It is 5:30 am in the morning August 25th here and both of us are up eating rice and eggs for breaky, so the jet lag is not bad at all. The last few days have been fairly hectic, but we have been having a great time and had great people to travel with. From van airport to the school took 26 hours. Our first flight was delayed by four hours so we waited around the airport before the 12 hour flight to Guangzhou. We were following the sun, which was neat because for us it didn’t set until around 3 am. The flight was long but we both slept, Danny finished his entire book, The Golden Spruce...he said it was one of the best books he’s read in a long time and highly recommends it. I felt bad for the couple next to us, they had flown from Ontario and were continuing on to Australia. :l
Anyway, when we got to the airport it was panic because instead of the 4 hour layover we had an hour and a bit to exchange our tickets, get out bags, go through customs, recheck our bags and do the thirty minute walk to our gate. It all went very smoothly though. Our second flight ended up being delayed a bit and we took off around 1045(745am pst).
We get to Wuhan a few hours later and are waiting for our luggage, and we wait and wait and everyone leaves and no luggage, by this time we are so exhausted neither of us really cares as much as we probably should have. The next few minutes were spent trying to hand gesture with the baggage woman what our stuff looked like and getting her to let us leave so we could find the people picking us up, so they don’t leave without us. Finally, she left with us and we found the principal and he got his secretary who is Chinese to figure things out. Our bags got sent to Shanghai and they would be here tomorrow. We got to the school at 230 am. (now you can figure out if I counted correctly how long the trip was haha)
It seems like most things in our apartment look really nice at first glance, but has some cracks and flaws if you look closer. It’s two bedrooms, one bathroom. It’s major downfalls are that we are on the first floor and we face the school. We will probably stay but we hear the off campus apartments are really nice with a great neighborhood.
The school is huge! There are three schools, the international school (where we are teaching) is the biggest. It is essentially a boarding school so there are student dorms, which are on the other side of the cafeteria building and the teaching building (thank goodness).
Yesterday was our first true experience of China, and it was awesome. We went shopping for cleaning supplies and basic necessities for our apartments at Walmart, and before you think, “What? They are in China, why would they take you to Walmart?” trust me, it is not like Walmart in Canada. They have some of the same stuff, but the majority is not. We spent two hours shopping and spent 300 dollars three shopping carts full of everything we need in our house for the year plus groceries. It was kind of crazy with all thirty of us Canadians running around the place.
After, the school took us out for dim sum. It was very fatty (even the vegetables, which is what we tried mostly to eat), very good and some was quite spicy. After supper, we headed straight for our boxspring of a mattress..jaja.
Oh ya and still no luggage, hopefully today. Everyone cross your fingers! Thank god some very awesome people got us some very nice gifts to open on the plane ;)
There was also a praying mantis with its head chopped off outside our apartment and Michele squished a giant centipede with her foot! Last night we went over to a teachers house and he had all the new teachers over and many of the old staff as well. Danny accidentally drank too much but ended up having a really good time. He drank some really strong Chinese liquor called Bai Jo. It smells good but is the worst tasting alcohol he has ever had. We made lots of new friends including an elderly asian man dancing by himself at the dance club we went to later that night. Danny tried to get convinced to go to a different club down the street that was run by these sketchy african guys...that didn’t end up happening even though they offered to give us free drinks. Danny tried to “dance the liquor off” and ended up eating street noodles with quail eggs. We are trying hard to eat as little meat as possible but it is challenging given that pork is basically a seasoning here. We are not really vegetarians anymore :(
Feel free to post questions/comments or email either of us!
