Tower.


The girls enjoying the view.


No that is not part of the Peak viewing platform in the bottom of the shot. That is the roof of a private residence. Not bad eh? No they didn't invite us in...


The funicular (its fun, lets say it together - fun-ic-u-lar - see, fun!) tram on the way down the peak. This baby is one of the oldest forms of transport in Hong Kong. It gets pulled up the steep tracks and lowered back down on a single cable and the views are well worth the trip.

A different perspective

We just got back from a short trip to Hong Kong yesterday morning. It was great, Hong Kong that is, the trip was OK in parts and torturous in other parts. It can be nice to get a different view of things. You know take a look around and realise what you have to be happy about. However the perspective that we got from our little trip to HK was that Nanchang really is a shithole.

Hong Kong was quiet, clean, modern and basically just nice. Nanchang however is rarely any of these things...no really it is quite average at best. So onto to Hong Kong.

We headed off on a 1 hour and 45 minute flight that took us to Shenzhen airport. Shenzhen is a mainland city that has grown in the economic shadow of Hong Kong. It is big and modern and clean-ish and we made our way through it by bus to get to the train station near the Luo Hu border crossing to book our train tickets back to Nanchang. Train tickets are something of a bureaucratic nightmare in China. You can book and buy tickets within five days of the journey. However you can only buy tickets one way. So that means that you can't really book the return leg of your journey until to you are about to leave. This is made more difficult by the fact that you cannot buy return journey tickets from the station that you set out from.

So we were flying to Shenzhen and then getting a sleeper train back so we had to go and buy our tickets from Shenzhen station as they were not available to buy from Nanchang....confusing? Luckily the station is very near to the border crossing so it wasn't too bad. Just a pain in the butt.

As it turned out we couldn't get the 4 soft sleeper tickets that we wanted and had to settle with 2 in a shared cabin. - Soft sleeper is basically just like a 4 bed cabin with its own lights and a lockable door. Nice.- We wanted to book 4 tickets so that we could have the whole cabin to ourselves (rich capitalist pigs, I know) to ensure a nice quiet environment for Penny to (hopefully) get some sleep in. However it was not to be so we sucked it up and headed across the border into Honkers.

We were staying at the YWCA Gardenview hotel in Central so we had an hour or so on the Hong Kong MTR (Mass Transit Rail) with two station changes. This wasn't too bad although the day was beginning to drag and we were all very nearly done in when we arrived at the hotel at about 8 pm. The hotel is on MacDonnell road in the mid-levels on the edge of Wan Chai and Central (I think) which means that it is basically up a big hill.


The YWCA Gardenview

It also means that there are great views out of the windows overlooking the Hong Kong Zoological Gardens. We settled in and ordered some Indian food (whoo hoo!!!) and hit the hay. The next morning we headed down to the buffet breakfast and then over the road into the gardens. It was overcast and looked like rain so we packed the umbrellas and headed off. The Zoological gardens are nice. Really lush, clean and peaceful. They are also home to quite a few primates, birds and a couple of reptiles. The birds were closest to the hotel and we were quite surprised to see flamingos and cranes along with the pheasants and hornbills. Penny wasn't too interested at this and just wanted to see the monkeys.


Looking back up to the misty peak.


In the Gardens.


More of the same...


The mid-levels in the mist.

So we kept going through the bird cages and finally made it to the primates. Lemurs, Macaques, gibbons (yes they were funky gibbons), and even a pair of orangutans. Michelle and I were interested but Penny was over them before we even finished looking at them. She wanted to see the crocodiles, ooh look at that little gibbon on its' Mummy's tummy, I want to see the crocodiles. Wow look at the big funny orangutans, I want to see the crocodiles. That lemur is being funny isn't he? I want to see the crocodiles! So we went to see the crocodiles. There were two, they were about 2 feet long and didn't move. Needless to say...unimpressed. So we wandered a little more around the countless fountains and beautifully manicured lawns and then headed down into town for morning tea.


One of the mighty Tangs!!

The shops in Central are a little daunting. They are all Ferregamo, Versace, Prada, Chloe, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and the like. That isn't surprising in China I guess. However they were all REAL!!!!! The streets were surprisingly empty which was a nice change as the streets of Nanchang are always teeming, the kind of push your way through teeming that slows down everything and just annoys the hell out of you (well me anyway, you know when people just dawdle along in a big line taking up all of the footpath...well they inverted that in China too). We found a Starbucks as it started to rain and sat down for a latte and cake stop. While I am not a fan of Starbucks' coffee something about beggars and choosers springs to mind. We had a little more of a wander then back to the hotel for Penny's sleep.


Is that the Peak up there?

Michelle had a kip as well and I headed off for a little reconnoiter. The rain increased as I wandered along MacDonnell Rd and found my way to Hong Kong Park. It was another lovely park and had something quite remarkable...a giant playground!!! Not just any playground either, it was a five level, split story, multi mega play complex the like of which Penny had not seen, let alone played in for about 7 months.


The ever delightful and beauteous Michelle.

Another nice surprise was the Park and Shop supermarket next door to the hotel. It was awesome, English magazines, fresh cuts of beef and lamb, VB, Crown, Boags, shortbread creams, and Barbecue shapes!!!! It also had some nice curry mixes so we stocked up with a couple of visits. That night was fish, chips and onion rings from the Chippy delivered to the hotel. Noice!


The next morning straight after breakfast we headed to the uber-playground in Hong Kong park. Penny had a ball and played on literally everything she could. After dragging her away from the slides, bouncing horsey type things and diggers we headed off to check out the walk through aviary and the rest of the park. It was cool, lots of fountains, waterfalls and birds of course (in the aviary and out of it).


