Bob’s Blog

The crowds/congestion during National Holiday week are crazy… Visiting the supermarket (10 min. walk from my place) during this time wasn’t much fun… It was a very much ‘fend-for-yourself’ mentality when visiting…carts plowed into you, shoving, elbowing & line cutting everywhere…kinda felt like last minute hurricane prep shopping at Publix 12 hours before a storm :- p

An attem

pt to visit Guanqian Jie failed horribly.

(Guanqian Street – suppose to have lots of shops, restaurants, bars, etc). I hailed a taxi to take me there, but the driver told

me it was waaay too packed to even get close to drop

me off in a reasonable amount of time, and suggested the bus.

My Chinese isn’t good enough for that yet…I probably should hold off visiting anywhere until after the holiday

After the death of my original blog by switching web hosts & several failed attempts at bring back the old content - I’ve decided to start anew… My blog has been brought back at this time to log my year in Suzhou, Ch

ina.

Though I will most likely write more about other things as time progresses and I get back into the rhythm of having a blog again…

*posts below this entry were archived logs*

For the last few days I’ve been trying to figure out ways to access my site (BobChu.com) to do some very much needed renovations/repairs, so as to log my year in Ch

ina.

At first I thought my site made it onto the China Firewall block list, since I couldn’t access it via web, ssh, smtp, ftp or even ping.

After some desperate head scratching at ways to get VPN access to anywhere out of China so I could access my site remotely, a friend (Phil) theorized that perhaps the firewall blocks by IP, not by domain name…sure enough, a few E-mails to my webhost detailing the situation and I got moved to a new server with a different IP address and I could access my site again!…well via web at least…ssh, ftp & smtp are still out… but still am able to work on my site with all the not so efficient web tools (Cpanel, Net2FTP, Webmail, etc)

Now to let the fun commence in bringing back my site :-p…

Met with the teaching assistant today and received my teaching schedule & course material. The place where we were to meet (outside of the hotel on campus), we couldn’ t find each o

ther.

It wasn’ t because i

t was big area, just that everyone there was Chinese.

When I called him then waved to the guy picking up his mobile – he just had this bewildered look on his face of “Who the hell is this guy…”. The words after “Are you Robert” were “You don’t look foreign” :-p.

The hotel lobby was packed from all the traffic as sociated with the upcoming holiday week,

so we headed to my place.

The teaching assistant walked in with wide eyes, saying they set me up with a really nice place (guess everywhere else on campus looks about as good/bad as the outside)

He briefed me on my one class I am to teach – Freshmen Oral English (whew). I have 8 classes a week, 20-30 students (English Majors) per class. Duration of each class is 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Class does not begin until the 19th :-D. He gave me my one course/lesson book (around 200 pages) & class schedule. Mondays are my busy days with 3 classes, but have Thursday off…too bad it wasn’t Friday ;-). I am to give him a lesson plan after the holidays.

When asked if I have office hours or English corner hours – he said I do not have them and I can just leave after teaching the class ?. The downside is that this school has 3 campuses – I live on the main campus, however the English courses are taught at a branch campus 15 minutes away by shuttle…oh well…

I asked him some more details about pay day, airfare reimbursement, etc and was pointed to ask the department head or the foreign affairs office (a.k.a. my contact) my questions…hopefully I’ll still get paid from my arrival date, since they put an emphasis for my arrival to be ASAP…

Well I finally got the call from the foreign language department.

It was from the teaching assistant, we have an appointment for tomorrow along with

the department head.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and I was a bit puzzled about the working on Sunday thing (would think gov’t institution get weekends off), After bumping into my contact once again (was suprised to see him working on Saturday) he told me how in order for them to get 7 days off for the holiday, they have to work the weekend before it…so in essence it seems they really only get 3 days off?)

The reception

for the National Holiday was ok.

The Mayor was there with some of his staff doing the whole thank you foreign investors/business people blah blah blah….there was some traditional folk song & Beijing Opera performances during the reception.

The food was ok…guess I must’ve been spoiled by my previous workplaces receptions

…And no one from the foreign language department has gotten a hold of me yet.

I’ve been staying in my apartment with the exception to forage for food waiting for someone to come knock on the door as my landline wont be turned on and I do not yet have a mobile number or internet service.

I went a little stir crazy and took a walk around the campus & town for a few hours (leaving a note on my door). I stopped by my contact’

s office and left a message with his office mate.

