The third week dawned into a stuffy morning with a cloudy sky and it felt like a typhoon might soon hit us. The news said that the storm had already passed and is now doing damage in Taiwan.
I got up early today and went to morning exercise with the kids. A quick run and some stretches did wonders for my mood and gave me an energy boost, so I guess it's a good idea to attend morning exercise in future.
The weekend was well spent. We rented bikes yesterday and went for a 2 hour bike ride exploring Jinju's riverbank. It felt great to have all that exercise and I also got a few nice photos of the city.
After we returned our bikes, we bumped into a group of Koreans who were water-skiing on the river. They invited us to join them and have a go on the skis. Well, one of us did and she did a really fine job! I might try next time, but it'd be my first time on water-skis.
In the evening we had pizza and red wine at an Italian place. It's so nice to eat anything that doesn't come from the campus cafeteria.
Early to bed ready for the challenges of the new week.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Friday, 7 August 2009
Monday, 3 August 2009
Week Two and Counting
The first week of torment by children was surprisingly tolerable, at times it was even fun.
Generally, our students have a positive attitude towards the teachers and studying, so are usually a pleasure to teach. It's the 12 hour work days that are so draining. The other teachers are an interesting and friendly mixed bunch of old Korea hands, mercenaries (like us!) and real career teachers from overseas. Apparently we even have one physicist among us, although this does beg the question, 'why are you here?' This guy talks constantly and loudly about his many skills, including his multilingual ability, his unmatchable teaching and his prowess in science.
Portia and I are roommates and we share a large and quite comfortable dorm apartment. In the first week of camp, at 6.45 every morning, the camp director's voice (accompanied by music) blared a jolly morning greeting out of a loudspeaker embedded in our wall. Considering that work didn't start until 8.30, this was a step too far. Later that week, we disconnected the speaker with a screwdriver and a Leatherman. Ah, peace at last.
At the weekend, when our precious single day off came around, Portia and I went for a mountain hike with some of the other teachers. Korea has some stunningly beautiful natural scenery when you get outside the city. Clean and green, it reminded me of home. Not China home, real home.
Generally, our students have a positive attitude towards the teachers and studying, so are usually a pleasure to teach. It's the 12 hour work days that are so draining. The other teachers are an interesting and friendly mixed bunch of old Korea hands, mercenaries (like us!) and real career teachers from overseas. Apparently we even have one physicist among us, although this does beg the question, 'why are you here?' This guy talks constantly and loudly about his many skills, including his multilingual ability, his unmatchable teaching and his prowess in science.
Portia and I are roommates and we share a large and quite comfortable dorm apartment. In the first week of camp, at 6.45 every morning, the camp director's voice (accompanied by music) blared a jolly morning greeting out of a loudspeaker embedded in our wall. Considering that work didn't start until 8.30, this was a step too far. Later that week, we disconnected the speaker with a screwdriver and a Leatherman. Ah, peace at last.
At the weekend, when our precious single day off came around, Portia and I went for a mountain hike with some of the other teachers. Korea has some stunningly beautiful natural scenery when you get outside the city. Clean and green, it reminded me of home. Not China home, real home.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Does Korea have a soul or just Seoul?
Ah, my third visit to the beautiful land of kimchi has begun.
We arrived on the boat from Dalian and disembarked into a different world, where we truly felt like foreigners. With no language skills and little chance to develop much cultural understanding, we relied on the kindness of Koreans to help us reach our destination. The general good manners in Korea are a welcome change after so long in the etiquette wilderness of China. But after feeling fluent in the language of your present country, it was challenging to be totally incompetent in the language of this one. Even the simplest tasks, which we would take for granted in China, became a complicated issue in Korea. Nevertheless, we successfully and smoothly navigated our way from Incheon Port to a bus station containing buses that would take us to our final destination: Jinju City. Four hours and some beautiful Dunkin' Donuts later, we'd arrived in Jinju. A tricky taxi ride took us onto campus and we landed up outside our dorm room. The campus of Gyeongsang National University reminds me a bit of Exeter Uni; clean, green and pleasant. But GNU has a exciting special feature, WiFi everywhere! I was able to use Skype to call China from the middle of the grounds. Korea is rightly known as one of the most wired countries on the planet.
