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you start me up and i'll never stop...
Apr. 9th, 2006 10:55 amit's been a busy week...
Taught a bunch of classes on Friday and then got dressed up for a graduation ceremony for the third-year students, none of whom I've taught, but since it's unlikely that i'll witness the graduation ceremony of my students, I clapped heartily for these ones. Especially since they were graduating from a dual program, my University and a technology institute in Autstralia...not only did they learn engineering, they did it half in English.
Why was I invited to this graduation? It's my department, plus, it looks good to have all the foreign teachers there...we were seated in the front row among all the other VIPs (President of the school, VP, Australian officials from the Institute, etc, and given our own little bottles of water and tea. I felt like a UN dignitary (pampered, useless and there for show!)
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I have a lot of pics from the graduation ceremony which I'll post as soon as I re-load the software for my pesky camera. Not sure why it suddenly decided to lose the driver and not load pictures, but my laptop is pushing a decade so I don't like to criticize it too much for these little mess-ups.
I *did* spend part of yesterday in CYBERMART (great name) looking at new laptops, MP3players that hold 2 GB, Projectors, and nearly everything else electronic that you could ask for. It was like a very pushy overwhelming cross between a trade show and a flea market, all held inside a three-story open mall. I think that my choices might come down to A) going to Bali or somewhere tropical at the end of this trip, or B) buying a new laptop and *possibly* a projector (which is something that I REALLY want for teaching next year. (Geek moment: I want to basically do everything on my laptop and digitally, and teach, you know, as though I'm living in this CENTURY). I never want to write with chalk again; I do so much writing on the chalkboards here (you have to, because many of the kids can read better than they understand what you are saying, so it's a good corollary) but the chalk is unbelievably cheap and I snap it all the time and the dust covers everything and also makes my hands crack and bleed (lovely, right?!) so now I pre-wrap the relevant fingers in BandAids before class. So, a projector for September is what I'm thinking.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...since it is the precious few days of GLORIOUS weather in this town of Shanghai (before it turns into a UV oven), a foreign teacher and I wanted to take a train ride out of town to the countryside this weekend to see a cute little monastery in Hanzhou where they might have invented tea. We woke up early, had rough directions from a write-up we'd read in a magazine, packed lunches, and off we went.
First, the hour-long subway ride into downtown to the Railway Station. This was packed, as usual, because it was early on Saturday morning and everyone was heading downtown for the day.
Got to the Railway station which is always shoulder-to-shoulder people, and found an "English-Service" ticket window. The guy there said that there were no trains to that town (contrary to what the magazine had told us) and to go to the Bus station on such-and-such street.
So, we took the subway again, located the bus station, and proceeded to have a very unhelpful and semi-hostile encounter with the ticket lady there. (Sometimes, the halting communication in English/Chinese is too much for people to deal with and they will just tell you "no" or that they don't have something to get you to go away.) This lady would have shaken her head at whatever we asked her, which was very frustrating. We skirted the ticket office and went around through the bus parking lot to the back of the building, where we entered the terminal backwards through a waiting room, and asked one of the attendants there where we could find a bus to Hanzhou. The attendant was very cool and told us to go back to the Railway Station to the North Square.
Armed with this information, we went back to the subway, rode back to the Railway station (which you must know is ENORMOUS, like an airport with underground parts), and exited through the proper doorway to take us to North Square (where we really weren't sure if we were looking for a bus or a train at this point, but we think bus). North Square was really a block away from the exit we went through, through a street full of half-torn down antique buildings and a sort of cul-de-sac for taxis and busses, but we just followed the general flow of people. Which terminated in an incredibly complex mash with many different options on a city street. We decided to bother someone, and so asked a street merchant where the bus station on North Square was so that we could buy tickets to Hanzhou. (Not a lick of English to this guy, but WOAH was he helpful! He really took one of the city maxims, "Be hospitable to our foreign guests" seriously, apparently, because after seemingly understanding what we wanted, he led us a block to a really large bus station, around the police-barrier, to a ticket window, where we all tried to get tickets to Hanzhou and then a young English-speaking clerk arrived. The young clerk said that the next train was at 1:30 (it was already 10:30 at this point, all that searching and subway riding damaged our "early start") and that it was a three hour ride to Hanzhou, not a two hour ride, and so we'd get there after 4 pm. This was not at all what we wanted, so the trip was cancelled, but only after ATTEMPTING to find out when the train/bus leaves in the morning, generally, which was not communicated properly because it never resulted in a real answer, but since everyone was so helpful and we'd given it a heroic effort to escape Shanghai for the day, we didn't feel too badly about finally abandoning our plan. We thanked the local merchant profusely, (and I hoped that we'd at least alleviated the boredom of his day of sitting in a stifling little trailer on the street) and went on our way, deciding to explore the streets surrounding the Railway station, which weren't on any of our maps and off-the-beaten tourist path.
