Hey all,
Sorry it's been so long (again) but we've really had some problems accessing our blog in China. We can view it, but can't log in to publish anything. I think I've found a way around it though and we should be able to update a bit more regularly.
So to catch everyone up on the latest -
Alexa got laid off from English First a week and a half ago. Things had been really slow for a while due to the economy and because she was the last to be hired to the team, she was the first to be laid off. She didn't feel that the job was the right fit in the first place, plus, they gave her a nice severance package, so the layoff was ultimately a good thing. Unfortunately though, she now has less than a month to find a new job before her visa expires and she has to go home. She's got a couple potential opportunities in the works, so we'll keep you posted.
I'm still waiting on my work permit to come through. I should know whether it's going to work out in the next 2 weeks. If this doesn't come through, I'm not allowed to work in China and I have to come home. We just can't afford to hang out in China without the two incomes we were planning on from the start. I haven't worked since I arrived 9 weeks ago and it's really starting to take its toll.
So in short, unless my work permit comes through AND Alexa gets a job, we're coming home early. In a way, we'd feel defeated, but in another, it might be a relief to have something simply out of our control (the Chinese gov't) against us. Finally telling us that we can go with our dignity intact, never actually having given up.
Anyway... Our friend from Switzerland, Melanie (a girl I studied French with in France), came to visit us last week. We get to see her about every 6 months and it's always nice to catch up. She flew in early on the 3rd and I picked her up from the airport. We spent a bit of that day sleeping then met Alexa for lunch (on what would be her last day of work). I showed Mel around the town for a while that afternoon and we met Alexa here at the apartment after she got let go. She was in a great mood and we decided to live it up that night. We went out for dinner and had great foot massages.
We spent the rest of that weekend seeing the sights of Shanghai - the pearl market, the fabric market, the Bund, Pu Dong, etc but realized that we would run out of things to do during her 10 day stay. So, we decided to look into going to Beijing. The most common way to go is by overnight train. They have "soft sleeper" bunks that are four to a cabin and are really quite nice. We went to the train station to get tickets but were told that they were sold out and the only space they had were on "hard seats." The train is 12 hours and "hard seats" didn't appeal to us. We started looking into flights, but I realized that because my visa was being renewed and I didn't have my passport (it was at the visa center), I was unable to fly. Ultimately, I took the overnight train in a seat and the girls flew the next morning. The train was pretty rough. I didn't sleep much, but it ended up being ok. I arrived in Beijing several hours before they did and was able to get some sleep at the hotel.
We stayed at a 2ish star hotel toward the middle of of the city. It was nice enough but had some quirks. For example, the bathroom was the shower. There was simply a shower head on the wall of the bathroom and a drain in the floor. So everything got wet. Melanie's heater broke and they had to bring her a new one. Plus, the staff's english wasn't fantastic and it was kind of difficult to communicate. Other than that, it was close to the metro and wasn't too dirty so we can't really complain.
The first afternoon in Beijing was spent seeing the Temple of Heaven, an enormous temple complex in the center of the city that must have been more than 50 acres. It was pretty busy with tourists but still had a nice, peaceful sense to it. The buildings were beautiful and the walks through the green gardens were a nice break from the concrete expanse outside.
Afterwards, we visited the pearl market across the street (they sell all kinds of goods other than pearls) and we picked up a few gifts and necessities. That night, we planned on having Beijing Duck at a famous restaurant, but both the price and line were enormous. We walked down the street and stumbled upon a wonderful Japanese restaurant instead. That night, we collapsed from the long day and prepared ourselves for the next.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early to meet our tour guide to see the great wall of China. He met us in the lobby at 7am for our long day of sightseeing. What we thought was going to be a full day at the wall turned into a full day of getting stuck in traffic and getting the run around by the guide. We spent the first 2 hours picking up other tour guests (the driver got lost at least twice) then were stuck in traffic all the way to our first stop: the Ming Tombs. The tombs are a worthy site unto themselves, but that's not what we were there for. Besides, we had to pay full admission price for what was a 45 minute tour not going in any of the tombs. Then we stopped at a jade museum - total tourist trap. It's this enormous jade factory/store with rediculously overpriced jade bracelets and carvings. They make their money on unwitting tourists who are simply shuttled there and led to believe that they're getting great deals on these "rare Chinese treasures - all major credit cards accepted." Having lived in China for a while now, I know a rip off when I see it and made sure to spread the word to the other guests about the deals they weren't getting.
