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!