Basically, we walked south from the Railway station and canvassed the OTHER HALF of Shanghai that we hadn't seen yet. This took some legwork, and we wound up marching through parks, highway overpasses, dumpy concrete culverts, small neighborhoods, bar areas, nursery schools, the Moshe Villa (pics), art galleries, etc. until we absolutely couldn't walk anymore and wound up at an outdoor cafe, drinking restorative beer (Carlsberg?). Then, we took the subway to Cybermart, which I already detailled above, and shopped for an hour in an air-conditionless mall which must be hell after the temperature climbs higher than the already 85 degrees. Electronics and no air?? bad...
The sold-out Rolling STones concert was last night in Shanghai, and disappointingly I hadn't realized that it was coming up so soon and couldn't find the proper stage area (we went through People's Square where I thought the concert was going to be, so that I could find some tee-shirt vendors and get an ultimate bragging-rights "Rolling Stones in Shanghai" teeshirt, but no luck. Couldn't find the concert on CCTV either, but I know that the Stones were planning on playing instrumental versions of a few of their songs which were banned (Brown Sugar, Let's Spend the Night Together, Honky Tonk Woman, Beast of Burden, and a few more which I can't remember).
So, no countryside monastery, no Rolling Stones, but a full day nonetheless.
Off to do laundry, yoga, plan for the week, and do the usual Sunday thing...
Taught a bunch of classes on Friday and then got dressed up for a graduation ceremony for the third-year students, none of whom I've taught, but since it's unlikely that i'll witness the graduation ceremony of my students, I clapped heartily for these ones. Especially since they were graduating from a dual program, my University and a technology institute in Autstralia...not only did they learn engineering, they did it half in English.
Why was I invited to this graduation? It's my department, plus, it looks good to have all the foreign teachers there...we were seated in the front row among all the other VIPs (President of the school, VP, Australian officials from the Institute, etc, and given our own little bottles of water and tea. I felt like a UN dignitary (pampered, useless and there for show!)
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I have a lot of pics from the graduation ceremony which I'll post as soon as I re-load the software for my pesky camera. Not sure why it suddenly decided to lose the driver and not load pictures, but my laptop is pushing a decade so I don't like to criticize it too much for these little mess-ups.
I *did* spend part of yesterday in CYBERMART (great name) looking at new laptops, MP3players that hold 2 GB, Projectors, and nearly everything else electronic that you could ask for. It was like a very pushy overwhelming cross between a trade show and a flea market, all held inside a three-story open mall. I think that my choices might come down to A) going to Bali or somewhere tropical at the end of this trip, or B) buying a new laptop and *possibly* a projector (which is something that I REALLY want for teaching next year. (Geek moment: I want to basically do everything on my laptop and digitally, and teach, you know, as though I'm living in this CENTURY). I never want to write with chalk again; I do so much writing on the chalkboards here (you have to, because many of the kids can read better than they understand what you are saying, so it's a good corollary) but the chalk is unbelievably cheap and I snap it all the time and the dust covers everything and also makes my hands crack and bleed (lovely, right?!) so now I pre-wrap the relevant fingers in BandAids before class. So, a projector for September is what I'm thinking.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...since it is the precious few days of GLORIOUS weather in this town of Shanghai (before it turns into a UV oven), a foreign teacher and I wanted to take a train ride out of town to the countryside this weekend to see a cute little monastery in Hanzhou where they might have invented tea. We woke up early, had rough directions from a write-up we'd read in a magazine, packed lunches, and off we went.
