And They're Off...

Well, the holidays are over and it’s back to work again! Started teaching yesterday. I got a huge shock when I walked into the first class and there were around 50 students! Hmm, this seems to call for some revised tactics. There was a rumour that some of the oral English classes would be big, but I just thought it was idle student gossip. The school told me so last week! Well, we will see what happens!

There are 11 new teachers this semester. I have met some of them and they seem like nice people. Hopefully we will have a good bunch of foreign staff this semester.

I have started my fitness regime. Last year I did practically no exercise. I went to Latin dancing for a while and also took a few spins on the bike. I think I ate too much food and drank way too much Guinness while in Ireland, so I need to get fit again (well I haven’t been fit-ish since around 2004). So, I went to the swimming pool today. I bought the card which is valid for 20 visits. You save 20 kuai that way! The pool is fairly new and is Olympic size, which means that you gotta do 50 metre lengths!

Well, I think I need a lot of work. I am not a great swimmer. I know how to do the the back stroke and front crawl (known to most as freestyle, although during today’s swimming research, I found out that freestyle (in competition) is what it is – you are free to swim in whatever style you want. Most people choose the front crawl as it is the fastest way to swim on average). I am crap at breast stroke, which is the one most Chinese people learn. They say it conserves energy. I figured out my breathing problem when doing front crawl: I was not exhaling properly when swimming. Sounds obvious, but if you don’t get all the air out of your lungs, then you can’t fill them up again. And the air still in your lungs contains a higher percentage of CO₂, which makes it harder to breathe. Anyway, I did see some improvement, although my arms and legs now feel like jelly!

One thing that I found rather amusing, and sort of cute. Adult females wearing armbands (water wings) I have only ever seen young primary school kids wearing them, but today I saw female University students wearing them, as their boyfriends were teaching them to swim. Aaaaaahhh, how sweet!

Back in Dalian

I arrived back in Dalian 2 on late Monday afternoon! My initial impression was that the place seemed to have a small-town feel compared to Shanghai! Seems a strange thing to say about a metropolitan area with a bigger population than Ireland! However, a small-town feel is not necessarily a bad thing. Taxi drivers in Shanghai were not the chattiest types, whereas the guy who drove my home from Dalian airport was so chatty! Dalian may not be as sophisticated as Shanghai, but it wins on friendliness!

The weather here is also so much cooler than in Shanghai. The taxi had its window open rather than needing air-con! Far better that way! I did cheat and turn on the air-con in my bedroom, mainly cos the mosquitoes were getting in the windows!

So, I have to do and buy a couple of things here and then I head to Beijing tomorrow to hook up with Barry, a guy who works for Sun Microsystems (my old company). He’s on a 2-week junket to Beijing. I come back on Sunday evening and start teaching again on Monday morning! Ah, the fun begins again!

Shanghai

I have been in Shanghai a week now. It’s the longest I have been here since I came to China. So, probably the longest time I have spent in this size a city (Dalian’s a small town compared to Shanghai)!!

Shanghai has its merits: convenience and variety: great subway, more shopping malls per square mile than you could shake a stick at, lots of restaurants, bars and coffee shops, not to mention the best looking women in China! For foreigners, it is far more convenient than somewhere like Dalian, as a lot of places have bilingual menus etc. The environment here isn’t as bad as I had previously imagined. I can see blue skies here every day, as opposed to the hazy grey-blue in Guangzhou or Beijing! So, Shanghai has a lot going for it.

However, I still don’t know if I really want to live here. Everything is SO expensive: there is a lot of money in this town, land and rent is very expensive, so this pushes the price up! Another thing is the sheer amount of people in the place. The Dalian area is said to have six million people, more than the population of Ireland. Shanghai has maybe 20 million or some crazy figure like that! Everywhere there are crowds and crowds of people. I like Dalian as it is not so crowded. One of the final downers is the weather. It is so damn hot at the moment! It’s Sweatsville, Tennessee here right now. I walk out the door and in less than a minute I am pouring sweat! Not good. Maybe it’s fine for Chinese people since they don’t seem to sweat as much as us white folks! That’s what they say anyway, but I have had to teach a class of 32 maritime students (all lads) after they had played basketball at lunch break. It didn’t smell pretty!

Digressions aside, maybe I could get used to the heat and crowds in Shanghai and if I earned enough money, maybe I could afford to go to the pub or a nice restaurant now and again! Dalian may lack the excitement of Shanghai, but I’m happy enough there for the time being.

Guess Who's Back??

I am back in the good old PRC again.

I arrived in Shanghai on Friday morning, in a daze! Partly due to time difference, partly due to lack of sleep on the plane and probably mostly to do with the fact that I had been enjoying myself too much over the past week in Ireland!!

I thought my laptop was a goner. I turned it on in Dublin airport on the off chance they offered free wireless internet (there is free internet in airports in Korea, via internet terminals. don’t know if they have wireless access) but of course there wasn’t. There was only some Eircom scam! Well, it’s the same in Heathrow and Beijing, so can’t knock Ireland too much for that one. Anyway, I tried the same in Copenhagen airport only to see my computer failing to start up! I kept getting the infamous “blue screen of death” when booting up! Well, there was nothing to be done except to get myself a Carlsberg. It was quite tasty. O, and the laptop mysteriously started up fine here in Shanghai! Sweet!

I flew Scandinavia Airlines (SAS) from Dublin to Copenhagen and from Copenhagen to Shanghai. I was very impressed. The air hostesses vere very pretty and blonde! Also, the entertainment system was great. I like the forward and downward camera angles. You can see how the pilot is getting on when he is taking off/landing! Saw that before on South African Airlines. They actually had wireless internet as well, for US$29 for the flight! I don’t think that’s too bad a rice to pay for internet a mile high!

I had intended to travel south to Nanning/Guilin/Yangshuo this week. However, my friend has to work and I didn’t fancy travelling on my own. I will need to come up with alternative arrangements. I will be going to Beijing anyway some stage next week. I might just hang around Shanghai and chill here or else go somewhere nearly for a trip. I need to continue the research!

It’s bloody hot and humid here. Worse than Beijing last August. I think it’s on a par or worse than Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia! It’s 3-shower-a-day territory! Good job there is air-con in this apartment!