We arrived on the boat from Dalian and disembarked into a different world, where we truly felt like foreigners. With no language skills and little chance to develop much cultural understanding, we relied on the kindness of Koreans to help us reach our destination. The general good manners in Korea are a welcome change after so long in the etiquette wilderness of China. But after feeling fluent in the language of your present country, it was challenging to be totally incompetent in the language of this one. Even the simplest tasks, which we would take for granted in China, became a complicated issue in Korea. Nevertheless, we successfully and smoothly navigated our way from Incheon Port to a bus station containing buses that would take us to our final destination: Jinju City. Four hours and some beautiful Dunkin' Donuts later, we'd arrived in Jinju. A tricky taxi ride took us onto campus and we landed up outside our dorm room. The campus of Gyeongsang National University reminds me a bit of Exeter Uni; clean, green and pleasant. But GNU has a exciting special feature, WiFi everywhere! I was able to use Skype to call China from the middle of the grounds. Korea is rightly known as one of the most wired countries on the planet.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Zaijian
Today is my penultimate day in China. I'm surrounded by the accumulated remnants of my time in Dalian. It's chaotic, but gradually becoming more organised as I get brutal and throw out/give away even more of my stuff. Soon I'll have very little left, but it will still be more than enough. The value of travelling light is not truly appreciated until you find yourself comfortably and easily transporting your luggage from airport to train station, ferry to bus stop, without breaking sweat, viciously kicking the suitcase, or slipping a disc. I get a smug feeling of being an experienced and smart traveller when I can move my own luggage with ease. I bought a new suitcase yesterday to replace the old black behemoth with the dodgy wheels. That thing is so cumbersome and really makes me mad every time I have to deal with it. It will be staying in China this time.
As the time of departure draws nearer, I'm feeling quite sad and am thinking of my favourite places in Dalian, thinking that it's the last time I'll see them. Leaving friends behind is even worse, especially Chinese friends who can't easily travel and visit me in Belgium or elsewhere.
Part 2:
The last day in Dalian has been and gone. I said goodbye to the last of my friends, packed up the remains of the apartment and handed the keys back to the landlord. There's one person I'll especially miss, but he'll be going to my country soon and may even be there when I arrive home. This melancholy feeling about leaving people/places behind seems to increase as I get older, this semi-transient lifestyle is painful at times, but I know that I'm happier this way than I would be with some of the alternatives. I've been very lucky to meet some fascinating people and live in some great places. That's going to continue for a few more years yet!
I'm off to Korea on a ship.
As the time of departure draws nearer, I'm feeling quite sad and am thinking of my favourite places in Dalian, thinking that it's the last time I'll see them. Leaving friends behind is even worse, especially Chinese friends who can't easily travel and visit me in Belgium or elsewhere.
Part 2:
The last day in Dalian has been and gone. I said goodbye to the last of my friends, packed up the remains of the apartment and handed the keys back to the landlord. There's one person I'll especially miss, but he'll be going to my country soon and may even be there when I arrive home. This melancholy feeling about leaving people/places behind seems to increase as I get older, this semi-transient lifestyle is painful at times, but I know that I'm happier this way than I would be with some of the alternatives. I've been very lucky to meet some fascinating people and live in some great places. That's going to continue for a few more years yet!
I'm off to Korea on a ship.
Friday, 10 July 2009
Diplomatic Mission
It was a Sunday afternoon and a motley bunch of travellers were meeting outside Dalian railway station. A South African, a Pakistani, one American and one Brit. Together they boarded a sleeper bus bound for Beijing. After a restless and bumpy night in the small bunks, and 13 hours later, they staggered off the bus into the early hours of a Beijing morning. The city was quiet at 5am and the air felt unusually fresh.
Waiting for the subway to open, they went into a McDonald's to eat and freshen up. Some of the McD's customers that morning were a little strange. They stared at the foreigners and made obnoxious remarks in Chinese, not knowing that most of us could understand perfectly. When the remarks turned into insults the foreigners began to reply, utilising a few of the prime Mandarin curses taught in good humour by friends in Dalian. It is said in China that a foreigner can only speak Mandarin when he can be understood in Beijing. I'm proud to say that we've finally achieved that lofty linguistic level. The waitress came to us and explained that these three dressed-up girls were drunk and had 'brain problems' (her exact words...) Soon after this we left the restaurant and headed on our way.
Sanlitun:
This is the bar and embassy area of Beijing and the place to find a LOT of other foreigners. We booked a dorm room at the Sanlitun Youth Hostel, which I'd highly recommend for its prime location, good service and comfort/cleanliness. Great if, like us, you come to Beijing on a mission for visas. The hostel is within easy walking distance of many embassies, though we relied on taxis for convenience sake.
