The best laid plans....

I am in techno hell.

My iPhone is completely useless, and I have my whole life on my phone. I am distraught. First it was just a simple matter of trying to synch my contacts list into my itunes folder. I clicked the box and pressed the button and all my contacts disappeared off my phone, some of these contact numbers also doubled as my pin numbers for my credit cards and my Internet banking numbers. Fortunately some little voice in my head had made me jot down my two Internet banking access numbers, thank god for pen and paper!

Second my Kindle is buggered as I mentioned before, so I have NOTHING to read. ALL my books and reading was on kindle, I also had audio books on my iphone aarrggh - see the depths of my dispair? I had emailed Amazon, they had replied but said I had to ring their help service. Obviously this meant a call to the UK, so I was looking to buy a phone card so I can use the phone in my flat (which will not allow international calls, Ive tried) But Tom, the American colleague told me about using Skype and buying a skype phone number.  So Ive done that, it was not a lot of money and as the number is registered as a UK number I was able to use the free phone number. I was then able to call my bank for both of my accounts and all that time cost me less than £2 so that was a really useful bit of information.

One of the ongoing problems re the iPhone is that I was using it for taking the photos you have been seeing, I do have my large camera, but its a bit bulky just for general gadding around.  So it looks like I might have to buy a phone here in China, well I suppose its an imperative, because people are already asking me for my China mobile number, so that's going to happen today or tomorrow, and Ill get one with a camera. So no pictures for a bit

Apart from this one which is Nanjing from earlier in the week

To come up to date, on Thursday, the day after meeting Tom and Peggy we arranged to meet and take a trip into Nanjing to visit Walmart. It seems to be one of the few places one can buy regular size towels, and like me Tom and Peggy are still setting up home and we all needed bits and pieces.

Tom and Peggy were also interested in the fact that I am a vegetarian and wanted to know more about what and how to cook, especially in a wok. Remember we only have one gas burner, no cooker, just the burner and a microwave. So we bought some stuff, Tom telling not to buy anything he wouldn't eat, strong flavours, etc. So he was a bit hesitant when I bought tofu knots and tofu strips, some mushrooms, and seaweed.  That evening in  his flat (it was his birthday too) I cooked the meal, giving Peggy a masterclass in cooking in a wok (coughs modestly). Want to know the secret?

How to cook Chinese in a Wok

1. Get the Wok really hot
2. pour in some good oil, we used sesame it has a hotter smoking point
3. Throw all the bigger stuff in first - ie stuff that may need a little longer to cook
4. Splash some soy sauce in
5. Stir
6. Throw the quick cooking stuff in
7. Maybe a little more soy sauce
8. Stir

Serve with the rice you have just done in the Rice cooker, which was also experimental, because none of us had used a rice cooker before, Richard had given me a 10 second induction, pointed at the button to press and that was the sum total of my training, but it worked.

Have some Sezchwan (sp?) Hot Sauce to add heat.

Yum - Tom had thirds!

Friday I spent zooming around a bit trying to understand my locality and get used to where I am, I found my bike shop and the petrol station, which was a result and got a coffee loyalty card from my local McD's (buy 4 get 1 free) - this has become, or is going to become a regular stop, until I can find somewhere else with decent coffee and somewhere to sit outside, now only if the sold the Guardian newspaper that would be almost bliss (bliss would be having my favourite Guardian reading partner here too - hey Lucia?)

In the evening, well mid afternoon at about 3, AJ took us into Nanjing to take us to a couple of Ex Pat bars and to meet some other English Teachers there. So I met us with Sheree, who is a New Zealander and who was going to be a colleague at No1 school before they moved me, I had met her in Beijing. Stephanie, an American that Tom and Peggy (T&P) had met on the flight from Shanghai as they made their way here. There were a couple of other guys, a Brit who was an engineer and in business here and a German guy who owned a bar I think.

Anyway we had a beer and because the bar was mainly selling meaty things like Taco's n stuff I sloped off and had a bowl of noodles at a street stall nearby, again really good, with a chilli paste on the side, a bargain at 5Y (50p ish).  Then we trailed to a couple of other bars one that was dull as ditch water, plus I wasn't drinking, not at about £4 a bottle and then we visited a bierkeller. The beer was even more expensive here. AJ

We got home about 9, having taken a taxi mainly because AJ's Chinese wife was hollering at him on the phone to get home! But all in all it was nice to meet new people and see a different area of Nanjing.

I spent the rest of the evening on the phone, which is where we came in.....

Today (Saturday) we are off to the College for the first time.....

