NATIONAL WEEK

HELLO!
So I have just finished packing my pack for my 13 day national week trip and I am just about to head off, but before I go I wanted to show you all my route. I will not be able to update my blog during this two week time frame so you will have to be patient and get ready to read a novel for when I return to Shanghai.
Here is a picture of China and its provinces; I have carefully drawn a pathway on windows paint to show you all where im heading. I am flying into Kunmin from Shanghai and flying from Xining back to Shanghai.
Well thats it! Hopefully every thing goes smoothley and by the time I come back I will have plenty of sotries to share with you guys... oh and legs made of steel from all the hiking.
See you in Two weeks!

DEPARTURES ....NingBo/ Pu Tou Shan

 

    Last week, out of the blue, we found out it was the Mid Autumn Moon Festival so naturally classes were cancelled for the week. I decided to take this opportunity to get out of the city with a few friends and do some first time traveling, thinking it would be a nice first step to gear me up before my incredibly intense National Week trip. So four of us got together and talked about some places we wanted to go. Amongst the winners were Beijing (to sleep on the wall), Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Xi’an. Well we got to the train terminal to buy our tickets and what do we fine? Everything has been sold out! We must have tried for about 6 hours asking about place after place train after train until we finally found a return trip to the city of Ningbo in the province of Zhejiang. It was an extremely taxing ordeal but our extreme dedication to traveling and perseverance eventually led to success. So kids, everything our parents told us about working hard to get what you want ... well it’s true!

One obstacle down 30 something more to go...

    Because I had my internship all day we had planned to meet each other at the train station one hour before departure. Well this was a bad idea considering the Shanghai South Train Station is a massive piece of architecture with multiple levels and a weird inner spiral design. Long story short we got lost and I was stranded alone in this train station while my 3 friends were running around a completely different level in total chaos trying to locate me. Thus the inevitable occurred and we missed our train.

   New plan! We decided to reconvene at the Shanghai South Long Distance Departures Bus Station (try saying that ten times fast!).  Finally we all met up bought a bus ticket to Ningbo and were on our way!

   Upon Arrival in Ningbo we really had no plan as to where we would spend the night. The Lonely Planet only gives one option, Zee’s Hostel, and doesn’t even give the address of the place; it just tells you it’s close to the bus station (which by the way...it is NOT!).  So we arrive at this sketchy  dark bus terminal around 12am to be greeted most pleasantly by a pack of old Chinese men, who proceeded to swarm us speaking rapidly in Mandarin, laughing and poking us... yes I said poking! Word to the wise; do not travel late at night in China with no plan and 3 blondes!

   Now these people were not malicious by any means I have come to the conclusion that they were all taxi drivers and since we were their only potential customers they were being aggressive to get our business... that and I was travelling with 3 blondes.  I immediately bee-lined it to the only white person that was on the bus (I know, I know,  that may sound bad but it turned out to be a very smart decision and in my defence at that point I just wanted someone who  I knew would be able to speak English)and asked him for help. He was luckily traveling with a woman who was native to Ningbo and they were happy to help us. The woman’s name was Maggie and she demonstrated the most kindness that I have every experienced in my life. Not only did she call us a cab to Zee’s Hostel but she gave us her phone number in case we ran into any problems during our stay...which of course we did!

    One of my traveling partners had been going through some issues in regards to her Chinese Visa, thus she did not have her passport, only a photocopy. Another word to the wise, always, ALWAYS, carry your passport while travelling in China because no hostel or hotel will take you in without it. Such was the case with Zee’s, so once again we were stranded and it was breeching 1 am. We called Maggie explained the situation and she set us up in the same local hotel her American friend was staying at. She met us at the hotel, kindly explained my friend’s situation, showed us where we could eat, wrote out all of our traveling spots in Mandarin so we could show our cab drivers and told us how to get to the Ningbo train station for our return trip to Shanghai. She was absolutely lovely and asked for nothing in return from us; it was an act of selfless kindness that I will not forget!

    After a wonderful night’s sleep in a pretty nice Hotel room we all got up bright and early ready to travel to a local mountain located about 2.5 hours outside of the city. Well of course it was raining, but a little rain never hurt anyone so we continued on with the same plans and hoped on a bus. Funny enough this bus ride was probably my most interesting experience of the whole trip. As we started to leave Ningbo I noticed construction everywhere, dirty roads and buildings, patches of utter nothingness followed by half developed towns with buildings that looked as though they were on their way to becoming beautiful structures but were now left half constructed, baron and falling apart. There were urban development’s mixed with slum like conditions and I swear to you I saw what could have very well been a sweat shop factory just out in the middle of nowhere. This was the first time I had seen anything like this and the first time I had really thought of China as a developing country. The thing about Shanghai is it is a mask, a bubble that makes you forget about what the vast majority of China is really like. The big modernized cities are not adequate representations of China as a whole; instead they intentionally cover up the harsh realities that still plague the nation. It was definitely an eye opener.

