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  • I normally do a lot more looking than buying when I'm out shopping, but excelled myself on the weekend. Helen and I began with a trip to the "Western Clothing" market, near the old Guangzhou railway station. Enroute, we passed a number of large buildings that claimed to be clothing markets as well, though how we will find the time to check them out is anyone's guess.

    A colleague had told us that it was possible to buy fur-lined Crocs (the 21st Century Ug boot?) for around the house, so we did this straight away. We then went our separate ways, for several hours. I was after a suit coat or two for school. Each time I saw something suitable, they either did not have my size, or I had to buy 100, minimum. I did get a couple of nice windcheaters for weekends. I tend to get overwhelmed by the quantity and variety of stuff after a while.

    Shopping in the local village is far more interesting, for me. I have wandered the streets and alleys a lot in the past 7 weeks, but haven't even scratched the surface. Yesterday afternoon, the weather was good enough for us to venture out, aided by polyfleece jackets that Helen had procured at the Teem Mall in the morning. (Her opinion was that it was better quality, and value, than the markets.)

    It was a highly successful trip. We purchased fruit and vegetables at the wet market, some connectors at the TV repair shop, flowers, a doona for the floor of the cat's room and a bottle of purportedly-Australian red wine. The piece de resistance was a small shop which sold winter underwear - long-sleeved T-shirts and long johns, for ~AU$6. Mind you, the first pair I pulled out of a packet looked like they'd already been worn.

    A couple of blokes came on Saturday afternoon and installed a satellite dish. We can now watch the Australian news, amongst other things. I now have to get them to come back and change the output to PAL, so it is compatible with the DVD recorder. We did watch a bit of an old "Oils" concert, last night, which was very good, even though I still don't really like the Environment Minister's old stage antics.

    The weather is marginally less cold. The wind dropped enough for us to have a glass of the red out on the terrace for about 20 minutes. It still is too cold to walk or run before work.

  • It's not been a great week at School. Firstly, because two kids in Year 8 were diagnosed with H1N1, all of Year 8 has been at home, working via software that allows teachers to post work and students to submit work, chat, discuss it, etc. A few of my kids have submitted things electronically, but not all. Next, until today, it has been freezing, but not unbearable (once one is in a classroom with a functioning heater). Finally, on the only day of the week on which the sun appeared, the power went off, and, with it, the water. We persevered until noon, and then loaded our charges onto their buses and sent them home.

    It is amazing how much modern schools rely on electricity just for the teaching - no power, no computers, no internet, no photocopying or scanning, and, no expresso machine in the canteen!

    We were home by 1pm, and Helen took the opportunity to garden, with "help" from Machiato. Later, Helen went for a run, and I went for a stroll through the village, to a supermarket on the other side of the expressway. It was quite nice (comparatively speaking) when I set out, but was cooling rapidly by the time I returned, at about 4.30pm.

    I returned though some of the back streets. I noticed two blokes examining some very red-looking meat at a stall near the wet market. I was dismayed to realise that the rest of the carcass was quite clearly dog. There are many things on sale at stalls and markets around Yong Tai, and, presumably, every other Chinese village, but this is the first time that I've realised that I really didn't want to know.

    The official reaction to H1N1 is interesting. Apparently, some local health officials turned up at School late one afternoon, and had the full bio-hazard gear on, like something out of the X-files. The story is that the other major international school in town is worse affected than us, and will actually be closed for the beginning of next week. Still, I read, a while back, that an outbreak of swine flu in the provinces could have devastating consequences, so the authorities jump on anything that remotely looks like H1N1.

  • I usually recover from food poisoning within 24 hours, but this bout is taking a bit longer. The weekend began well, with drinks after school, and a jam with a few of the boys with a view to performing in public in the not too distant future. It seemed to go over pretty well.

    A fair proportion of Friday night was spent in the bathroom, so neither of us got much sleep. Helen headed off to Jakarta at midday. and I was left to cat sit. To paraphrase Blackadder, "how can you get so much energy out of such a small cat?" Even smacking has little effect - it seems to make the "game" more interesting. At least, this morning, some of the lessons have started to sink in.

        

    It's amazing what is appealing when you are not well. All the foods that I usually love become abhorrent. One of the neighbours was having a cook up that, at any other time, would have had my mouth watering. In the end, some dry biscuits did the trick, and vegetable soup and fresh bread for tea, later on, was just the thing. Unfortunately, three days later, I'm still far from 100%, but I'll survive.