Came home 30 minutes early, and sure enough there was a knock 30

minutes afterwards, it was my contact. Apparently the time I swung by his office, he was making a stop at my place… Good thing I left a note stating when I was going to be back

I told him

of my situation where no one has contacted me yet, he looked fairly suprised… We setup a time later that day to get me setup with a mobile number & internet access.

Later came and I got a mobile number (the GSM card works with my phone with the exception it cannot display the service messages that are in chinese…well its not like I would be able to read them anyway, I guess the plus side is that this gives me time to shop around for a cool phone thats not available in the states ;-)) & was shown how to get an internet (paper) card. The internet access is good for one month, but only good for one hour increments…meaning I’ll have to re-sign in every hour :-/ …well guess its better than going to the office for internet access

While getting the items above, my contact asked me what I’ ve been doing for food for the last few days.

I told him I was eating take out, etc.

He laughed at me and told me that it wasn’t healthy and that I should cook :-p. He even gave me some cooking advice & recipes Guess I’ll have to try it now, after being laughed at…

Tonight there is also a city reception dinner for the National Holiday this evening for all the internation business people and all foreign teachers are invited Should be interesting to see…

After moving in, taking a nap and doing some grocery shopping…

…I took a walk around campus…

Its not really that large of a campus, but still larger than Barry

I bumped into my contact while walking around campus and he said someone from t

he foreign language depart ment should be in contact with

me soon to brief

me on my classes, schedule, etc.

Hopefully I wont be teaching anything too complicated like persuasive speaking or grammar mechanics

After about a total flight time of around 20 hours I made it to Suzhou, China.

Thirty-three (33) hours if you want to include stop overs and driving time, but hey whose counting :-p … if you really want to know the break down …

My Place –(Taxi ~ 20 mins) –>MIA Int’l –(Checked in, Groped by the TSA & Boarding the plane ~ 100 minutes) –> Plane –(Flight to JFK ~ 3 hours) –> JFK Int’l –(Picked up luggage, Sat around for a loooong stop over ~ 9 hours) –> Check-in to flight –(sit around some more ~ 2 hours)–> On the plane –(Flight to PVG-Shanghai ~ 16 hours) –> Shanghai –(zip through customs & baggage claim ~ 30 minutes)–>Find the driver–(Drive to Suzhou ~ 1.5 hours) –> Suzhou University of Science & Technology –(Wait around for 45 minutes for someone to show me where my apartment is) –> Moved In!

Ok…guess I was bit off, it was more than 33 hours….

During my first leg of the flight, I had a pretty good Check-in Agent (Delta *amazement*). He reviewed my tickets and told me that according to some international rule, I needed a round-trip ticket to China. After putting him on the phone with my travel agent, he seemed a bit concerned that I might be refused to fly out from JFK to China with just a one way ticket,

but checked me in anyway.

Because of the one way ticket, I of course get stopped by the TSA to sit in line for a pat down - all I can do is watch my wallet, phone & laptops not walk away from the conveyor belt for 20 minutes…

After getting to JFK, I had a discussion with my travel agent about the whole one way, but suppose to have a roundtrip ticket thing…she said it was ok, and that this airline has a special agreement to allow people with U.S. passports one way passage…just in case I got her mobile #. With about another 8 hours to kill I walked aimlessly amoung the terminals at JFK pushing a luggage cart (with my 2 checked bags that I couldn’t check in for another 8 hours & me being too cheap to pay $40 to have them stored) looking for a wireless internet signal that wasnt going to charge me $15 an hour… After a bit of searching I found one that charged $8 for all day access Sure enough 6 hours whizzed by (*cough*) and I was able to check in, and no issues popped up about having just a one way ticket.

Didn’t get pulled to the side for a TSA search detail either :-D. After 2 hours of calls from family & friends wishing me well & best wishes for not getting detained/deported for having a one way ticket to China, I boarded the plane…

After a not so spectacular flight (Not much leg room, none of the cool ammenities like Cathay Pacific/AA, but still better than EVA airlines) of 15 hours I arrived in Shanghai, zipping through customs without a word spoken, picked up my luggage and was suprised to see someone holding up my name (I was told I wouldn’t be picked up until 7:30 am, my flight landed at 4:30am) It was about a 1.5 hour drive from the airport to the university at tha time of day.

After 45 minutes at the university, my contact met with me and showed me to my place

My place is much nicer than expected … Tile & Wood Floors, decent kitchen & bathroom & has a balcony :-D.