We had lunch at the in house restaurant of western style Chinese food and continued on our way to the Wall (finally...). When we arrived at the parking lot, we realized that we were not the only people hoping to see the wall that day. I would estimate that about 75% of China's 1.5 billlion people wanted to see the wall that day too and were waiting in the same line. That would be bad enough, except that the Chinese don't wait in line. They cut, push and herd like no other culture I've ever seen. Beware of bottlenecks and Chinese tourists - we were nearly crushed as we were pushed ahead in line. Honestly, it was dangerous. People were yelling and shoving and nearly trying to climb over each other to get in line for the cable car up the mountain. You would think that there was a pot of gold at the top or something. After doing our fair share of pushing and waiting in line for the better part of 2 hours, we finally made it to what we were told was a cable car. Indeed, it was not. It was more akin to a roller coaster than a gondola style cable car. Individual cars were on a roller coaster track and were pulled up the side of the hill. Boarding the cars was a continuous effort as they did not stop moving. They were old and beat up and were not very confidence inspiring. Talbot family, think Ghost Town in the Sky and you get the idea. Others, think of what a theme park would look like if maintenance had not been performed since 1982. Even still, we made it to the top of the hill intact. When we climbed up the last few stairs onto the wall, we were greeted with one of those moments that you only have when standing in front of something you've always wanted to see. Think of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, or the Eiffel Tower, or the Statue of Liberty or something. We looked out and saw the ribbon of wall cresting the mountains for as far as we could see. Fortunately, the weather was perfect and the visibility was as good as we could have hoped for. We took tons of pictures (they'll be posted soon) and enjoyed a brief walk on the wall. The crowds were still heavy, but the wall is so long that you can find some space for yourself. Unfortunately, we had only an hour or so until we had to be back to the bus and we had to make our way down. The ride down the roller coaster was much better than the ride up and provided us with some decent views.
After the wall, we had a long, traffic congested ride back to town for our last stop at a silk factory/store. By this point, we were exhausted from all the time in the bus and would have rather skipped the tour. No dice. It was the same experience as the jade museum but with far less interest by the tour group. We had a brief look around and reconveined to leave, but the guide told us that we needed to stay longer. After pressing him, I learned that the tour company has a deal with this store and the jade store to take their customers there. However, we must stay for a certain amount of time so we had to sit around for another 20 minutes, awkwardly, complaining about our captivity. Finally, we were free to go and the bus dropped us off at a metro stop so we could go to dinner. We had already decided that we'd had enough adventure for one day and opted for Papa John's for dinner. As usual, a foot massage followed but this one was way overpriced and the man in the next room was sleeping and snoring loudly. Despite the dissappointments that day, seeing the wall made it all worth it.
Saturday was the Forbidden City, Tianmen Square and the Olympic Park. We woke up early again and headed out on the subway to the stop for Tianmen. When we emerged from the stairs, we were standing at the edge of the square looking out towards the gate of the Forbidden City (The big red gate with the picture of Chairman Mao on it). It was amazing to be there. It was another one of those "Whoa... I'm really here..." moments. From there, we toured the Forbidden City. It's the palace complex where many emperors ruled. It's "forbidden" because the common people were never allowed inside under punishment of death. The servants and concubines were often never allowed to leave either. After the communist revolution in 1949, the complex was opened to the public for the first time since it was built in 1405. It's very elaborate and and very crowded but big enough to find some space. Again, the flow through the city was impeded by several narrow doorways that caused immense pedestrian traffic jams (though much smaller than the ones at the wall) so we tended to stay to the outskirts and let the Chinese people see their palace.
We took pedicabs to a pedestrian street for lunch and headed back to Tianmen Square. It's the largest public gathering space in the world and I believe it. It has a few monuments and museums and is flanked by the people's congress building and the national museum of China. Quite impressive (if not imposing) looking buildings no doubt built to showcase the power of the government. Throughout the square, we never saw any mention of the demonstrations there nearly 20 years ago. It's like it never actually happened.
From Tianmen, we headed up to the Olympic Park to see the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Watercube natatorium. Again, quite a site, quite crowded and very impressive. At this point in the day, we were getting pretty tired of sightseeing and decided to head off to find foot massages and dinner. We ended up eating at a great Irish pub and having far cheaper and far better massages than the night before.
Finally, the last day in town, we decided to have a more relaxed day and see some of the old neighborhoods. We had a walk prescribed by our guidebooks that turned out to be pretty nice. We saw some great little streets full of old Chinese charm, some nice lakes with people enjoying some time on the water, and got a look at what everyday life looks like for everyday people. We finally got our Beijing duck for lunch but I don't think we ordered the right kind. It was terrible... all fat and too spicy. Lunch was fun though due to some comical complications with the squatting toilets, all of which will not be posted to a public blog, thank you very much.
