Hello people,
Sorry that I didn’t write for a while. I’m busy trying to get used to my life here. But recently I got some positive signs about my adaptation process to my life in China: first, I went jogging this weekend. Second, I cooked yesterday.
Usually when I move to a place it takes me some weeks of stress to assimilate all the new information I receive and learn about my environment: where can I buy food, how can I pay the electricity bill, which bus goes to this place, which person is a potential new friend, etc.?
This time is taking me longer to get used to my new life and so to be able to start enjoying it. I really love the feeling when you start getting familiar with a place, when you start knowing this or that really good restaurant, this very nice shop where you can get this delicious tee, or the best way to go to a place. When you don’t need to spend so much time discovering things and you can start already enjoying some of the discoveries you made.
The discovering phase is of course very exciting, but it is also a very exhausting one. It's indeed funny and interesting to remember it, but once you have already get over it. It is fun to commemorate what happened that time when you were starving and went to that restaurant but at the end you couldn’t eat anything because the place was tea house. Or that time when you didn’t have internet for one week and thought it was some technical problem of the internet supplier, but at the end you managed to discover that the problem was that bills hadn’t been paid.
To be able to say that I was jogging in the weekend and that I cooked last day have a special meaning to me. They tell me that some normalization is taking place in my life. I already have a favorite restaurant, I already know which bus should I take to go to Chinese classes, etc. But there is so much to discover yet.
No wonder that EVERYBODY I have ever know abroad had hundreds of complains at the beginning of the abroad experience, but always sighed when they had to go back. How many times I have heard the following sentence?
“Now that I was starting to enjoy “this” I have to leave”
I’m sure I will also say this sentence word by word once I have to leave China.
By the way, that with cooking… I don’t think it will happen again. This is one of the things that I discovered for my life in China: Restaurants provide a much better relationship between quality, cost, and time efficiency, than me messing up in my kitchen.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
A Great Day
Today is one of those days for which you make great plans and achieve absolutely nothing.
I was supposed to have Chinese class today at 10 am. I woke up at 9:30 am! Shit! We start already good the day. I run to the bus stop and wait, and wait… At 10:05 am I give up and decide to take a taxi. I arrive to the school at 10:20 am just to know that my teacher is sick today and has canceled the class. Positive thinking, always positive thinking…. It is not that a big deal… I was planning on studying after the class and write my thesis… Now I have more time to do so. If I hadn’t had the class, I would have probably waked up at 12 pm anyway. I decide to go to Starbucks to wrap some breakfast and check out my emails. But the internet does not work. I keep trying and trying to connect to the network, and after an hour and a half, I finally give up. Ok, positive thinking.Ok, I get it. Today is one of those days, when I should have stayed in bed. Considering how lucky I’m today, I should probably go back home before I get killed by some crazy taxi driver, a heavy snow storm, or a wild elephant. I finally arrived at home, not before having waited for more than 30 minutes for the bus to come.
Man I love this kind of day.
Yes, here I am, freezing myself and procrastinating study. Soooo… I guess I will start now writing my thesis. Here I leave you some pictures I took today to release my fury.
[15 minutes after having written the last sentence above]
I cannot log in into my blog. I don’t know whether I should cry or laugh about this. Thank god there is my lovely boyfriend, who will post this beautiful and full of optimism post for me.
>>>>> Happy people riding their bikes
>>>>> One of Hangzhou’s many canals
I was supposed to have Chinese class today at 10 am. I woke up at 9:30 am! Shit! We start already good the day. I run to the bus stop and wait, and wait… At 10:05 am I give up and decide to take a taxi. I arrive to the school at 10:20 am just to know that my teacher is sick today and has canceled the class. Positive thinking, always positive thinking…. It is not that a big deal… I was planning on studying after the class and write my thesis… Now I have more time to do so. If I hadn’t had the class, I would have probably waked up at 12 pm anyway. I decide to go to Starbucks to wrap some breakfast and check out my emails. But the internet does not work. I keep trying and trying to connect to the network, and after an hour and a half, I finally give up. Ok, positive thinking.Ok, I get it. Today is one of those days, when I should have stayed in bed. Considering how lucky I’m today, I should probably go back home before I get killed by some crazy taxi driver, a heavy snow storm, or a wild elephant. I finally arrived at home, not before having waited for more than 30 minutes for the bus to come.