   When we arrived in the mountain town we had to purchase a return ticket back to Ningbo. After 30 minutes struggling to ask the ticket guy when the last bus leaves we realised that we really didn’t have enough time to climb the mountain after all. The hike itself was 2 hours long we had arrived around 2pm and the Last bus left at 4, basically all that traveling for what seemed like nothing at the time. Determined to make the best out of situation we hired a cab driver to drive us up the mountain so we could take some pictures and then drive us back down. So at least I can say that I saw it and I didn’t wimp out and sulk at the bus terminal for our remaining time in the town!

    The next day we made our way to the Buddhist Island of Pu Tou Shan. It is remarkably beautiful, small and can be done in 2 days, 1 day if you’re really ambitious.  As soon as you step on the Island your greeted with magnificent temple arches, elegant garden walk ways  and quaint little shops selling nick-knacks of all kinds (literally I found a plastic singing corn). We spent 2 days on the Island and it was the most peaceful 2 days since I have been in China. There was tranquil music with chanting monks magically playing out of rocks along the side of the road, caves for prayer, temples galore, beautiful beaches and the best, a giant statue of the Goddess Avalokiteshvara otherwise known as the Bhodisattva or to the monks on the Island, Guānyīn.  

   We lied on the beach, hiked all around the Island, were finally greeted with some sun and hot weather, peaceful monk music and of course we can’t forget the Chinese and their un-stealthy paparazzi photography. What started off a very chaotic weekend ended up being an extremely rewarding experience that not only challenged me physically but emotionally, testing my limits and pushing my button’s.  I learned that you can control absolutely nothing here and that the best plan is to have no plan at all, because you are not going to stick to it. Everything is constantly changing and there new challenges everywhere you look you can only just mentally prepare yourself for them and laugh it off.

     That is until you have to climb into an unmarked cab (aka a random dude who approaches you off the street offering to drive you somewhere for a fee) for a two hour drive through the middle of nowhere in order to catch your train home... in this situation I suggest keeping calm, staying very much alert to your surroundings and keeping your fists up ready to strike at any moment.

    Don’t worry mom no one was injured or put through any distress over the trip and the unmarked taxi man turned out to be very nice and thankful that we gave him some business. The thing about people in China is that everyone is willing to help out a foreigner. They may want to rip you off for more money but in the long run they only want to portray themselves in a good light so when we go home to our friends and family we can talk about how helpful and nice the Chinese people really are... and from my experiences, this is one of the truest statements I can make.

Hapy Birthday Nick Watson!

Nick Watson’s 70’s birthday party

200 RMB all open barwhich includes h’orderves and the money goes to charity.  Well to me this sounded like a wonderful idea for a fun Saturday night. It just so happened that my friend Jess was invited by her Irish next door neighbour and I thought Id tag along just for the hell of it. Jess and I arrived around 9 30 pm to the 5^th floor of a random hotel filled with drunken Irish and Scots men aka what was about to be an awesome night!

We weren’t in the venue more than 5 minutes when we met up with Jess’s neighbour Wesley and all of his Irish friends, who just happened to be 6 feet and over, one can imagine how small I felt standing next to all of them. We were immediately given drinks and so began our night!

So let me tell you a little bit about Nick, It was his 70^th birthday, he is Scottish, lives in Shanghai and is a total and complete Baller! That’s about all I can tell you of dear Mr. Nick so I have to say I felt pretty damn awkward leaving this man a drunken birthday message of the video camera that was circulating the room.

The night was insane, not only did we drink like the Irish we danced like them too and ate and pretty much everything else one can do at an Irish/ Scottish party. Oh and did I mentioned I got flashed by 5 young men in tartans?

                                    



NICK WATSON SINGING!

Yup, definitely a memorable night.Thank you Nick Watson, thank you!

The time: 6:45 am; Place: Shanghai taxi; Feeling: very hung-over and miserable; Destination: 2010 World Expo

    Flash back to two nights ago when the Queens team had all gotten together to hang out at this awesome local bar called Helen’s, aprox. 5 min walking distance from the residence. Helen’s is a multipurpose venue  where you can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, study and when your all studied out you can just hang out with friends, smoke some Hookah and drink some very weak Chinese beer... over all a very good time.  Needless to say we all had a very good/ late night even though we had all planned to go to the World Expo at 6:45 in the morning.

   
Flash forward to the cab ride where Erika, Meg and I are napping through a 2 hour traffic jam... not fun! Any way we arrived at the Expo only to be greeted with the longest line up I have ever seen in my life! After about another half hour and being directed like cattle through security we finally arrived inside Shanghais World Expo.  We met up with the rest of the crew and headed straight to India as our first stop in Expo Land.  The highlight of this pavilion was definitely our Indian breakfast of Naan and curried chicken and of course I can’t forget the Chinese paparazzo. As soon as we sat down to eat a group of men with Nikon cameras formulated at the restaurant doors and began just snap, snap, snapping away (what every girl loves, having their photo taken, while hung over at 9am, eating Indian ... definitely my idea of classy!). 

From there we headed off to meet our German and Dutch friends Simon and Max. They work at the expo in the German pavilion. This turned out to be the best thing because they got us VIP access to a tone of Pavilions allowing us to skip the 6 hour line ups.

