China

Wow we have been here two weeks to the day...when we got in to Shanghai two weeks ago (Sept 15) we had been in an airport or in the air for 24 hours (since Sept 14) and gained 12 hours in time; our friends were determined to get us in to China time and would not let us 'crash' to soon. So off we went to the bright lights and a beer at 'The Bund'; the following week ...

we were around Shanghia and saw 'The Bund' by daylight...

'The Former French Concession'...

...'The Old City' in Shanghai -

...the Bridge of Seven Turns -

...took a stroll through Shanghai - where the real Chinese people live

...took in a show ' ', directed by the Cirque du Solie

...had a great dinner downtown, followed by an awesome foot massage

...saw the newest, tallest building in the world -

We even managed to take a bicycle ride in Shanghai with out being killed. The heirarchy in China for street rules are motorized vehicles have priority, bicycles next, then pedestrians. We had lunch several times and dinner - always great food and very inexpensive. (...and for the faint of heart there is always McDonalds, KFC or Starbucks).

On Friday, we were met at the Shanghai, Pudong International Airport (interesting place and very very busy), by our hosts and employers for our contracts of Teaching English in China...; 3 of us hopped into a minivan and headed for Wuxi, what we had been told was a 3 hour trip - however, since that was not necessaryily true - Friday afternoon rush hour has nothing on Toronto...it has been said to us that recently China has been selling 1000 cars a week - I'm sure they are all in Shanghai. Enrout we stopped at a Chinese 'truck stop' were we had a purely Chinese meal and our first introduction to the use of chopsticks and the traditional (hole in the ground) Chinese toilet (that country living childhood has something to be said for it). We were some time getting to our residence, and it was dark when we arrived, but we felt quite safe knowing that our complex had a gate that was locked at night, that our building had a gate with a security gate and of course our apartment is locked and quite safe.

When we surfaced on Saturday morning, we had to get something to eat and find the bare essentials for survival in our own pad...

We got help to get a taxi and headed straight for Walmart (sorry Kathrny); it was a great relief to find the tried and true Equate and Great Value products ...

since then we have met several other people and had some great downtown excursions -

the *105 and the *77 gets us to other shopping centres, the bus station and the train station.

The campus at Jiangnan University is only 4 years old although the university itself is celebrating its 59th year, kinda like Confusious - celebrations are today, Sept 29, (2559 yrs) and John (same day as Confusious, but a little short of the years); it is very large and quite beautiful; and in the middle of most of the Tourist attractions for the city.

We walk 25 minutes or about 1 kilometre and back twice a day to class - which is quite a challenge when the tempurature is 30 degress Celcius at 7 a.m. (our classes start at 8 a.m.) and just increases as the day goes on.

We survived the first teaching week and this next week is the National Holiday week in China (well not actually). We started teaching on Wednesday and had to teach Saturday and Sunday to get Monday and Tuesday off so that we (and the students and many of the rest of the Chinese) could have a 7 holiday this week. We are off to Suzhou and Shanghai for the remainder of the week.