    On Sunday morning, I caught a taxi into town to a "food and fun" fair run by a charity group. Our kids were running stalls there, and they did a pretty good job. I thought it was great that our school had no teachers in the stalls, although I realise that not all passersby would understand this as a favourable reflection on the independence of our students. I had entrance tickets, raffle tickets and money that I had agreed to flog on behalf of the organisers. I didn't have all the ones that we had received, because some students did not fulfil their responsibilities, but they will produce the goods by the end of the week.

    In the afternoon I wandered down into the village, which is literally littered with barbershops, to get a half-way reasonable haircut. It took me three goes before I found a barbershop in which hair was actually cut. The first two, despite having chairs and implements only did "massage". Hmmm..... It took me a while to communicate to the girl washing my hair that I did not need a half-hour scalp and shoulder massage - I only wanted my hair cut. This was achieved, in "China-record time" about 45 minutes. I tipped them, and, in return, they slipped me a dodgy 50RMB (~AU$10) note.

  • I've had the opportunity to come to Manila for a workshop, at the Shangri La hotel. To save my School money, I booked at the Stonehouse B & B, which was cheap, and, according to the map on the internet, was just over 1km from the "Shang".

    The China Southern flight was uneventful, and I climbed into an airport taxi. It didn't take long before I realised that we were going past a large mall that was supposed to be near the Shangri La. We kept going, and going, although  "going", in Manila means a lot of sitting in traffic jams. Eventually we arrived at the Stonehouse, in a fairly down-market part of town (assuming that there are up-market sections of Manila). The rooms were fairly basic. I moved rooms, because the original was beside the elevator. It didn't matter, the second night, because the cleaning staff were out and about in the corridors, rattling their mops and buckets, literally, all night, and my sleep was, consequently, very unsettled.

    The first day, I had an afternoon and evening to kill. I walked down E. Rodrieguez Ave, past an area reminiscent of west Jakarta. I dined with The Colonel, then caught one of the public transport vehicles back up the street, for the equivalent of about 20 cents. The footpath, in Quezon, has a pink line painted along it, and periodic signs exhort the populace to follow it. When it disappears, under vehicles or street vendors, this is not possible.

    After dark, I had a beer in the hotel restaurant, then went for a walk. There were a few restaurants around, but no "night life", except for what seemed to be adjoining strip clubs.

    I had three goes at catching a taxi to the Shangri La, the next morning - the first two drivers claimed not to know where it was. It seemed like the third one didn't either, because all but the last two minutes of the half-hour trip were spent in suburban back streets. However, we emerged in a sort of business district, on the correct side of the road for alighting at the hotel.

    The Manila Shangri La is fabulous. The prices are cheap, and the staff were very friendly. En route to the workshop room, I encountered two Surabaya I. S. folk who had been attending the international schools conference there.

    The workshop, about becoming part of an accreditation team for schools, was good. I paired with one bloke in an activity, only to find he had been an administrator at Utahloy. We swapped a few stories after the workshop. At lunch, a woman joined me who, as it turned out, was an administrator in a Jakarta school in which an ex-cCiputra colleague is working.

    Back at the Stonehouse, I spoke with Helen (and Machi) on Skype, in the restaurant. I wandered out into another nearby street, which had excellent restaurants, but no decent-looking bars. I had a beer at two, but the only place where there was entertainment was back in the hotel restaurant - a passable jazz group.

    The last day loomed grey and dreary, as the previous two. The girl at the desk told me I could buy souvenirs at a place called Cubau, just up the road. I climbed into a truck and ended up at the terminus at Cubau. The only things I could see for sale were cheap clothes, fake watches and sun glasses, and young ladies. It looked like rain, so I trucked back to the hotel.

    I checked out, and headed to the mall, to see if I could get a memento or two. The mall was like malls everywhere. I bought some Body Shop stuff, unprocurable in Guangzhou, and headed to the airport.I obviously didn't see the best of Manila, but it is unlikely that opportunity will present itself in the future.

  • Cycling around Castle Hill, Guangzhou is interesting, but not exactly scenic. Rather than the fields and woods around southwest Surabaya, our current expeditions have taken us through concrete jungles. Yesterday morning the clean air index would have been very much in the negative, but it affects us aesthetically, only.