After lunch, we climbed an ancient tower to get a view of the city. The tower was originally used as a public alert and announcement system and housed massive drums at the top. When the drums were beat, they could be heard for miles. We got to see a short drumming show while we were up there then made our way down, ears ringing. We taxied back to our hotel and decided just to take it easy for the last few hours until we had to leave. Alexa took a solid nap and Mel and I went to a nearby mall to get some coffee. We happened upon a concert in the mall of some up and coming Chinese pop stars. It was so funny to hear a concert where absolutely nothing was inteligible. The most amusing aspect of it were the guards posted throughout the 200 or so people. Police in full, crisp uniforms stood perfectly still watching over the crowd of 14-19yr old girls as if they were going to incite a riot. Very funny. I could tell that they weren't totally thrilled with the assignment but weren't totally upset either about watching some short-skirted pop singer dance around for an hour or two.
We came back, packed up and left. Alexa and Mel got to fly back to Shanghai via the brand new Beijing airport (one of the biggest and most spectacular in the world) and on a sparkling clean 747. Once again, I was on the 12 hour train. This time, it wasn't so bad. I had a soft sleeper and was able to sleep through the night and arrive refreshed the next morning. Honestly, given the choice of waking up super early to fly or take a sleeper train the night before, I might take the train. It was stress free and pretty easy. Not to mention, it was a third of the price.
We had one more day with Mel in Shanghai before she had to leave, so we went back to an area of town that she particularly liked, had lunch at a cool 50's American diner and got more massages. We headed down to the river to see the lights that night but were too late for most of them. A fitting farewell to Melanie from China.
She left in a cab early the next morning and Alexa and I have been hanging out at the apartment since. Alexa's got a pretty bad cold that she's waiting out and I'm continuing to try not to go crazy waiting for my work permit. I just got an email from my (future?) boss saying that it might be tougher to get than he thought because I don't have 2 years of relevant work experience. Again... China, do you really want us here? Is there any way to win?
Until next time, still unemployed, still being beat up by the Middle Kingdom on a daily basis,
Ryan
Sorry it's been so long (again) but we've really had some problems accessing our blog in China. We can view it, but can't log in to publish anything. I think I've found a way around it though and we should be able to update a bit more regularly.
So to catch everyone up on the latest -
Alexa got laid off from English First a week and a half ago. Things had been really slow for a while due to the economy and because she was the last to be hired to the team, she was the first to be laid off. She didn't feel that the job was the right fit in the first place, plus, they gave her a nice severance package, so the layoff was ultimately a good thing. Unfortunately though, she now has less than a month to find a new job before her visa expires and she has to go home. She's got a couple potential opportunities in the works, so we'll keep you posted.
I'm still waiting on my work permit to come through. I should know whether it's going to work out in the next 2 weeks. If this doesn't come through, I'm not allowed to work in China and I have to come home. We just can't afford to hang out in China without the two incomes we were planning on from the start. I haven't worked since I arrived 9 weeks ago and it's really starting to take its toll.
So in short, unless my work permit comes through AND Alexa gets a job, we're coming home early. In a way, we'd feel defeated, but in another, it might be a relief to have something simply out of our control (the Chinese gov't) against us. Finally telling us that we can go with our dignity intact, never actually having given up.
Anyway... Our friend from Switzerland, Melanie (a girl I studied French with in France), came to visit us last week. We get to see her about every 6 months and it's always nice to catch up. She flew in early on the 3rd and I picked her up from the airport. We spent a bit of that day sleeping then met Alexa for lunch (on what would be her last day of work). I showed Mel around the town for a while that afternoon and we met Alexa here at the apartment after she got let go. She was in a great mood and we decided to live it up that night. We went out for dinner and had great foot massages.
We spent the rest of that weekend seeing the sights of Shanghai - the pearl market, the fabric market, the Bund, Pu Dong, etc but realized that we would run out of things to do during her 10 day stay. So, we decided to look into going to Beijing. The most common way to go is by overnight train. They have "soft sleeper" bunks that are four to a cabin and are really quite nice. We went to the train station to get tickets but were told that they were sold out and the only space they had were on "hard seats." The train is 12 hours and "hard seats" didn't appeal to us. We started looking into flights, but I realized that because my visa was being renewed and I didn't have my passport (it was at the visa center), I was unable to fly. Ultimately, I took the overnight train in a seat and the girls flew the next morning. The train was pretty rough. I didn't sleep much, but it ended up being ok. I arrived in Beijing several hours before they did and was able to get some sleep at the hotel.