Most of us had our own missions, but the first part of my personal one was to get the Korean work visa. I went to the Korean embassy and although I was missing two important documents, they were happy to accept copies sent by email from Korea. The girl behind the desk was helpful and we spoke in Chinese throughout. I successfully submitted my visa by Monday afternoon and was told it would take four days to process. 'Can it be sent to Dalian by post?' - No. 'Can a friend in Beijing collect it for me?' - No. The only option was to wait in Beijing. Bad news for someone with a full-time job, fortunately not me at the moment.
My friends had varying luck with their missions to the Spanish and Canadian embassies. Getting visas can be an extremely frustrating and uncertain process, even for citizens of the UK and USA. There seem to be no central set of requirements, meaning that different embassies are free to insist on seeing documents that you never knew were needed. It's almost impossible to contact an embassy worker by phone to get advice, they rarely answer emails promptly if at all, and have many rules seemingly designed to irritate and inconvenience honest people who are simply trying to travel. I could talk about embassies for a while, there are so many things about their workings that simply don't make sense to an outsider like me. Suffice to say, by the end of the week some of us had done as much as we could for our applications.
In between all the panicking and rushing around, we managed to relax and eat out at some cool places. We found Pakistani, Mexican and Vietnamese places, making a pleasant change from Dalian's rather limited selection of cuisines. One evening I met a potential classmate from the course at HU Brussels, Eva, and her friend Belinda. They're both Beijingers and were very nice company that evening.
My week had been going smoothly until Thursday when I was due to collect my Korean visa. Actually, the visa was no problem and I picked up my passport on time. After collecting it, I went to buy my ticket for the Trans-Manchurian train to Moscow in August. The ticket cost 4400 RMB, but my overseas bank account stopped after withdrawing 3000 and declined my card. Panic! Luckily my South African friend saved the day by loaning me the rest of the cash, but it was a tight squeeze as I raced to the ticket office and bought the ticket with 15 minutes to spare before closing. We'd already booked a train out of Beijing that night, so missing the ticket office would mean delaying my departure from Beijing or coming back again next week, neither option would be cool.
It was a great relief to have both passport and train ticket in hand, and to know that we were leaving Beijing that night. By this point, my other two friends has returned to Dalian, so the American and Brit were left to manage alone. Which they did very well, settling down to wait for the night train with burritos and margheritas on Sanlitun bar street. A quirky Belgian guy with crazy hair joined our table, seemed quite excited when I told him I was going to Brussels, then gave me his parents' number saying I could live with them. Rather odd guy, but it was nice of him to buy us a mango margherita.
Later we headed back to the hostel one final time, showered (you should try to shower as much as possible before getting on overnight transport in China...) and left for the train station. One comfortable night on the train later, we landed in 'beautiful' Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province and a place I usually get out of asap. I left my friend to continue her embassy mission there and got on a bus to Dalian, where I arrived four hours later feeling relieved to be home.
Waiting for the subway to open, they went into a McDonald's to eat and freshen up. Some of the McD's customers that morning were a little strange. They stared at the foreigners and made obnoxious remarks in Chinese, not knowing that most of us could understand perfectly. When the remarks turned into insults the foreigners began to reply, utilising a few of the prime Mandarin curses taught in good humour by friends in Dalian. It is said in China that a foreigner can only speak Mandarin when he can be understood in Beijing. I'm proud to say that we've finally achieved that lofty linguistic level. The waitress came to us and explained that these three dressed-up girls were drunk and had 'brain problems' (her exact words...) Soon after this we left the restaurant and headed on our way.
Sanlitun:
This is the bar and embassy area of Beijing and the place to find a LOT of other foreigners. We booked a dorm room at the Sanlitun Youth Hostel, which I'd highly recommend for its prime location, good service and comfort/cleanliness. Great if, like us, you come to Beijing on a mission for visas. The hostel is within easy walking distance of many embassies, though we relied on taxis for convenience sake.
Most of us had our own missions, but the first part of my personal one was to get the Korean work visa. I went to the Korean embassy and although I was missing two important documents, they were happy to accept copies sent by email from Korea. The girl behind the desk was helpful and we spoke in Chinese throughout. I successfully submitted my visa by Monday afternoon and was told it would take four days to process. 'Can it be sent to Dalian by post?' - No. 'Can a friend in Beijing collect it for me?' - No. The only option was to wait in Beijing. Bad news for someone with a full-time job, fortunately not me at the moment.