Man I love this kind of day.
Yes, here I am, freezing myself and procrastinating study. Soooo… I guess I will start now writing my thesis. Here I leave you some pictures I took today to release my fury.
[15 minutes after having written the last sentence above]
I cannot log in into my blog. I don’t know whether I should cry or laugh about this. Thank god there is my lovely boyfriend, who will post this beautiful and full of optimism post for me.
>>>>> Happy people riding their bikes
>>>>> One of Hangzhou’s many canals
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Misunderstandings
Let’s go back to my first day in China: I’ve been traveling for about 24 hours, I have only eaten some food in the plane, I’m amazingly tired and starving, and I just arrived to my new apartment in Hangzhou. I look in the fridge, but it is completely empty. I don’t know anybody who can show me around, or tell me where I can get food. So I just decide to go to the street and try to find something by myself. Eventually I find a place that looks like a restaurant to me: plenty of red Chinese lanterns decorating the entry… oh boy! Here we have our Chinese restaurant!
I come in and a woman greets me in Chinese saying a couple of long sentences that I don’t dare try to understand. I just follow her to a table and she gives me the menu: four or five pages written completely in Chinese characters… without a single picture! The only things I understand are the numbers, which I suppose are the prices. I randomly choose one of the lines and show it to the waitress. Some minutes ago she comes back with a tea pot… AND NOTHING ELSE!
I come in and a woman greets me in Chinese saying a couple of long sentences that I don’t dare try to understand. I just follow her to a table and she gives me the menu: four or five pages written completely in Chinese characters… without a single picture! The only things I understand are the numbers, which I suppose are the prices. I randomly choose one of the lines and show it to the waitress. Some minutes ago she comes back with a tea pot… AND NOTHING ELSE!
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Global Warming
The word global warming sounds like a bad joke to me right now. I’m freezing my ass over here, people!
I’m aware that news channels in Europe are intensively covering the new about the unexpected and particularly cold winter that we are having here in China. They are not exaggerating. As an example, I didn’t go to work today because of the heavy snow. Everything in Hangzhou is covered with a thick lay of snow. Many people are today out in the streets taking pictures of an unusual Hangzhou. I have never seen something like this before. ----> People sleeping in the Hangzhou rail station
I didn’t make any traveling plans for the Holidays. I want to stay in Hangzhou, study Chinese and write my thesis. I also didn’t intentionally ask for the other interns’ contact information, so I hope these next 10 days will be a complete immersion in the city and Chinese life. I will keep reporting on my Chinese experiences.
By the way, yesterday I asked somebody for directions in Chinese and I understood some of the words he answered me! The money and effort that I’m expending in language classes are paying back.
I’m aware that news channels in Europe are intensively covering the new about the unexpected and particularly cold winter that we are having here in China. They are not exaggerating. As an example, I didn’t go to work today because of the heavy snow. Everything in Hangzhou is covered with a thick lay of snow. Many people are today out in the streets taking pictures of an unusual Hangzhou. I have never seen something like this before. ----> People sleeping in the Hangzhou rail station
I didn’t make any traveling plans for the Holidays. I want to stay in Hangzhou, study Chinese and write my thesis. I also didn’t intentionally ask for the other interns’ contact information, so I hope these next 10 days will be a complete immersion in the city and Chinese life. I will keep reporting on my Chinese experiences.
By the way, yesterday I asked somebody for directions in Chinese and I understood some of the words he answered me! The money and effort that I’m expending in language classes are paying back.
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