Nothing new here

Days are just ordinary here, nothing much happening. I can now see the page you see when you read my blog. They had to do some updating on my computer at work and then I could view my own blog. That's handy because then I can refresh my memory as to what I have already told you and maybe not repeat myself. I sent Brenday G. an e-mail to tell her I finally got to O'Malleys which was one of the places she told me to go and actually gave me their business card which I had to show the taxi driver to get us there. We actually took the subway across the river and had great difficulty finding a taxi (it was a rainy Friday at 5:30 - took us til 7 to get where we were going). In the meantime we walked and walked and walked along the streets and saw a little bit of what Shanghai can really be like. Lots of beggars, including children, and tons of people. The crowds were what I expected all the time with 16 million people living here. Every so often I get a glimpse of what life for many of these people is really like. That's when I see the differences not the sameness and I think if I had come right into this and had to live and work in this I would have suffered a lot of culture shock.
Not sure if I told you my brother is doing well having had an angiogram and angioplasty 4 days after arriving in the emergency ward. His wife is slowly recuperating. She suffered with lots of pain and problems with her incision after her hip replacement theory. Their household is very slowly getting back to normal.
I am learning to sing Jingle Bells in Chinese with the children. We will be singing it at the 3 year olds Christmas Party on Dec. 11th. This Sat. the YW staff will be busy with their Christmas Party for the children. I'll be thinking of you as I'm shopping at the outlet mall here. The school has arranged a shopping trip for us. Apparently these outlets are very expensive according to one friend who went in Oct. so don't know if I will actually be making any purchases.
I went to the Shanghai Concert Hall on Mon. night (Richard's and my 41st anniversary) to see the King's Singers from England. They are a sextant with amazing voices and great vocal range. It was a fantastic show. The hall is beautiful, great seats and I've read excellent acoustics which draws famous performers from all over the world.
I must start work now. See you in 3 weeks.

My first field trip in china

The doors open! Oooh! Oooh! fire trucks
Everyone spread out looking at 5 trucks.
Cameras flashing!
Children sitting in trucks, sliding down poles, some afraid.
Firefighters sliding sown poles, into gear, run to truck.
Military precision blankent folding; beds hard.
Martial arts demonstration; climbing buildings.

It wasn't quite the same as visiting the fire station at home but lots of fun and excitement. Some of the children were lifted on to the pole a little ways off the ground and they slid down. On field trips the ratio is 1 adult to 2 children so I meant it when I said the cameras were flashing. In our class we had 17 children and 11 adults including the teachers. It wasn't exactly the easiest trip. The few children whose parents didn't come were upset, the children didn't listen to their parent and when their parents left them at school again they were upset. But all in all a pretty good field trip.

I had my own exploration trip on Tues. night. I wanted to buy yarn to crochet a baby gift for one of the teachers here and I was armed with the address and store name written in Chinese for the taxi driver and directions for the subway. First, the taxi driver just said no when he saw the address and spoke to me in chinese. I finally realized he wanted to take me to the subway instead which I agreed to. (This was actually fortunate because 2 other friends did go to Puxi in a taxi and spent an hour and a half getting there - too much traffic.) So I arrive at my subway stop without a problem and proceed to 1545 Nanjing E (I'm on Nanjing) but the numbers are only at 300 so I ask where is this store. I'm pointed in the opposite direction. I walk a while but the numbers are going down not up and I'm wondering do they go to 1 and then go up but I don't know. I then noticed I'm at the Peace Hotel which is at the river. Okay try to get a taxi again to go back the other way which I now believe will be a long way off. Brenda G. You can picture this as I'm walking between the Bund and the Pedestrian Way. But it is raining and there is not a taxi to be had. So I start to walk again to the Pedestrian Way and hop on the little tourist train there. Get to the end and we are only in the 800 block. Okay it must be on the other side of People's Square so I continue on. There is a Raddison Hotel #88. Fortunately there is a concierge or whatever outside and he speaks very good english. I ask him where this store is showing him my paper. He points in the direction I just came from and I say no, I've just been there, there is no 1545. No he says it's 154 and I say what about this other five. That's the chinese character for #. The address is 154. I'M GOING TO KILL DIANA. Back I go almost to the Bund fuming. Calm down, just think of it as an adventure, you are walking around learning your way along Nanjing Lu and after, you can stroll along the Bund. Being the relaxed kind of person that I am I do just that and enjoy the rest of my night. The yarn store was piddly little but I did get some baby yarn. I had coffee and pastry in the Peace Hotel which I understand is not what it was in its early years (it's 80 years old) and then proceeded underground to the Bund. Instead I discover there is a tunnel under the river which you travel by cable car. A unique experience but not for claustrophobics or migraine suffers. I came out by the Pearl Tower. From there I took a taxi. A few dollars and 4 hours later I arrive home. But I'm pretty sure I could find any place on Nanjing Lu East.