    After breakfast we caught a taxi to the next suburb/village back into town, Tong He. We got a few things that we couldn’t find in Yong Tai – electric guitar strings, blank DVD’s and watch batteries. The purpose of the trip, however, was to get plants from a nursery we had spotted from the bus window on our way home. Empty taxis are hard to come by, because the Guangzhou Trade Fair soaks them up, so we commissioned a tuk tuk to take us back. When he saw the size of the hills between Yong Tai and our apartment, he insisted  on another dollar on the fare – we were going to tip him anyway.


    Last night, we went, with friends, to an open-air barbecue area, and the food was delicious. I discovered the place in my wanderings on Friday night, before I headed off to the Halloween party at school – it’s great to work in a place in which most parents, students and teachers “put in. The Student Council did an excellent job of organizing it. The week was actually Japanese Culture week, with Japanese parents, teachers and students running a large variety of activities. Such things, by themselves, don’t make the school international, but the spirit in which they were done certainly helps.


  • Life certainly doesn't stand still. I've spent Thursday until Saturday in Shenzen, at a schools' soccer tournament, and Helen is heading to Singapore to do a school visit tomorrow. She gets back Saturday. Then, I'm off to Manila, and Helen to Jakarta.

    We have acquired a cute little kitten this weekend. We feel a bit guilty about our wonderful little boys back in Java, but Machiato is exceptionally cute. She is much more a "people" cat than the others we've had overseas and is amazingly acrobatic, even for a kitten.

    Shekou, the expat area of Shenzen that we stayed in, was brilliant. The other coach and I were put up at the Cruise Inn, which is actually a ship. The forecourt has a lot of really good bars and restaurants and there are clubs, restaurants and bars further away. Helen is interested in a weekend trip, because the shopping is supposed to be good.

    We went for a ride on our new bikes yesterday. The immediate area is not exactly scenic, but we did find a tourist spot way up a hill, with a nice lake. Google Earth indicates some spots not too far away. Helen managed to come off her bike, and give her helmet a good workout, before we even left the estate. Luckily, she didn't hurt herself, this time.

    We are still loving China. Helen had a couple of enjoyable shopping expeditions on the weekend, and people are very friendly and helpful. There is so much to do and see, just in Guangzhou.

  • A Night at the Races

    A while back, because of the experiences of some friends who had worked in Guangzhou, Helen expressed a desire to attend the races if we were in HK. I perused the Hong Kong Jockey Club site (which was not very responsive) and found that there was a night meeting. Also, there was a sort of track-side "club" called Adrenaline. I emailed Adrenaline, and then rang. I found out that ~AU$30 got you in, and allowed grazing at the tapas buffet for 3 hours. The bonus was that it was Ladies' night, and women entered gratis.

    We MTR-ed across to Causeway and trekked the rest of the way to Happy Valley. The Adrenaline entrance was well-sign posted. It was a brilliant venue. We had a small table outside, track-side, and wandered in and out to get food and place bets. The drinks were, as expected, outrageously priced, but the service was good and the atmosphere relaxed.

    Helen placed a bet on the first race (HK$10 each way) and our nag came fourth. I placed the second bet, and the win paid HK$192 for HK$10 each way. Race 3 saw another fourth, and Race 4 the horse is still running.

    We had had    enough fun by Race 5, and caught a taxi home. All up, a pleasant evening's entertainment cost us ~AU$80 for the two of us. There is a good chance that we'll do it again.

  • The honeymoon period is far from over. After two months in Guangzhou, Helen and I still love it. We’ve been on holidays since last Thursday, and have already done a lot. We spent the morning of China’s 60th

    celebration of the revolution at B and Q, a big hardware barn. We bought quite a lot of stuff, including a small step ladder, because we intended to get it all delivered. However, the delivery was going to take three days. Helen flagged a taxi, and he solved the step ladder problem by laying the front passenger seat flat, and sliding it in. We squeezed into the back seat, and most of our stuff went in the boot.

    We then got the driver to travel 100m across a carpark to Metro, a huge food barn. He enjoyed a couple of cigarettes while we acquired a Metro card, and raced around to purchase a few essentials, mainly wine and spirits. I spent the afternoon putting up photos and other artefacts on our walls.