In total I was able to see Germany, The Urban Planning Pavilion, Uruguay, Chile, Nepal, India, Greece, Honduras, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, and of course we can`t forget CANADA! All things considered I think we did pretty well for ourselves in one day.

Now there are some things I wish to point out about this expo:

1) Crowd control was impeccable! I did not expect everything to be so organised with the amount of people that were in the expo site. Lines were air-conditioned with fans that would spray mist every minute and also came equipped with built in side benches.  The washrooms, although they were squatters were very clean and equipped with toilet paper made from recycled cardboard. They also had sanitation stations where you could wash your hands with soap (a very nice change)! Finally, every 30 yards or so they would have a rest station with benches,  the same misty fans from the line ups and water stations, where free filtered water was accessible. Over all a very pleasant experience!

2) The theme of the Expo is Better City Better Life with specific attention on ecological and environmental advances in order to build more sustainable and environmentally friendly cities. With this in mind, most of the pavilions I saw did offer some sort of expression of this Idea, however I did notice that a lot of the smaller pavilions used this opportunity to basically promote their tourism for their country. Also though the theme of the expo supports environmental ideas and advances, the expo itself, ironically, is a complete contradiction.  With all the money, man power and effort put into building the site, relocating the residence that formally inhabited the area, along the amount of energy used to run it all, I would argue that it seems to be a huge waste to tear it all down in a matter of months. Although some pavilions are remaining, I just find it very ironic and contradicting that theme of a Better City, Better Life is completely being disregarded by having an Expo this large to begin with. Any way that was my DEVS rant for this post, now back onto the fun stuff!

3) Canada was AWESOME! We of course got to skip the line, not because we had our Canadian passports and not because we stood as a group to sing our national anthem, ( I know kinda lame, but how often do you get to sing your national anthem in a different country! ) but simply because CANADIANS ARE THE BEST!!!!  I also had waffles and maple syrup topped off with a moose head, so obviously I had a great time.

4) The German pavilion only had very very! Attractive volunteers... I know I`m generalizing but I really want to visit Germany now.

5) Finally and of course I`m saving the best for last...... DRUM ROLE IF YOU PLEASE!

 I STOLE A PANEL FROM THE WALL OF THE LATVIAN PAVILION!!!!!  I know, I know, it`s bad! But if you had been there you all would have been very impressed at how stealthy I was!

Latvian Pavilion (I stole the pink panel)

All in all I ended up having an amazing day! The Pavilions were all beautiful and some of the ideas for the future were very interesting. I look forward to seeing if any of them are actually going to be implemented some day.

Hello every one!

It has officially been one week since I first stepped foot on this land and I can say that so much has happened already that I will not be able to tell you guys everything... but I will try. Let’s start from the beginning...

    I shall begin with the plane ride. So as most of you know I was exceptionally nervous to fly over seas for the first time all by my lonesome. I was even more nervous because of my connection in Chicago’s O’Hara airport. However, the flight was actually quite nice. Now you wouldn’t think a total of 20 hours travelling time would be a good experience but I found it went rather smoothly, not to mention I made a new friend along the way. He was from Mexico, currently living in Chicago and doing business in Shanghai. A very experienced traveler, he was more than happy to help me, step by step, the whole way through.  Before I move on I would just like to note that while flying over Chicago I noticed the strangest thing; apparently the concept of an in-ground pool is a foreign thing because everyone, and I mean EVERY one had an above ground circular pools... something  to think about perhaps?

   I finally arrived at Pudong International, picked up by a former queens student named Alex, whisked into a cab and was finally on my way to the residence. A little thing I should point out here is that the Chinese have a different notion of safety then we do here in Canada... aka No seat belts! I probably looked for about 5 min before I realised there just wasn’t any in the cab. Also I wasn’t even travelling for 10 min when we almost got into an accident on the high way... one can only imagine the anxiety I was feeling at that moment.

   Once we arrived at the residence Alex helped me register and then I was on my own in this brave new world.

   Woke up every hour, on the hour to the sounds of honking cars, bicycle alarms and construction! Probably the best night of my life...

When I finally woke up at a more reasonable time (6am) I decided I would get up and get ready for the day. The day just so happened to become the longest day I have ever endured! Not to mention it was school registration and I so conveniently forgot most of my registration forms at home in good old Oakville! Luckily I wasn’t the only one out of our little group of 14 so we spent the entire morning and a good chuck of the afternoon acquiring photos and filling out forms. Then it was straight off to Orientation. Not only were we late (big faux pa here, one does NOT want to be late!) but we got caught in the biggest rainstorm and walked into the frigidly cold class room soaked to the bone, ready to meet our new professors, excellent!

I think this is where the Jetlag finally kicked in because I don’t seem to remember a single thing that happened.

     After the orientation we all went out for a traditional Chinese dinner with our new Chinese classmates and professors. The wonderful thing about this dinner was the variety.  Although because none of us realised that the restaurant was about to bring us a 6 course meal, everyone started filling up on what was just the appetizers. Courses were displayed very elegantly on what we in the west like to refer to as a Lazy Suzan/ a surprisingly efficient way to share food with friends.  It was a very nice welcoming and already I am beginning to feel more and more at home each day.