Moving to a new blog

My travels for now have changed and so I am moving to a new blog………..

 

i will soon let you know where to find me:)   and follow me:)

Shanghai - Part 1 - Finding a Hotel

I finally made it to Shanghai and let me tell you it was about time. I have been in Taixing for too long. Taixing is a boring city with very little to do aside from grocery shopping and sweating.

So I took the 3 hour bus ride into the city on a very crowded bus and before I got on a lady told me in Chinese that should have to buy two seats thinking that I wouldn't understand. I told her that I agreed and that they should make her wear a bag over her head. She didn't get the joke so explained it to her. She didn't like my joke, but I did. The bus was pretty crowded but a fairly smooth trip overall.

Before I left I had written down some ideas of where I wanted to go once I was in Shanghai and had tried to find a hotel on the web that would be good to stay at. I couldn't really commit to choosing a hotel on the net and decided that a better idea would be to randomly choose a subway station to get off at and walk around until I found the perfect hotel at the perfect price. Any of my serious traveling partners (Munny, Mira, or Thies) can attest to my lack of ability to commit to a particular plan of action in the hope of having a mini adventure and finding the best situation once we arrive. Just to let you know, in case you were wondering, Shanghai is not the city to do this in. Shanghai is huge! Like massively large and there are people everywhere. I kind of got swept up in the crowd and ran for the subway in the rain once we got off the bus. In hindsight, the smartest thing to do would have been to wait 10 minutes for it to settle down and then continue but no I ran like an idiot and got soaked. When I got to the subway, again it was crowded so I lined up without really thinking of a stop until I go to the ticket window and I said the only stop that I knew. People's Square. This is the centre of the universe. A massive corner with about five major streets meeting there and even more people walking around. I let the force guide me towards the perfect hotel and the force was not with me. I wandered through the haircutting utensil district where every shop specializes in selling ………………….too obvious. I wandered through the financial district and I hit the main tourist walkway where every one is trying to sell you a watch, shoes, and DeeBweeDees (DVDs). I walked for about two and half hours with my big back pack still on and found only a handful of hotels. Each costing much more than I knew was necessary or they didn't have internet which is a must for me these days. Not even because I use it, but just to know it is there you know in case I need to check out the meaning of a word or something. By this point I was still wet but what had started as rain water had been exchanged for sweat because it was hot and sticky in Shanghai and I had been walking for two and a half hours. I decided that I needed to regroup so I found a Starbucks and ordered a coffee. While I sat there I weighed my options and decided to call the HR guy from the company that I am working for here in Shanghai. He answered promptly and asked me where I was, I told him that I needed a hotel in the city centre that was near to a subway. He said no problem, that he could help me and told me that he would call me back when it was done. 10 minutes later he called and said that the hotel was a 10 minute taxi ride away. He sent me the address as an SMS so I could show the cab driver. I finished my coffee and went to track down a ride. I got in the taxi and the driver couldn't understand the text message so I called Mr. Lee to explain. When the driver hung up he told me that he knew the place but that it was far away. After an hour of being in the cab I asked the driver where the hell we were going. He told me that this is where my friend had told him to go. I called Mr. Lee and asked him where he was sending me. It turned out that he had booked me into a hotel that was a fifteen minute drive from the last subway stop on the line. SO when I said that I wanted something downtown near a subway stop he thought that I meant that I wanted something that was a 15 minute drive away from the last subway stop. Man my Chinese sucks! He freaked out and told me to wait where I was he was coming to help me. He asked to speak to the driver and told the driver to drop e off where I was. So now I am way out in the middle of somewhere waiting for this poor dude to show up to help me, meanwhile while searching through my wallet I found the card of a hotel that I stayed in when I first got to Shanghai. It was downtown and a reasonable price so I gave the card to Mr. Lee when he showed up. He then called the hotel and booked me a room which took 1 minute and then I hopped back in a cab for another hour into the city. I am an idiot and ended up using up about an hour of Mr. Lee's time when I had the card in my wallet the whole time. In all fairness to me though, I did tell him where I was in both Chinese and English about 4 times and he said he understood.

In the end I checked into the hotel at about 5:30 pm and it was a great room with a king size bed with four big pillows. This may not seem very special but after the wooden planks that I had been sleeping on it felt like a box of fluffy baby ducks. The cab rides only cost me a total of $11 CDN total so I basically paid $11 for a tour of Shanghai . I also got my adventure but may I suggest to anyone traveling to Shanghai to find a hotel before you show up…………………

Coming soon: Near Death in Shanghai…………………………..intrigued?

Fire, Safety, and Recovery

These are three random pictures that I have taken during my time here in Taixing. I just found them and although the y may not be directly related . I can see the connection and it is all a little bit scary. The first picture is entitled "The Roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!" Although the picture may not clearly show it this building has just caught fire and is going to burn down. I walked past it on my way home and couldn't believe that there was a huge gathering down below. The mood was actually quite jovial and it took the fire department about 40 minutes to show up. I have walked past the building since and it look s like it is still standing but the fire has gutted it.


This picture is entitled, "Locksmith? We don't need no stinking locksmith!"
You are looking at the outer doors that lead to the sliding doors which are the doors to my office. At the end of the day, I need to lock the doors when I leave to protect all of the company secrets. As you can see from the picture, the doors in the office don't actually have any locks built in so we need to improvise. The system that we are currently using is to take a bike lock adn weave it through the door handles. This is how every door in the building is locked. Even the front doors. The first week I was here I was locked in my office by one of the workers who thought that I had already gone home. That was fun and funny. It just goes to show, to every problem there is a simple solution. It really just depends on what your idea of ridiculous is. I tie this picture to the previous one by noting that a building catching on fire is dangerous enough but in China they like to up the ante by locking themselves in with bike locks.