    On Friday morning we repeated the trip to the Garden Hotel on the estate minibus, then caught a taxi to the Cloth and String market, to collect curtains that Helen had commissioned the week before. The hideous soft furnishings on display seemed endless. Nearby, we found an electrical market, and Helen bought a difficult-to-procure hand mixer. We also got an idea of television prices.

    Saturday saw Helen cooking for the evening, while I caught the mini bus into town. I was going to the Tiane He computer malls to look for a TV, but wandered into Suning at Grandview Mall. I eventually settled on a 32-inch Haier, which was delivered just over an hour after I got home. The manual is in Chinese, but I managed to change the on-screen instructions into English. Guests arrived in the evening, and we enjoyed a lovely dinner after drinks in the garden. It was the Autumn Moon festival, and there were fireworks going off everywhere. (I could see them in shops in the village, however.)


    Helen stayed at home on Sunday, while I went for a long walk down through the village and beyond. It is still quite hot, but not as bad as it has been. I wandered in and out back alleys, looking at the range of shops. There seems to be a barbershop every hundred metres, and expat urban legend has it that many of these are fronts for prostitution. I had set out in search of a massage, but didn’t find anywhere suitable. Maybe it was because I was looking around the middle of the day, when most people were playing cards or mahjong, but the few “spas” were either sleazy looking, or the staff didn’t relish dealing with a non-Chinese-speaking foreigner.

    In the afternoon we trekked up the hill to a rotunda above the estate, which give a good view over it back to the gloom of the city. We had a G & T and some nibbles while we watched the sun set.

    Monday saw us again on the estate bus to the Garden Hotel. About a kilometre short of it, we were side swiped by a kid driving his mother around. We, and they, halted on an overpass, while our driver and the mother remonstrated. We sat motionless, apparently waiting for the constabulary. He appeared, trudging up the overpass, because he thought the better of riding his motorcycle the wrong direction up it. He brought a bit of sanity to the situation by (obviously) pointing out that negotiations would be better carried out 200m down the road off the overpass. When the driver pulled in at the kerb, five of us alighted and walked the 500m to the hotel.

    Helen made a hair appointment, and we then set out, by taxi, for the jade market. It is amazing – it appears that there is enough jade there to equip the entire population of the planet with a set of earrings and a bangle each. We found some antique shops to poke around in, and Helen marked the adjoining pearl and jewellery market, and nearby Shangxiajui shopping street for future reference. After lunch at McD’s (because Helen didn’t want to waste browsing time), I caught a taxi home, and Helen went to get her hair cut.


    In the evening, friends came around for a drink, and then we caught a taxi to the neighbouring estate for a reasonable Chinese meal. Helen and I walked home through Yong Tai, which really comes alive at night.

    Today, I wrote most of this on the train to Hong Kong, where we will spend a couple of days relaxing (me) and shopping (Helen).  Catching the train was relatively painless, although I was a bit apprehensive when the Immigration woman handed me a bookmark that stated I would need another entry permit to come back – I realised, after looking at Helen’s passport, that she had looked at my original entry visa and not my resident visa. The bigger drama was that, about 10 minutes from HK, Helen realised it was the 6th, and that she had booked for the 7th and 8th! We have to stay 3 nights, not 2. It will give me a chance to catch up on Facebook and Xanga, which have recently been successfully nobbled by the PRC.

  • Our new apartment is really lovely. We’ve unpacked about 70% of our belongings, and nearly all the large furniture items are in place. The main task is to clean everything – after three months in a container, a lot of things are filthy. There is plenty to keep our new, part-time maid occupied.

    Moving demonstrated how friendly most people are in Guangzhou. When we were taking our two lift loads of possessions from the 26th floor of the Concord New World towers to the street, an old lady not only held the doors open for us to unload, but offered to help us carry stuff out to the street. We had several offers of assistance from colleagues, and, on Sunday, had to ask one to come and help us put our new four-poster bed together.  

    Helen keeps commenting on how well our material goods “fit” the new place. It certainly is great having access to our normal way of life.

     

    On Saturday, I was dripping in sweat by 7.30am, even before we had loaded our things in the van, back in town. When we arrived at Castle Hill, the woman from Schenker was already waiting. The container truck arrived straight away, and the workmen began ferrying things up to our apartment in a smaller truck. I had to leave Helen to it, while I caught a taxi to the American School to coach our girls’ soccer team in a “friendly” tournament. (We won two from four, in very trying conditions.)