The countdown is on!

Actually, I have been counting the weeks until I'm home for several weeks now. On Thursday it will be only 4 weeks. I'm especially anxious now because my brother Paul is in the hospital with angina attacks. He is scheduled for an angiogram on Tuesday the same day his wife is having hip replacement surgery. He went into the emergency room at Mac on Friday night and has been in the cardiac unit ever since. They have only 1 child, a daughter who has 3 small children of her own and lives in Toronto so needless to say I wish I was there to help them out. Fortunately lots of other family are doing just that.
My chinese lessons are starting to pay off. I am now able to speak slightly to the cab drivers. On Sun. I was in Puxi and wanted to go to Super Brand Mall which is across the street from the Pearl Tower. I was able to say: "Wo yao qu (I want to go to)" and pointed to the picture of the Pearl Tower on my umbrella and away we went. Mei wen ti - no problem.
We have had lots of rain for the past week. The weather is colder but not like there. Colette you will have to tell Jacquelyn that I have a Christmas tablecloth on my table with a poinsettia as the centre piece and I have had to start singing Christmas songs with the children.
I have to start work now. I think I am running out of things to say on this blog. Maybe after Christmas it will come alive again.

Pictures of School

This is the doorway to my classroom.

the playground my classroom



The gate into the campus.

I'm pretty sure I have never sent these pictures. I still cannot access the page you see when you go to my blog. Blogspot has created a new version with Google which I can switch to. I decided I should go ahead and do that now so I have to open an account with Google. I proceeded to do that but in the middle of it I got that page that says they can't get the page you want. I did learn while doing this that soon you will be required to switch to the new version. I can see that I might end up losing this blog if I can't figure it all out. I even tried to submit a problem but that went around in a circle without even letting me leave my address so I'm sure nothing will come of that.

The cold weather is here.

Hello all, Although last Sunday I sat at Starbucks, outside, in the sun, sipping a pumpkin spice latte, watching the world go by, it is now cold. Not as cold as there but cold enough to wear a sweater and a jacket. It has been off and on cold for the last 2 - 3 weeks (you know those days when you don't know what to wear) but I was still dressing quite lightly and even wore my summer clothes a couple of days. Now I'm bundling up a little bit and will soon have to wear a winter coat.
We went on a school trip to Suzhou last Saturday but it was quite poorly planned. We spent most of the time on the bus with only 3 stops. The first was at Pearl City where I did buy some jewellry very cheap. Mostly I bought pearls but I did get myself some earrings made from shells that are fun for work. We then drove close to an hour to get downtown for lunch. I ended up eating at McDonalds with a few other people. Some found a TexMex restaurant and I don't know about the rest of the people. We then drove about another hour and went to Tiger Hill which was the best thing about this whole trip. It was very peaceful and tranquil, quite beautiful and has a pagoda style tower in the centre, high up which leans just like in Pisa. We only had an hour here so not enough time to actually go to this tower. So 3 of us took the horse and cab ride around the perimeter. Unbeknownst to us it only goes half way around and their was no way they were letting us even go back the way we came for the rest of it. It was a nice walk the rest of the way, however. Then back on the bus for the 3 hour ride back home. It wasn't so bad on the bus though since on the way there I got to know people from our other campuses and on the way back chatted a lot with my regular friends. We also played the city game for awhile which was interesting because there were people from many parts of the world which brought in different city names. A bit of a geography lesson.
Everyone here is very busy counting down the time, not so much til Christmas but til we are all home with our families.
Everyone at the YW knows how I feel about starting Christmas activities too early with the children since it is such a long wait for them will understand how I feel when I say that yesterday I had to start singing Christmas songs with the children so they would know them by Dec. 8th when we have our Christmas fun day. One little girl ask me if Christmas was tomorrow. It just about broke my heart thinking how is she going to wait 7 more weeks.
Okay I have to get to work now.