This last picture is called, "Please God, don't let me get locked in a burning building in Taixing"
I took this picture at the Taixing hospital. This is the top-of-the-line room. We went to visit a worker who swallowed a gallon of gasoline by accident. The hospital scared the shit out of me. It was dark and dirty. The bed sheets on most of the beds were dirty, used, and stained. There were archaic looking hooks hanging from above the beds. I really hope that I don't get sick here. The doctors and nurses were nice and I am sure that they are competent but the facility was not very encouraging. Fortunately, they are currently building a new hospital which looks like it will be a big beautiful building. This new hospital is a positive example of how the recent, dramatic development is helping the people in Taixing. For the meantime though, I really don't want to get sick here.

There you have three snap shots from my life in Taixing. I hope that the next time you use your key to unlock the door to your house, you think of me trying to figure out how to unlock a bike lock from the inside of two glass doors.

The Area from Whence I Work

Here are some pictures of the area that I am working in. It has been designated as an area that is willing to have chemical production companies. As many areas are not interested in having chemicals production (due to the obvious health risks) the government officials are able to benefit greatly (financially) from allowing them to set up shop here. There is actually a Hummer being driven around by one of the officials which looks so ridiculous when it is surrounded by the city. It illustrates perfectly the massive wealth gap present here.


This first picture is of the front sign for the company. Right behind it is the office building and further behind is the warehouse and the production facility.

The second picture is taken from a 180 degree perspective from the last one. It shows how rural the area is. This is basically farmland that has been turned into land for sale to chemical companies. So this is a plot of land that has yet to be sold. You can kind of see that on both sides there are factories that have been built around it. I like this photo because it is fairly representative of the situation here in Taixing.


This third picture is down the road from my company (so it is at a 90 degree angle from the last photo) In the photo you may be able to see two shacks up the road on the right side. The first one is the barbershop which apparently gives more than a haircut. The second one is a bar which was set up to accommodate the German workers at the factory next to mine. I have been drinking there and I met a German lady who insisted on arguing about everything even when I wasn't arguing back. The guy that I was drinking with and I decided to check out the barbershop and see if they really offered "more than a cut". the lady was scared shitless which made sense as we had consumed about 9 litres of beer each and were speaking quite loudly in English. She refused to open the door,but as we started to walk away she gave in and opened the door ready for business.............................................

This picture is of the last direction I have yet to show (90 degrees from the first and second pictures and 180 from the third). As far as I know there is nothing down this road. I believe that it continues for a way and then eventually drops off into the abyss. I have no proof but I have never seen anyone return from that direction so it makes the most sense to me.

So there you have it. The area in which I work. Where the air is thick and the rain is sour. It is funny though because despite the pollution (or perhaps because of it) the people here do look much younger than they really are. Go figure.

The earthquake

I meant to write about the earthquake earlier but then I was sidetracked by the new Chinese visa laws which nearly threatened to send me back to Canada to get the next step of my Visa. Luckily, Munny found a company in Hong Kong that could do it for me there. It was called CTS and it was located right in the airport which made it very convenient. It only took one working day.

Now that I am settled in again in Taixing I was looking through some of my photos and I found these two photos taken at my factory. The first one is of the Chinese national flag at half mast which has happened very rarely in China. As in only twice in the last four decades. This is to honour the people that died in the earthquake.



The second photo is of all of the office workers in my plant joining into a national moment of silence for the victims of the earthquake. It was very impressive to see how quickly the Chinese government jumped into action to help the victims. It was also very impressive how much the Chinese people gave to help the victims. everywhere you went for the weeks following the earthquake there were volunteers collecting for the victims, and people were giving. I read some crazy things on the net about how the Chinese government doesn't really care about its people but I have to say that they much more impressive than other governments have been in helping their people when a natural disaster struck.



On a side note it is pretty crazy how low the building standards are here. If an earthquake was to hit my little city of Taixing, I know that my brand new building would crumble like a cookie. In fact, one mean game of hop scotch may do it. But when I bring this up with the locals they say, "Yes, it would crumble like a cookie but we are not near a fault line!"

I just wanted to give you a taste of what the river next to my house looked like on an average day. It makes you want to stay inside, eh! Now I'm not saying that China is polluted but when you can't see the top of a five story building from the smog it may be time to address the issue.The picture on the right is of the river right beside my house. The building that you can barely see is on the edge of the city. I am not sure what the building is for but there is nothing really beyond it (not that you could see it even if there was)

This picture is of my apartment complex. There are about 120 buildings and I am in Number 13. They are only 5 stories high, but you can not really see the tops of the buildings clearly due to the pollution. The row of metal structures on the top of the building is solar powered water heaters. China obviously recognizes that there is an issue and these solar powered heaters are a positive move but the only problem is that when there is not enough sun you can't have a shower. You may be surprised by how often there is not enough sun!

Clogged urinal

So I broke the toilet but how the hell do you clog a urinal? Well I did it! And here is the proof. I just couldn't get it to flush and after my last toilet episode I decided to walk away and not mention it to anyone. It was still like this three days later.