Welcome to Shanghai, settling in (the long first month post)

At this point, not quite one month into my stay in Shanghai, I have:

-eaten hundreds of dumplings (and have gotten soup dumpling on at least one pair of shorts)
-slurped countless yards of noodles
-defrosted three packages of frozen pork buns
-taught 111 students 2 weeks worth of material
-taken approximately 40 cabs, 8 buses, and 5 subway trips
-gone to three banquets (where I've ingested more types of animals than I care to list at this moment)
-graded over 111 essays
-gotten lost in Shanghai twice
-and received more stares while walking in the street with cole than even I expected.

oh, there's more. Like our first Pizza Hut experience, which apparently is an upscale restaurant here in Shanghai, our trip to the North Korea-South Korea soccer match, my first day teaching ninth grade at SHSID(so so bad), my discovery of real cereal from the US (that Basic 4 will set you back $12 though), our visit to Old Town Shanghai, my encounters with all the people here who talk to me randomly because they think I understand (do not be fooled by the Chinese exterior, this boy was brought up in New York and New Jersey), but also the two amazing times I was able to speak Cantonese (really it was great, suddenly, I became a real person)....but for now, I'll take you back a few weeks, when we were still fresh from visiting Kyoto, and waiting in Narita airport.

This was our train ride to the airport. Looking pretty happy.

When we arrived at the airport, we went straight to pick up our luggage, which Narita had been holding for us for our entire trip through Japan. Not only did they have all of our luggage, getting it back was insanely easy and the woman didn't even charge us the full price. I love Japan.

When your luggage weighs more than you do, I think it means you've packed enough. Notice cole in the upper left hand corner changing our yen in yuan.

A nathan's hot dog before leaving. I can't tell you how surprised I was that they had these in the airport. My first hot dog since leaving the US, and only once since being in China. Tasty but no kraut.

A few hours later we were there. Shanghai, China. Sky, suspiciously clear, and air cooler than expected.

I've already recounted in my previous wordpress blog about the Shanghai airport experience (don't mess with Chinese grandmas was the take home lesson), so we'll head straight to the hotel in Pudong.

Upon entering the Radisson hotel, we were greeted with this giant thumb, towering over us, as if it were a reminder of where we stood in the grand scheme of things in China. Yep, right under that thumb, lest we forget.

Ah, the first diet coke. Tastes...interesting, like many of the water-based drinks in China. As for Pudong, it was...well, it was full of buildings and shiny new expensive shopping areas devoid of shoppers. This was also where we experienced our first culture shock, namely, our venture into a Chinese department store.

These days we're used to it, but that first day was crazy. The constant stares, all the questions they asked me in Mandarin, and people's tendency to crowd around us. We were frightened off like Nicole when she's near a needle. Clearly, we were not ready for China.

But, orientation loomed at Shanghai High School, and a day later we arrived to the campus.

Our campus is a weird mixture of carefully maintained and manicured grounds, and new industrial construction. The surrounding area is...well, it's not quite what I expected. In our office at school, we've affectionately named it the "Baise ghetto" though in reality, the neighborhood couldn't be safer (the only danger being the very real possibility of getting run over by a car/bike/scooter). The best way to describe it (until I take a few pictures), is that modern development has not hit this area yet. Seeing geese getting plucked on the streets is common, and little mysterious hole-in-the-wall shops line the sides of the busy road.

This is outside or our dorm. Most of the buildings in here look just like this.

Saying that our apartment was dirty is an understatement. Sure, we did get the new dorm building, but that also meant that it was literally fresh from construction. Layers of grit and dirt covered everything. There are some stains that are permanent, so much so that I've considered naming them. Morning, unidentifiable smudge (Schmeary perhaps), evening, left over plaster and grout (Richard maybe).

The cleaning took us weeks (up until a few days ago).

Our room in it's original state.

Ah, frozen pork buns and soy milk. The Asian in me is home.

It rains a lot here.

A frog friend on campus. The campus is full of random animals: bats descend and dive-bomb us from the trees, feral dogs and cats roam the grass, and there has been at least one sighting of a small red fox. To the right, a typical lunch here at school (at least it's free).

Orientation went by quickly. We met a number of our fellow outcast/idealistic/seriouslywhatwerewethinkingwe'reinchina! teachers, and had numerous banquets. (sorry, but this is the brief, I got to teach tomorrow morning blog version).

Hanging with some of our new buddies.

Nicole getting her picture taken with the school principal and the head of the English department. Hmm, they were much more interesting in taking pictures with her than with me....

We did go out a little, once to Xuejiahua, a main shopping area (with a Best Buy, Applebees, Dairy Queen, and also where I found glorious, glorious real cereal).

I won't lie. Our first night at school we ate at McDonalds. Yes that's right. The Golden Arches, Mickey D's, MacDougal's. The menu was easy, and we knew what everything was. That was enough reason for me. And yes, a few days later we had Pizza Hut, one of the most expensive meals you can get near campus (no joke). The Pizza Hut's take-out waiting room was nicer than many hotel lobbies. The pizza was exactly what you would expect from Pizza Hut.

On the last day of orientation, we were taken on a river cruise through the French Concession area of Shanghai. Fancy. That building with the flashing lights is a Citibank.

We also celebrated Teachers Day in Shanghai HS, which involved all of us teachers going to banquet (on the way our bus hit a truck and we had to wait for the police to sort it out, seriously, the way they drive here is some kind of combination of drunk/getting your pregnant wife to the hospital (thanks josh for the description). But wait, this wasn't just a banquet, this time there was a bonus...they gave us all two pillows each as a gift. That's Josh next to me. looking pleased with our new sleeping apparatuses.

Not only did we get two pillows, on teachers' day some of our fellow teachers performed in a talent show.

The first day of school. Pretty spiffy no? This is right before I had one of the worst days ever. In retrospect, most of my classes went well. My two English classes are fine (stories about them forthcoming), as is my Ecology and Evolution, and my History class. No....it was my writing course that killed me. Why? Because, only after teaching a solid 10 minutes, did I realize that I was actually supposed to be teaching psychology. Psychology!

So so bad. But, I cried about it enough on my other blog. For this one I'll have to learn to let it go (oh so so bad).

One thing that made me feel better was seeing this. One of the girls in my English class drew illustrations of my class rules.

No Drinking or Eating

No Cell Phones

Only English in class

Well, that's about it for now. I know this post is lacking wit and/or cleverness, but teaching is a killer on creativity (and on proper proofing, errors may be abound). Eventually I'll get caught up to the present. Lots more pictures and videos to come. Sorry for the long break between posts. Life is almost normal now. (and sorry everything here looks crazy, can't figure out how to work blogger yet...)

Smell ya later. (oh, and if the videos don't work, go to my youtube page, I try to put them on there too).