"Take oooooooff, to the great white north! Take ooooooooooff!"

From some song by some band. Great hunh?

Meg and I decided to get out of town this weekend as we were tired of just sitting around Shanghai each weekend. On the recommendation of a friend we decided to head out with him and another friend to Yangzhou! Yangzhou is a scenic river town not terribly far from Nanjing. Nanjing of course being the other city to stand as the capital of China at points in history. Soooo, Meg and I packed a small bag and jumped on a bus with our friends at 7:45 on Saturday morning and hit the road, eh kind of...

Let's take a minute to talk about road travel in China, on a holiday weekend... What is normally around a three to four hour bus ride took about five due to heavy traffic and accidents. Please reference my last post on crossing streets to get a feel of what the driving experience is like. This was a long weekend in China, because today, as I type, is tomb sweeping day. People venture back to their hometowns and pay their respects to their ancestors. We had hoped getting on the road early on Saturday would be the optimal time to go. In a country of billions, I don't think you get "optimal". Let us also be clear that we went from a city of 20 million people to a city of about 4.5 million people.

 

We did eventually make Yangzhou by the early afternoon. Trips are all in the planning. Do little and you certainly make things harder. We didn't have a hotel before we left and the bus ride up proved a comedy of it's own as our friend got stonewalled with call after call put into Yangzhou hotels turning us down. Thankfully we had a secret weapon in the owner of a brewery/restaurant in Yangzhou we knew who tracked down some rooms.

  I have to be honest, the cab ride from the bus station to the hotel was not inspiring. The sky was a deep gray, and we passed a lot of small fields where they used nightsoil 'cough' poop 'cough' ahem, excuse me. So if you have ever traveled the cattle country of West Texas you can begin to place that smell. We began making jokes about "Yangzhou is for lovers!".
Getting to the hotel turned the whole trip around. First of all we ended up staying in a higher tier hotel which was a little more expensive than we expected but after getting shut down all the way there, we were happy to take what we got. We decided a little forethought was in order so we talked to the concierge about travel back to Shanghai and found out we could nab train tickets for the next day.

I'm writing more than I thought I would for this post so I'm going to cut the post short here soon and let the pictures do the talking. What's important is that Yangzhou is absolutely beautiful city when you aren't in the industrial section. The big draw is a series of gardens that are cut by canals all over. These gardens were absolutely beautiful. The Xiuxi Hu (show-she-who) garden was so large that we barely even saw a full quarter of it. The train ride took a grand total of two hours after a short cab ride to the next city south. Really comfortable seats and a weird moving playing starring Richard Harris, Sophia Loren, O.J. Simpson, Martin Sheen, and Burt Lancaster. Set on a train, overrun by men with machine guns, then crashes and almost everyone dies.... Yeaaaah, great film to show on a train. All in all, we plan to get back to Yangzhou sooner rather than later.

 

 

 

 

 

Traffic

Getting around Shanghai is very easy in theory. Whether you arrive in one piece is completely up to the whim of whatever power you believe to be at work in the universe. Cabs are plentiful, the subway is fast and convenient. Stepping outside your front door means you take your life in your hands every single time.

Obviously you take your life into you hands every day anyway. In Shanghai though the simple act of crossing the street becomes the adventure of a lifetime. Let me take a bit of time to describe the overriding philosophy of life on Shanghai streets. The bigger object wins. Yep, from the lowly fleshy pedestrian right up to the mighty and extremely solid bus you must remember that the strong survive.

Now, Shanghai seems to be a little more under control than Taiwan, but not by much. Traffic signals here are generally suggestions. Lanes melt into each other despite lines to the contrary. The pedestrian has few friends here. For example; in the U.S. of A. we are shocked, nay flabbergasted that a car or other moving vehicle would cross into the sacred path of a person crossing the street. If you have the signal, you stand tall and proud knowing that anyone who mows you down will owe you a vast sum of money. Not so in Shanghai. Keep your head on a swivel because the only things stopping cars are actual bodies they have to remove from their fenders.

A walk signal just means you have the possibility of crossing with the light. Cars continue to stream forward into the cross walk trying to make that last centimeter of space before the human funnel blocks them out. Granted that isn't necessarily going to stop them either. People blow through red lights all the time. Turning left on red isn't even cause for pause. Cars are a little better behaved but that just leaves you open for the silent killer...the motor scooter.

You wouldn't think a moped dangerous would you? You would be wrong... The sidewalks in Shanghai, no matter how small or crowded, are also thoroughfares for hand carts, bicycles, mopeds, and full size motor scooters. Especially threatening when you consider that these scooters kill their motors and roll up behind you with no sound at all. A lot of times you will receive the courtesy beep of a horn, but those times are a welcome change from the norm.