We stayed at a 2ish star hotel toward the middle of of the city. It was nice enough but had some quirks. For example, the bathroom was the shower. There was simply a shower head on the wall of the bathroom and a drain in the floor. So everything got wet. Melanie's heater broke and they had to bring her a new one. Plus, the staff's english wasn't fantastic and it was kind of difficult to communicate. Other than that, it was close to the metro and wasn't too dirty so we can't really complain.
The first afternoon in Beijing was spent seeing the Temple of Heaven, an enormous temple complex in the center of the city that must have been more than 50 acres. It was pretty busy with tourists but still had a nice, peaceful sense to it. The buildings were beautiful and the walks through the green gardens were a nice break from the concrete expanse outside.
Afterwards, we visited the pearl market across the street (they sell all kinds of goods other than pearls) and we picked up a few gifts and necessities. That night, we planned on having Beijing Duck at a famous restaurant, but both the price and line were enormous. We walked down the street and stumbled upon a wonderful Japanese restaurant instead. That night, we collapsed from the long day and prepared ourselves for the next.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early to meet our tour guide to see the great wall of China. He met us in the lobby at 7am for our long day of sightseeing. What we thought was going to be a full day at the wall turned into a full day of getting stuck in traffic and getting the run around by the guide. We spent the first 2 hours picking up other tour guests (the driver got lost at least twice) then were stuck in traffic all the way to our first stop: the Ming Tombs. The tombs are a worthy site unto themselves, but that's not what we were there for. Besides, we had to pay full admission price for what was a 45 minute tour not going in any of the tombs. Then we stopped at a jade museum - total tourist trap. It's this enormous jade factory/store with rediculously overpriced jade bracelets and carvings. They make their money on unwitting tourists who are simply shuttled there and led to believe that they're getting great deals on these "rare Chinese treasures - all major credit cards accepted." Having lived in China for a while now, I know a rip off when I see it and made sure to spread the word to the other guests about the deals they weren't getting.
We had lunch at the in house restaurant of western style Chinese food and continued on our way to the Wall (finally...). When we arrived at the parking lot, we realized that we were not the only people hoping to see the wall that day. I would estimate that about 75% of China's 1.5 billlion people wanted to see the wall that day too and were waiting in the same line. That would be bad enough, except that the Chinese don't wait in line. They cut, push and herd like no other culture I've ever seen. Beware of bottlenecks and Chinese tourists - we were nearly crushed as we were pushed ahead in line. Honestly, it was dangerous. People were yelling and shoving and nearly trying to climb over each other to get in line for the cable car up the mountain. You would think that there was a pot of gold at the top or something. After doing our fair share of pushing and waiting in line for the better part of 2 hours, we finally made it to what we were told was a cable car. Indeed, it was not. It was more akin to a roller coaster than a gondola style cable car. Individual cars were on a roller coaster track and were pulled up the side of the hill. Boarding the cars was a continuous effort as they did not stop moving. They were old and beat up and were not very confidence inspiring. Talbot family, think Ghost Town in the Sky and you get the idea. Others, think of what a theme park would look like if maintenance had not been performed since 1982. Even still, we made it to the top of the hill intact. When we climbed up the last few stairs onto the wall, we were greeted with one of those moments that you only have when standing in front of something you've always wanted to see. Think of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, or the Eiffel Tower, or the Statue of Liberty or something. We looked out and saw the ribbon of wall cresting the mountains for as far as we could see. Fortunately, the weather was perfect and the visibility was as good as we could have hoped for. We took tons of pictures (they'll be posted soon) and enjoyed a brief walk on the wall. The crowds were still heavy, but the wall is so long that you can find some space for yourself. Unfortunately, we had only an hour or so until we had to be back to the bus and we had to make our way down. The ride down the roller coaster was much better than the ride up and provided us with some decent views.
After the wall, we had a long, traffic congested ride back to town for our last stop at a silk factory/store. By this point, we were exhausted from all the time in the bus and would have rather skipped the tour. No dice. It was the same experience as the jade museum but with far less interest by the tour group. We had a brief look around and reconveined to leave, but the guide told us that we needed to stay longer. After pressing him, I learned that the tour company has a deal with this store and the jade store to take their customers there. However, we must stay for a certain amount of time so we had to sit around for another 20 minutes, awkwardly, complaining about our captivity. Finally, we were free to go and the bus dropped us off at a metro stop so we could go to dinner. We had already decided that we'd had enough adventure for one day and opted for Papa John's for dinner. As usual, a foot massage followed but this one was way overpriced and the man in the next room was sleeping and snoring loudly. Despite the dissappointments that day, seeing the wall made it all worth it.