First, the hour-long subway ride into downtown to the Railway Station. This was packed, as usual, because it was early on Saturday morning and everyone was heading downtown for the day.
Got to the Railway station which is always shoulder-to-shoulder people, and found an "English-Service" ticket window. The guy there said that there were no trains to that town (contrary to what the magazine had told us) and to go to the Bus station on such-and-such street.
So, we took the subway again, located the bus station, and proceeded to have a very unhelpful and semi-hostile encounter with the ticket lady there. (Sometimes, the halting communication in English/Chinese is too much for people to deal with and they will just tell you "no" or that they don't have something to get you to go away.) This lady would have shaken her head at whatever we asked her, which was very frustrating. We skirted the ticket office and went around through the bus parking lot to the back of the building, where we entered the terminal backwards through a waiting room, and asked one of the attendants there where we could find a bus to Hanzhou. The attendant was very cool and told us to go back to the Railway Station to the North Square.
Armed with this information, we went back to the subway, rode back to the Railway station (which you must know is ENORMOUS, like an airport with underground parts), and exited through the proper doorway to take us to North Square (where we really weren't sure if we were looking for a bus or a train at this point, but we think bus). North Square was really a block away from the exit we went through, through a street full of half-torn down antique buildings and a sort of cul-de-sac for taxis and busses, but we just followed the general flow of people. Which terminated in an incredibly complex mash with many different options on a city street. We decided to bother someone, and so asked a street merchant where the bus station on North Square was so that we could buy tickets to Hanzhou. (Not a lick of English to this guy, but WOAH was he helpful! He really took one of the city maxims, "Be hospitable to our foreign guests" seriously, apparently, because after seemingly understanding what we wanted, he led us a block to a really large bus station, around the police-barrier, to a ticket window, where we all tried to get tickets to Hanzhou and then a young English-speaking clerk arrived. The young clerk said that the next train was at 1:30 (it was already 10:30 at this point, all that searching and subway riding damaged our "early start") and that it was a three hour ride to Hanzhou, not a two hour ride, and so we'd get there after 4 pm. This was not at all what we wanted, so the trip was cancelled, but only after ATTEMPTING to find out when the train/bus leaves in the morning, generally, which was not communicated properly because it never resulted in a real answer, but since everyone was so helpful and we'd given it a heroic effort to escape Shanghai for the day, we didn't feel too badly about finally abandoning our plan. We thanked the local merchant profusely, (and I hoped that we'd at least alleviated the boredom of his day of sitting in a stifling little trailer on the street) and went on our way, deciding to explore the streets surrounding the Railway station, which weren't on any of our maps and off-the-beaten tourist path.
Basically, we walked south from the Railway station and canvassed the OTHER HALF of Shanghai that we hadn't seen yet. This took some legwork, and we wound up marching through parks, highway overpasses, dumpy concrete culverts, small neighborhoods, bar areas, nursery schools, the Moshe Villa (pics), art galleries, etc. until we absolutely couldn't walk anymore and wound up at an outdoor cafe, drinking restorative beer (Carlsberg?). Then, we took the subway to Cybermart, which I already detailled above, and shopped for an hour in an air-conditionless mall which must be hell after the temperature climbs higher than the already 85 degrees. Electronics and no air?? bad...
The sold-out Rolling STones concert was last night in Shanghai, and disappointingly I hadn't realized that it was coming up so soon and couldn't find the proper stage area (we went through People's Square where I thought the concert was going to be, so that I could find some tee-shirt vendors and get an ultimate bragging-rights "Rolling Stones in Shanghai" teeshirt, but no luck. Couldn't find the concert on CCTV either, but I know that the Stones were planning on playing instrumental versions of a few of their songs which were banned (Brown Sugar, Let's Spend the Night Together, Honky Tonk Woman, Beast of Burden, and a few more which I can't remember).
So, no countryside monastery, no Rolling Stones, but a full day nonetheless.
Off to do laundry, yoga, plan for the week, and do the usual Sunday thing...