So the lesson of all this is to know your surroundings. Pay attention because I can guarantee you that no else is...

"Shuo Zhongwen"

"Speak Chinese" Or at least that is the general gist of communicating over the next two years or so. We've arrived in Shanghai none the worse for wear. Despite a couple of days of jet-lag, we are doing pretty well. I would have posted something sooner except (large air quotes) technical difficulties (large air quotes) have kept me from doing so. That minor problem aside, I shall continue to update our travelogue as often as I can make myself do so.

Our flight in was pretty uneventful. That is always a blessing with International travel as far as I am concerned. We had a brief stop over in San Francisco which was beautiful. I had never been there before so it was great to see it if only for a day. I made the unfortunate mistake of walking up Knob Hill (sp?) . Only to find out on a cab ride over to Haight-Ashbury that there is a convenient tunnel that travels right under it. Yay for excercise!

Right now as I look out my window, snow is falling n Shanghai. Wow. I need to look up the last time it snowed here. Nothing is sticking, but the sight is fairly impressive by itself. The weather has been a mix of bright sunshine with cold, mixed in with a couple of days of heavy cloud cover/fog/crap-in-the-air and slightly warmer temperatures. I'm looking forward to the Spring even though I know that means a humidity that makes you look like you've just come through a car wash with the windows down.

I've muddled my way through a couple of conversations using whatever Mandarin my panicked mind could recall. I always walk away knowing what I should have said and what mistakes I made. That is the key though. Open your mouth, let sound come out, and try and do better the next time. Part of my problem is I need to make a list of all the things I need to learn for my own special vocabulary. I don't know if nerd-swag is easily translated here...

T-Minus...

Well, here we are... Meg and I are merely days away from making our trek to Shanghai. Needless to say we are both pretty excited about the move and are combing over all the remaining bits necessary to pull up stakes and say goodbye to steaks. Not really, but you get my meaning. We had a nice dinner tonight with some other people going to China. As we said our goodbyes, everyone kept saying "have a great trip". What? Trip? We aren't going anywhere...are we? Honey, are we... Ooooooooh riiiiiiiiight. Thaaaaat trip. I've got three more days of language and then I get tossed into the deep end. Personally I'm looking forward to my first chance to ask for the bathroom as I can't wait to see the expression on someone's face as I mangle their language. Mwahh Ha ha haaaaa.

Chinatown

Welcome to Chinatown! Otherwise known as our apartment.

Noooo we aren't in china just yet, but that doesn't stop every day from being chock full of Chinese goodness. Meg is just a short time away from completing language training. I, however, am smack-dab in the middle of the most grueling segment of language training where I get a grand total of two free hours a night to waste as I see fit. It is all worth it though. We will be winging our way to China before long and all of that training will come pouring out in a waterfall of ums and ahs as I struggle to find the word for coffee...(it's kafei).

Where do I start...

...It has been awhile since I updated because I tend not to be very good about sharing information unless it is of critical importance or unless I am motivated. Bad news for a blog dedicated to our status and experiences.

Anyway, we are six days away from the start of the 2009 Major League Baseball season and Ryan's annual experiment in perpetual agony that comes from being a fan of the Chicago Cubs. Not to say there isn't great joy in this practice, but I am still learning to adopt a world view that can surmount the heart wrenching dissapointment that follows a Cubs playoff exit. I'm getting much better at it!

We are a week and a half from finding out our posting. Needless to say we are all done waiting. At this point they should just throw us in a cannon and point it in the direction of a diplomatically starved country. I think this is how they crush anticipation and raise resignation to an uncontrollable fate.

I'm not going to talk about preferences because it is just out of our hands at this point. Needless to say, anyone reading this has a vague idea of the type of places we want to go.

Spring time= Barbecue!

Week One

It has been a busy hectic week.

Just as we rolled into D.C. A snow storm hit coating everything in a few inches of snow and bringing most of the area to a screeching halt. All the big stuff didn't really start to fall until Monday morning AFTER all the school and office closings were announced. Meg's first day did not go as planned to say the least!

I have been a lot busier than expected with spouse orientation and sorting out stuff for the new place. I thought my first couple of weeks would be like vacation with plenty of visits to museums. Well, that gets tabled until after this coming week when we finalize our bid list for our first posting. Basically we have to go through a huge list of possible posts and prioritize every single one of them based on whatever criteria we set for ourselves.

Let's go outer Mongolia!