It's Friday

Tomorrow, I'm off on a trip to Suzhou. The school has arranged it and is covering the cost of tranportation. My books on China have quite a few pages on this city. The gardens are supposed to be amazing. But then, all the gardens around here seem pretty amazing. Suzanne, did I tell you the roses were still blooming in Beijing. I think my last few postings might have been a bit confusing. Sorry about that. I have a hard time with the pictures and it is very slow posting them. Also, on the page I am actually writing on is different than the page you end up seeing as is the order of the pictures. For a week now I have not been able to view the page you actually see and I don't know why. Blogspot has been doing some updating of this service and I'm not sure if that is the problem or not. There is no way to contact the people who control the site even if I just go to blogspot.com it just takes me to this page that I can type on. Yahoo was down last weekend too and I couldn't order the flowers from Sears that I wanted to send to Richard for our anniversary. I felt like the computer gods were conspiring against me. Yahoo is back and the flowers are ordered.
I have been giving a lot of thought to the question of culture shock since I thought of it several weeks ago. I've asked the others that arrived with me and they haven't really noticed any culture shock. I hope tomorrow I will see Mary who is from Waterloo. She lives and works in Puxi and I think it will be different for her because she is in an area that is completely Chinese and not as clean and modern. If I really think about the differences that are what we would consider gross - spitting in the street, some of the toilets when you are out shopping, people littering (although it doesn't look like people litter because there are lots of people out there cleaning the streets) and even the differences in some of the jobs - the guards who must have the most boring jobs in the world, the garbage collectors and the long hours many people work it makes me wonder why don't I feel the shock of it all. Am I just so insulated in my own little world that I don't think about these things or just not care enough about others or don't have enough empathy to understand what it is really like for them. Lots of little things are just annoying - no online banking, you have to ask for your bill in the restaurant, clerks hovering over you and trying to sell you something you are just curious about and just not being able to ask a clerk where something is. It's a lot of food for thought and I do want to develop a deeper understanding for this part of the world so I think I will have to try to develop some discussion with some locals.
Let's move on to lighter topics. We are celebrating 2 birthdays this week. Tonight we are going to a Janpanese restaurant for one and on Sun. we will bring cake to surprise Lizabet who is the wife of one of the teachers. Did I mention it's Friday. My electric bill this month is only 69 RMB. My first month it was 811. It was hot I left the AC on all the time.
I need to buy some lullaby tapes for here. Wendy, I'm going to e-mail you about this.
All right, I have run out of things to say. I hope you are all well and enjoying your work.

More pics from Beijing

This picture of the closeup of the wall shows the spot I almost fell from. Getting down from that flat roof in the background doesn't look like much but it was. I started wearing my warmer clothes this week because on Mon. at 3:20 when the kids went home it was quite cool as was the next day at that time. Tues I wore warmer clothes and have continued all week but I have been too hot since the temps have gone back up to the mid 20's and now at 4 p.m. it is still warm. I know all you people in cold Canada really wanted to hear that. Enjoy the pics.

Pictures from Beijing

Claire and I with the wall winding through the mountains.
The foreground of this picture is where we first stepped onto the wall.

This is me in the parking lot at the wall. You can see the turrets at the top.
Believe it or not, the Great Wall is in these pictures. It was our very first glimpse of the wall.

The Great Wall

Hi All, I have been so busy I haven't had time to blog. Even now I must rush. Just wanted to tell you I climbed the Great Wall and I have the scratches and sore muscles to prove it. I have no pictures online to show you right now. They were put on a CD and then I discovered our D drives are not accessible to us. So later I'll show you the spectacular views. It was probably the most exhilirating experience I have ever had. It is the mountains and the views that provide that rather than the wall itself. To me the wall is the reason people go but it is nature that is so inspiring and magnificent. Must go.

The Great Wall

Hi All, I have been so busy I haven't had time to blog. Even now I must rush. Just wanted to tell you I climbed the Great Wall and I have the scratches and sore muscles to prove it. I have no pictures online to show you right now. They were put on a CD and then I discovered our D drives are not accessible to us. So later I'll show you the spectacular views. It was probably the most exhilirating experience I have ever had. It is the mountains and the views that provide that rather than the wall itself. To me the wall is the reason people go but it is nature that is so inspiring and magnificent. Must go.