    The Schenker part of the unpacking was completed around lunchtime. I returned by 4pm, courtesy of a kind offer from a parent who had driven from Castle Hill. By the evening, we were both exhausted. The heat and humidity were really debilitating.  We had biscuits and cheese  for dinner, with a bottle of champagne. We slept on a mattress on the floor in our bedroom.

    Sunday was just as hot and humid. We slaved away for the morning, then walked down the hill into the adjoining “village” – People live in multi-storey apartments, but in a sort-of-village lifestyle. We found a man who spoke English and was prepared to deliver water and a dispenser to our apartment. We bought fruit, flowers and vegetables, and a few things at the supermarket. 100% fruit juice did not seem to be in evidence. On the way back up the hot, steep hill we stopped at the more-western-but-expensive supermarket in the grounds of the estate. We ate outside in the garden in the evening, and fell into the new bed.

    Yesterday morning saw us lug a ton of Helen’s school books down to the main gate, and hail a taxi to school. It cost us ~AU$5 and took 10 minutes to get to school.  I caught a taxi home from school in the afternoon. Helen arrived later, after a training session, to talk with our maid, Annie, who announced that her husband said she already had enough work. “Luckily”, she has a sister-in-law, Amy, who can do the job. Amy’s English isn’t a lot better than our Chinese, but we’ll give her a go.   

    This morning, we again walked down to the main gate for a taxi. The guards were “on to it”. They gave us the number to ring so that they can find a taxi and send it to the front door. Again, most people set out to be helpful.  

  • This weekend, we set out bright and early for Haizu Square, this time, by metro, so as to avoid last time’s extended taxi ride. Enroute, Helen suggested that we get off a station early, and check out the famous shopping street, Beijing Lu. It has been well and truly sanitised since we walked it, 6 years ago. Helen spotted plenty of interesting shops.

     

    We wandered down to the enormous shoe market at Haizu Square. I bought two pairs of shoes at pretty much the first men’s shoes shop we encountered. I haggled briefly, and paid. The bloke rang someone on his mobile, and then indicated that I should come back in 15 minutes. My return coincided with the arrival of one of my pairs of shoes from one of the central storehouses in a bicycle basket. I did another lap of the market while the second pair was delivered.

     

    Helen set off back to Beijing Lu and I crossed the street, via the overpass, to the “One Link” centre. It is a 7-storey building with hundreds of little shops selling, to paraphrase the Chinese, ten thousand kinds of crap. However, amongst the froth and bubble are some shops selling good home wares. I poked around for nearly an hour then caught the metro home.

     

    On Saturday evening we went across the street for a small gathering of colleagues which saw us home after midnight. Consequently, yesterday morning, we didn’t have time for our early-morning walk to the wet market. We had a buffett breakfast at a nearby hotel with friends, then trekked to IKEA to look at a mattress, amongst other things, It is amazing seeing all the locals trying out dining settings, beds etc. Many of those lounging about on the furniture have no intention of buying any. We ambled back past the market and bought the weekly fruit, veg and flowers. Later in the afternoon, Helen went to have a pedicure (and found the place had wi-fi) while I wandered up the street to find a DVD shop that had been recommended. It had a very good array of titles, and I’ll be back.

     

    It has been very hot for all of our six weeks here. The locals, particularly women, nave a penchant for shading themselves from the sun with an umbrella. This, combined with their habit of meandering all over the street means that one has to be constantly on guard, or risk losing an eye.

     

    Next weekend (fingers crossed) we’ll be moving out to the “suburbs” and meeting our container of stuff. Helen has been out for a look, and our prospective maid, Annie (with whom Helen has spoken by phone, but not yet met) has also been to put in her five yuan’s worth with the renovators. Things look very promising. We need a mattress and a TV to make the place habitable. We are pretty excited because, as well as being in a nice place with our own things, we can still access town easily on the weekends - the complex runs hourly buses, and only take about half an hour on a Saturday morning. According to Helen, the local village is fairly extensive. With all the shopping areas, as well as just interesting places, we could nearly stay the next three years only in Guangzhou and never get bored.

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