Nanjing City addendum

Just remembered two events I wanted to mention about Sundays trip to Nanjing City but I forgot.

Both are 'image' related.

The first. I was walking down the pavement minding my own business when a noticed some girls/young women leafleting. I took no notice and I though that because I was obviously a westerner they would ignore me too. But no, one woman peel off and deliberately handed me a leaflet. "Oh" I thought, 'I wonder what this is?"  On close perusal it seemed that the leaflet was advertising a weight loss programme/medicine/witchcraft. Perhaps because I had dark glasses on they thought I was Chinese, doncha think? Doncha? Huh? Huh?

The second was, I noticed I was being followed quite closely by a guy, short, studenty looking but also a little weird. He started to talk to me, but very strangely. In good English, but very fast and staccato, just pouring it out. He was going on about Nanjing and what a nice city it was, did I like it? (not giving me time to answer) and blah blah blah, then he started complimenting me, about how nice I looked, how I had nice hair, how I had a big nose...yes that's right, how I had a nice big nose....

I told him I had to be somewhere, but he told me he had something important to tell me, unfortunately I couldn't spare the time to find out what it was....

My Flat in Nanjing and first impressions.

Incredibly I will have been in China a whole week, at around 8:30 this evening.

What are my first impressions? I think China is much more modern and advanced than we might think back home in the UK. To be honest, having visited the former Soviet Union and in particular Ukraine, I was expecting a certain amount of 'Soviet Shabbiness", serried rows of crumbling brutal Stalinist type flats and everything a bit ramshackled. Shops with not a lot in them, obvious poverty.

What I have seen so far seems to be far from that reality. There seems to be lots of building of attractive, flats and office buildings, the roads are wide attractive avenues, busy with cars, bikes and buses. Nanjing City (of which more in the next blog) is modern and thriving. All of the major capitalist business from McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, to Vesarce, Dior and so on have got big stores, the American fast food outlets are ubiquitous. And they are all busy.

The metro is modern, clean, fast and cheap, the buses are regular and cheap, one buys a card, like an Oyster and use that everywhere.

The proviso here, of course, is that Nanjing is a former capital and is prosperous and China is a huge country and there are millions of peasants out in the outlands, it will be interesting to compare life in the City with that in the Countryside, but I know from my reading that China is experiencing a rapid urbanisation, so we need to keep that in mind.

So back to me and my flat. I'm on the 6th (top) floor - the penthouse obviously...

This is the entrance

There are five or six similar blocks on the plot all within a gated plot  with security at the front. Access is via swipe card.

This is the sitting/dining room

with a view onto the kitchen

Currently the one burner cooker isn't working and I'm currently waiting in for the 'gas man' to come and fix it. Fortunately there is a microwave so Ive been able to fix noodles, and last night scrambled eggs on toast.  There is also a brand new rice cooker, but Ive never used one and the instructions are, yes you guessed it, in Chinese.

This is the view from the dining room to the bedroom

And this is the bathroom...

with  nice shower...

Now please join me in my bedroom (no not you @wifeinthebin)

And this is the view from the window...

Can you just see the pagoda through that little gap in the tree? Apparently its a nice walk up to it for a great view

So that's the trip around my gaff/crib etc. It comes with air con and heating and a telephone, cable TV (1 English news channel from china and a film channel and about another 75 Chinese channels showing everything from Beijing Opera (surreal) to shopping channels selling the usual tat).  This is all rent and utility bill free. I have to pay for the water bottles. 

Main problems so far.  Well locking myself out on Saturday morning was a major problem. They hadn't mentioned that the door was self locking! So I took some rubbish to the bins and when I got back I was locked out. Locked out with no key, telephone, wallet or any idea what I should do. So I went down to the security guys one of whom came back to my flat, saw I need a key and went off. He came back shaking his head, no, no key. Arrrrgh what can I do?  I asked the guard if he knew AJ? I had some vague notion that AJ lived in the same block of flats, but I couldn't really remember what with all that had happened at the seminar and all.  AJ? The Guard asked.  Yes AJ I said. Ah yes AJ. He took me to his flat on the 5th Floor. His wife was in, Soon we had contacted Richard my college liaison guy and an hour later he was here with a key.  Stupid huh?

I'm about a 20 minute walk from the nearest big supermarket type shop, although there are some nearby, it seems I might be in an opticians, hairdressers, double glazing window area because that's what they seem to be. Theres two small restaurants and a chemist advertising Viagra.

The flats pretty comfortable and Ive settled in, bought all the bits and pieces I need from the local supermarket with no real problems. Its very humid outside and the external temperature is over 80c so the AC is a blessing.