Life!

While plane flights may bring relatives (read: my Dad), schools bring diseases, namely many forms of the common cold. Teaching 165 students a week certainly exposes me to many wonderful diseases, and while I am not deathly ill I do have a cumbersome cold.

That aside, my Dad arrived in Shanghai last Thursday. The grade level teacher for my last class on Thursday afternoon, Jen, was nice enough to start and end five minutes early. So, at 2:45pm I rushed out of the school and took a cab to the airport to meet my Dad. Despite the 30 minute EARLY arrival (unprecedented for an international 14+ hour flight!), Dad only ended up waiting for me in the area for only 15-20 minutes. We took a cab home where I showed off my apartment, and then he settled in by resting his eyes. But it's not jet lag! He was just tired. :)

Following the nap Daddy unpacked his belongings and we decided to eat at the local hole in the wall restaurant down the street. We were originally going to go to a fancier restaurant, but Dad simply said, "Amy, let's eat at a nicer place when I'm more awake and I can appreciate it." So instead we dined at the Muslim restaurant. There is this Muslim restaurant about an 8 minute walk away. I drew Dad a map of the surrounding area and at the Muslim restaurant we ordered spicy cucumber, a scallion/beef dish, 20 dumplings and two bowls of rice. It cost 40 kuai, or about $5.28. Total.

Following dinner we went to DaRanFa, the local grocery store/super Wal-Mart right across the street from the Muslim place. DaRanFa has everything imaginable. We purchased CD holders (8.8 kuai, or about $1.25), milk, random food and other random purchases. Then we went home and went to sleep.

I had school Friday and Dad relaxed at home. At the end of the day he stopped by the school! I showed him all the work I've been doing. We spoke with a colleague of mine named Tom who teaches Physics and we had good conversation. Following this Dad and I stopped by the gym where they said as long as I go with my Dad, he can exercise for free. We finally got home to my apartment. Dad fell asleep again then because it was late and raining, around 7/7:30pm we took a 10 minute cab ride to the neighborhood of Zhoupu. This is a really Chinese area near where I live/work. We wandered around the night stalls that sold various trinkets, DVDs, and snack food. For dinner we had Mongolian hot pot. They heat up soup broth and you put in various veggies and meats to cook in it. Dad was delighted. He was also thrilled to find seasons 1-3 of Boston Legal for only 15 kuai (about $2).

Saturday morning we woke up, lazed around a bit then worked out. Following working out, we returned home, got ready and went downtown. The weather was still dreary and rainy but we took a cab to a subway to People's Square. There we explored the area, and went to the Shanghai Museum. Friday Dad had been enthusiastic about going to a museum (despite museum prejudice!) but when we entered he immediately changed his mind. I convinced him to go inside and we looked around for about 1-1.5 hours. We then walked down Nanjing road to try to find a place to eat and the Peace Hotel. We had wanted to go to the Peace Hotel Friday night to listen to jazz, but it was gross and late so we decided to postpone it for Saturday.

Unfortunately Saturday was equally if not more miserable. Walking around on no food after working out a lot Saturday morning didn't help things. What's worse, the stupid Peace Hotel was closed. It's been going through revamping for over the past year. It was AWFUL.

And the beautiful view on the Bund that I thought would blow my Dad away was uneventful in his eyes. It is such a shame because on a beautiful day (like how I saw it) I was so amazed and enjoyed that area so much that the dreary rain on top of the Peace Hotel being closed just was a total disappointment.

We ate on Nanjing road, took the subway and then a cab home.

Sunday morning we met up with Tom, his wife Mary, and another woman named Mary. We went to the fabric market. I wanted to pick up my coat and I wanted to take Dad there to see if he wanted anything made. The fabric market reminded him of the dry cleaners. He decided to get nothing made (I personally think that's a shame, but he said there's nothing that he needs), and my coat STILL didn't fit right, so we left the fabric market and just walked along the random alleyways/neighborhoods. Winding through the different areas, we then went to the Wen Miao (Confucius) temple. It was perfect because it doesn't have many tourists, there is a random book market there (that wasn't there when I first went!) and it's not over the top like the Yu Gardens.

We then snacked on some dumplings and took a cab home. When we got home we went to DaRanFa (again!), and stocked up on some major food. We then ate some food at the Muslim restaurant and the rest of the night was spent lounging and watching Boston Legal.

Through all of this I've been developing a cold. Monday I tried going into school and taught my first three (out of four) classes, then I came home around 11 and just relaxed the whole day. Friday I got this ridiculous gas bill for like 2000kuai. There are problems with the water heater and these problems finally began to be addressed yesterday. Nickael was nice enough to stop by the house to make sure people were coming to fix it, but when a problem happens in China, you have to complain a lot to get something fixed. Usually when it is fixed, it only looks like it is fixed properly. It's time consuming and frustrating, but eventually this heating problem will be fixed. The apartment is heated by either the AC/heater unit, or by the gas heating the hot water which somehow heats up all of the floor tiles. The floor is then warm and the warm air rises.

Dad was at the apartment this morning when the gas/water people came. Hopefully all went well!

That's all for now-- Dad and I may go to Hong Kong this weekend but I'm not sure yet.

Jump to the present

Okay, I will update you soon on my trips to Suzhou and Hangzhou (about 4 and 3 weeks ago, respectively), but I wanted to inform you all about my new hobby: Mountain biking.

Recently I've borrowed Jane's mountain bike, and I think I'm going to buy it from her. I went biking on Saturday morning with a man named Bret and Tom, Jane's husband, and we biked about 42k (25 miles). We biked to the subway station and to a plaza with Western restaurants. There we met two other friends for breakfast. Unfortunately one the ride Bret fell and really hurt himself (broken fingers and a broken arm), but he kept biking and didn't say anything about the severity of his pain. We biked to several bike shops, and I purchased biking gloves.

Saturday morning I biked about 42k (26.10 miles).

I enjoyed biking so much I joined a group of regulars who go for long bike rides every Sunday morning. I joined them and we went through farmland and also over bridges that went over canals filled with gross water. We had the chance to really see how some of the poorer Chinese people live, but it wasn't to the point of being destitute.

I got a flat tire along the way, so one of the guys in the group, Barry, was with me and helped me repair the flat tire. Of course we ended up with a crowd of about 10 watching Barry change the tubing of the tire... haha.

Following the villages/farms/bridges we headed under the mag-lift, which is the fastest train in the world. It goes from the Shanghai Pudong airport to the LongYan subway station. We biked under it, and shortly before that we went over a pedestrian overpass (over a busy road) that was covered in rice. The rice was there because you need flat open spaces for the harvested rice to dry. Of course it's fine if you bike/walk/whatever over it-- hopefully at some point they'll clean it off! Otherwise I guess the boiling water helps.

After we went under the mag-lift, we actually ended up in the factory yard where they originally constructed the mag lift. The area was desolate and huge! Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera but next Sunday I plan to.

We biked even farther and saw signs for a Buddhist temple called the 会 龙 寺(Hui Long temple) because it was on Hui Long street. The temple was beautiful. We spoke to some monks and went inside where we saw a huge wooden statue of Buddha and many other wooden statues around the area. We also passed a cool candle factory that I want to check out at some point.

Sunday morning I biked 52k (32.31 miles).

Last night (Tuesday morning) I also went biking with Tom and we met a friend named Sharyn at a place called Century Park. There we biked several loops around Century Park, relaxed at Starbucks (I had a hot chocolate and a scone), then Tom and I biked back to school. So, last night's total ended up being 40k (24.85 miles)

So basically I have biked 134k (83.26 miles) in the past four days. CRAZY!

I'm tired.