An awesome digger in the sandpit ...Penny liked it too!


So much playground and so little time...


Swingers.


A rare sighting of the Lesser Eastern Malawian Crested Pigeon Tit...or something. Taken in the walk through aviary...not the supermarket.

We then made our way down to Admiralty and another Starbucks for coffee and cake. We were greeted by even more exclusive shops, in the same vein as those in Central, and managed to find a toy shop that didn't stock Versace dummies and YSL block sets. We bought Penny a little tube full of Australian animals, a cockatoo, koala, taipan, crocodile, wombat - 12 in all and very cool. Then we were back to the hotel to get ready for our return trip to Nanchang.

This started off well and we made our way back along the MTR through the border crossing and back to Shenzhen station to wait for the train. This all went fairly well and Penny even managed to have a sleep. Although this was difficult as it was while we were on the MTR standing holding her with one hand and trying to hold onto something with my other hand to stop us both crashing to the floor. After about 40 minutes of this a nice man stood and let Michelle sit so she could hold Penny and give my arms a rest, everyone else just kind of looked at the floor or something else. It reminded me of when I ask for a volunteer in my class...everyone suddenly finds something really interesting on their book. Anyway customs was easy and we made it through the usual chaotic shambles of boarding a Chinese train to find ourselves in our shared soft sleeper cabin about to set off to Nanchang.


A waterfall in the Hong Kong Gardens.

As I mentioned before we had to share the cabin and at first it looked like we were in luck. A little old lady and a shy young lady. fortunately neither seemed to speak much English and didn't rate them selves as any kind of cross cultural entrepreneur so all was quiet...for the moment. You knew that was coming right? There is always some kind of drama when attempting anything in China.

The drama in this story was in the form of the old lady's daughter. She stormed into the cabin about an hour into the journey and started to execute her authority. She fussed over her mother and questioned the other lady traveller. She then turned her attentions on the Lao wai, in particular Penny. Penny had been playing quietly with her Australian animal tube and was quite happy to keep doing so. The daughter though wanted her attention and after repeated attempts to get it through language (Penny not speaking much Chinese of course) she reached out and took a handful of Penny's toys and made a grand show of putting them into her bag. Hilarious fun apparently, and Penny just sat there confused fighting tears. She gave them right back as soon as the lip started trembling but the damage was done. The Chinese lady thought that this was great fun and kept asking if Penny was angry. Penny was sad although there were a couple of other people that were pretty angry (Michelle wanted, and still wants to punch her lights out). I don't know if this kind of thing could be put down to cultural understanding, or the different way that people play with their kids in China (teasing seems to be pretty common)...or maybe she was just an arsehole, after all they have them here in China too. So we packed Penny's toys away from the annoying lady and attempted to get some sleep. Eventually the annoying lady swaggered back to where she came from in her denim look tights, big white shirt and vest. Serenity? Not quite...

We eventually got Penny settled and Michelle nearly had her asleep when the annoying cow returned. She threw the door open and started checking on her mum (who was asleep until then) and thumping around knocking things over. She then climbed into the bed with her aged mother and pulled up the single blanket and went to sleep. No bets taken on if she snored.....It was like someone had a chainsaw in the compartment. She also managed to kick over her forgotten glass of hot water onto my shoes in the night during one of her more severe somnambulistic contortions. Michelle dubbed her the pig woman and has since left a little bitter reservoir of bile in her heart just for her...should we ever meet again. As we left the cabin for our 4:30 am arrival at Nanchang she silently slid over into one of our beds and started counting a giant wad of notes. Probably the savings that she makes from regularly buying one sleeper ticket and then sharing the bed with her long suffering mother.

Anyway we made it back, even though the University managed to stuff up our pick up at the station again...So we love Hong Kong and Nanchang is looking crappier than ever...sigh!

Things are cooking in the 'chang

Fairy-wing Fluffies anyone?

Well it is no surprise that it is still raining here...the surprise was that it was clear for two days on Monday and Tuesday. The temperatures have risen a little though which is nice. We are beavering away on lessons and study (study for Michelle, as I am mercifully free of study responsibilities for the moment). Penny and I have had a cold which thankfully hasn't been too bad. The result of the many coughing and wheezing students in the front rows of my classes I guess. Michelle has managed to stay relatively germ free for the moment anyway.

Our Chinese brand DVD is playing up again so I am girding my loins for the usual Chinese carry-on when I go and demand our money back on Saturday. It is the 3rd time that we have returned it to Walmart. Last time they wrote something on the back of the receipt which was apparently to ensure prompt service if another return was needed (perhaps when would have been a more appropriate word). We are off to Hong Kong in a couple of weeks, a little sightseeing and R&RR (rest and relative relaxation) for all. It should be good.


In the absence of decent civilized outdoors type weather kitchen activities have flourished. ANZAC biscuits are always a winner, before and after they are cooked.


I have also been perfecting my bread making skills as a way of avoiding the nasty Chinese bread. They have a rather terrible habit of using coconut oil in their bread which means that everything has a sweet coconut taste...and I mean everything. Bread, biscuits, cakes...the works.


Chocolate caramel slice redux. Much better results this time now that we have factored the crappy little toaster oven into the recipe.


Well liked by all and sundry.

We have decided to come back to Australia at the end of this term. Poor Penny doesn't have enough to do here. Well the things that there are for little kids to do here are-
A. Not what Penny wants to do (torturing insects, hitting other kids and parents), or
B. Rather unsafe (walking around on the road, or on the top of walls).
So the flights are booked and the calendar has been marked. See you all soon.