Saturday was the Forbidden City, Tianmen Square and the Olympic Park. We woke up early again and headed out on the subway to the stop for Tianmen. When we emerged from the stairs, we were standing at the edge of the square looking out towards the gate of the Forbidden City (The big red gate with the picture of Chairman Mao on it). It was amazing to be there. It was another one of those "Whoa... I'm really here..." moments. From there, we toured the Forbidden City. It's the palace complex where many emperors ruled. It's "forbidden" because the common people were never allowed inside under punishment of death. The servants and concubines were often never allowed to leave either. After the communist revolution in 1949, the complex was opened to the public for the first time since it was built in 1405. It's very elaborate and and very crowded but big enough to find some space. Again, the flow through the city was impeded by several narrow doorways that caused immense pedestrian traffic jams (though much smaller than the ones at the wall) so we tended to stay to the outskirts and let the Chinese people see their palace.
We took pedicabs to a pedestrian street for lunch and headed back to Tianmen Square. It's the largest public gathering space in the world and I believe it. It has a few monuments and museums and is flanked by the people's congress building and the national museum of China. Quite impressive (if not imposing) looking buildings no doubt built to showcase the power of the government. Throughout the square, we never saw any mention of the demonstrations there nearly 20 years ago. It's like it never actually happened.
From Tianmen, we headed up to the Olympic Park to see the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Watercube natatorium. Again, quite a site, quite crowded and very impressive. At this point in the day, we were getting pretty tired of sightseeing and decided to head off to find foot massages and dinner. We ended up eating at a great Irish pub and having far cheaper and far better massages than the night before.
Finally, the last day in town, we decided to have a more relaxed day and see some of the old neighborhoods. We had a walk prescribed by our guidebooks that turned out to be pretty nice. We saw some great little streets full of old Chinese charm, some nice lakes with people enjoying some time on the water, and got a look at what everyday life looks like for everyday people. We finally got our Beijing duck for lunch but I don't think we ordered the right kind. It was terrible... all fat and too spicy. Lunch was fun though due to some comical complications with the squatting toilets, all of which will not be posted to a public blog, thank you very much.
After lunch, we climbed an ancient tower to get a view of the city. The tower was originally used as a public alert and announcement system and housed massive drums at the top. When the drums were beat, they could be heard for miles. We got to see a short drumming show while we were up there then made our way down, ears ringing. We taxied back to our hotel and decided just to take it easy for the last few hours until we had to leave. Alexa took a solid nap and Mel and I went to a nearby mall to get some coffee. We happened upon a concert in the mall of some up and coming Chinese pop stars. It was so funny to hear a concert where absolutely nothing was inteligible. The most amusing aspect of it were the guards posted throughout the 200 or so people. Police in full, crisp uniforms stood perfectly still watching over the crowd of 14-19yr old girls as if they were going to incite a riot. Very funny. I could tell that they weren't totally thrilled with the assignment but weren't totally upset either about watching some short-skirted pop singer dance around for an hour or two.
We came back, packed up and left. Alexa and Mel got to fly back to Shanghai via the brand new Beijing airport (one of the biggest and most spectacular in the world) and on a sparkling clean 747. Once again, I was on the 12 hour train. This time, it wasn't so bad. I had a soft sleeper and was able to sleep through the night and arrive refreshed the next morning. Honestly, given the choice of waking up super early to fly or take a sleeper train the night before, I might take the train. It was stress free and pretty easy. Not to mention, it was a third of the price.
We had one more day with Mel in Shanghai before she had to leave, so we went back to an area of town that she particularly liked, had lunch at a cool 50's American diner and got more massages. We headed down to the river to see the lights that night but were too late for most of them. A fitting farewell to Melanie from China.
She left in a cab early the next morning and Alexa and I have been hanging out at the apartment since. Alexa's got a pretty bad cold that she's waiting out and I'm continuing to try not to go crazy waiting for my work permit. I just got an email from my (future?) boss saying that it might be tougher to get than he thought because I don't have 2 years of relevant work experience. Again... China, do you really want us here? Is there any way to win?
Until next time, still unemployed, still being beat up by the Middle Kingdom on a daily basis,
Ryan
1 comment:
update please!
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