9/9/03

It's Tuesday night, and I've just finished unpacking. I've actually been in this apartment since Sunday afternoon, however with all the drama of the last few days I put it all off. For those of you who saw my place in Toronto anytime within three months of me moving in last year, I'm sure you're very impressed... three days is a fair improvement 12 weeks!

So this is my punishment, as a result of not writing since Saturday night I now have the honor of covering three days... hooray. Ah well, won't it feel good when I'm done... or something like that.

Sunday

Sunday morning, set the alarm for 7.45 and had my last guest house breakfast before making my way over to B-2 (since renamed 'Villa B-2'), the foreign teachers residence, where I was meeting the bus for my much anticipated trip to Walmart, Shantou style.

I got to the apartments at about 9.15 and had to wait in the stifling heat (must have been close to 50) for 15 mins, before the bus arrived. Met a few of the other foreign teachers before jumping aboard. Adam was the first guy I met, tall, rock solid (guys like Adam are the reason I wasn't known as Mr. Muscles at school), American from King Harbour Washington, BA from Whitman College, nice guy. I will go through all the other folk later on. By about 9.35 we were on our way, and after a 20 minute trip, comprising of a few quick introductions and bugger all else. We had arrived at the local temple for Western consumerism.... a.k.a. Walmart.

Mr. Xu, the man in charge of foreigners, met us there, and led us inside, assigning us students who could translate for us (despite being American, everything inside Walmart was written in Mandarin, from what i've heard, it's always beneficial not to mistake Shampoo for say... Crude Oil) . I teamed up with Adam, and we had Shelley to show us the ropes. Shelley seemed to laugh about everything I was after, I'm beginning to think maybe what I bought for cleaning the dishes may actually be more effective at clearing up this nasty rash that.....ahem.... I digress. Having not actually seen the apartment i'd be in I had no idea of what I actually needed, so I pretty much followed Adam's lead. We wandered around for an hour, assembling a rather creative concoction of things, and made our way to the checkout. Thanks to the well thought out meeting time of 11.15 back at the bus, for a 11.30 departure, we were on the road by half past 12.

On the way back on the bus, Chris (Chinese, studied at SUNY Buffalo, and lived in America for a period of time, great guy, good sense of humour, I'm getting the idea that he will lead the unsuccessful fight for FTR (foreign teachers rights) by the way he was planning to ask the university for just about everything under the sun) suggested we stop for lunch at a restaurant he had found, we all agreed. Lunch was great, there is nothing like eating Chinese, with Chinese, because they order things you never thought existed. There were some deep fried shrimp like bugs, which were eaten whole, shell and all (and were fantastic), raw shrimp salad (which was also great, judging by the general looks of satisfaction, there was no way in hell I was eating raw shrimp, I'll wait for the Hep B vaccine to settle in first!), lots of eel, which was surrounded on the plate by what looked like the froth that settles in the see as a result of pollutants (you know the kind that doesn't disappear, apparently it was just egg-white, not quite as creative), and a few crabs.... all very tasty. We all paid through the nose but... at AUS$4 each... hehehe.

So back on the bus and back to the campus. Adam had agreed to let me leave all the crap I'd bought in his apartment until I moved in later in the afternoon. So I swam (humidity) back to the guest house and started packing. By 5pm I was in the apartment, which is by far the nicest place I have lived by myself. As you will be able to see in the pictures, its a pretty good size (judging by the shoeboxes I've lived in in Toronto for the last 3 years), kitchen, bathroom, balconies, living room, 2 bedrooms (yes 2 bedrooms, so if any of the young ladies i've chased around unsuccessfully over the last 5 years have finally come to their senses, then there's more than enough room for you... and if necessary your husbands). Save for the lack of hot water, phone line, internet, elevator (I'm on the 6th floor, if you want to know why all us westerners are fat and unfit, look no further than elevators and escalators.... and MacDonald's), bedding that fitted, and food... I was flying.

The real drama of the day had actually started just before I left the guest house. Someone had left their excrement a little to close to the fan. I had received an email from Les requiring me to call him, regarding a few contract issues. Turns out there were so many booby traps in the contract we were given, that the paper cuts I suffered trying to open it were nothing. We hadn't signed yet, but it was all a little disappointing. After a lengthy discussion we figured either the contract was rewritten, or we were off. We were waiting on a few phone calls as to whether we would proceed with the placement tests Monday morning.

As a result the lack of a phone line became a major problem, with Les, and then the fact that is was Father's day in Australia. So I made my way down to the post office and managed to explain to the guy behind the counter that I was after a phone card. After 20 minutes trying to figure out how to use it, he let me use his phone. No news from Les. Back outside I went to find another phone where I could focus all my powers on my phone card... thankfully I figured it out and after translating the English recorded voice on the phone into actual English, got on to the folks back home to let them know of the situation.

So everything was sitting fairly uneasily, and was pretty disappointing. Nevertheless we decided we'd show up Monday morning, and sort things out with Frieda afterwards, or at least try. So after a few bits of bread with peanut butter carefully applied, I was off to bed, in the guest bed.... what a day.

- Sam