My friends had varying luck with their missions to the Spanish and Canadian embassies. Getting visas can be an extremely frustrating and uncertain process, even for citizens of the UK and USA. There seem to be no central set of requirements, meaning that different embassies are free to insist on seeing documents that you never knew were needed. It's almost impossible to contact an embassy worker by phone to get advice, they rarely answer emails promptly if at all, and have many rules seemingly designed to irritate and inconvenience honest people who are simply trying to travel. I could talk about embassies for a while, there are so many things about their workings that simply don't make sense to an outsider like me. Suffice to say, by the end of the week some of us had done as much as we could for our applications.
In between all the panicking and rushing around, we managed to relax and eat out at some cool places. We found Pakistani, Mexican and Vietnamese places, making a pleasant change from Dalian's rather limited selection of cuisines. One evening I met a potential classmate from the course at HU Brussels, Eva, and her friend Belinda. They're both Beijingers and were very nice company that evening.
My week had been going smoothly until Thursday when I was due to collect my Korean visa. Actually, the visa was no problem and I picked up my passport on time. After collecting it, I went to buy my ticket for the Trans-Manchurian train to Moscow in August. The ticket cost 4400 RMB, but my overseas bank account stopped after withdrawing 3000 and declined my card. Panic! Luckily my South African friend saved the day by loaning me the rest of the cash, but it was a tight squeeze as I raced to the ticket office and bought the ticket with 15 minutes to spare before closing. We'd already booked a train out of Beijing that night, so missing the ticket office would mean delaying my departure from Beijing or coming back again next week, neither option would be cool.
It was a great relief to have both passport and train ticket in hand, and to know that we were leaving Beijing that night. By this point, my other two friends has returned to Dalian, so the American and Brit were left to manage alone. Which they did very well, settling down to wait for the night train with burritos and margheritas on Sanlitun bar street. A quirky Belgian guy with crazy hair joined our table, seemed quite excited when I told him I was going to Brussels, then gave me his parents' number saying I could live with them. Rather odd guy, but it was nice of him to buy us a mango margherita.
Later we headed back to the hostel one final time, showered (you should try to shower as much as possible before getting on overnight transport in China...) and left for the train station. One comfortable night on the train later, we landed in 'beautiful' Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province and a place I usually get out of asap. I left my friend to continue her embassy mission there and got on a bus to Dalian, where I arrived four hours later feeling relieved to be home.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Beijing by bus
In general, public transport in China is pretty damn good.
Dalian has a comprehensive network of buses and trams, plentiful taxis, and even a few ferries. Prices are cheap and service adequate, if not luxurious. I greatly admire the national train system. Most of China is well-covered by trains, there is even a train to Tibet. Considering the huge distances travelled, prices are very reasonable and certainly compared to the UK, where a trip hour trip from Exeter to Reading can cost over one hundred pounds. Ordinary people can afford the train in China, indeed, it's usually their preferred form of travel. I was looking forward to a nice overnight train trip to Beijing tomorrow, safely perched on a top hard-sleeper bunk. But the trains are so popular, and the Chinese people so many, that tickets often sell out days in advance. There were no tickets left for Beijing this evening, so my three friends and I had to resort to another form of transport - sleeper bus.
I had never seen sleeper buses before coming to China. They're strange and somewhat dangerous, with their three-bunk high interior they're prone to tipping over when driven in strong winds or by careless, reckless drivers. I've ridden Chinese sleeper buses before though, and it's a tolerable if not desirable way to travel. I much prefer lying down to sitting upright for long periods, especially overnight as I can't sleep in an upright position. Fellow travellers on sleeper buses can be rowdy and raucous, drinking baijiu and smoking, taking their clothes off and walking around with beer bellies on display. Smelly feet and lack of on-board toilet also present problems for the hygiene sensitive western traveller. Luckily, many years living in China have hardened me to these situations.
Dalian has a comprehensive network of buses and trams, plentiful taxis, and even a few ferries. Prices are cheap and service adequate, if not luxurious. I greatly admire the national train system. Most of China is well-covered by trains, there is even a train to Tibet. Considering the huge distances travelled, prices are very reasonable and certainly compared to the UK, where a trip hour trip from Exeter to Reading can cost over one hundred pounds. Ordinary people can afford the train in China, indeed, it's usually their preferred form of travel. I was looking forward to a nice overnight train trip to Beijing tomorrow, safely perched on a top hard-sleeper bunk. But the trains are so popular, and the Chinese people so many, that tickets often sell out days in advance. There were no tickets left for Beijing this evening, so my three friends and I had to resort to another form of transport - sleeper bus.
I had never seen sleeper buses before coming to China. They're strange and somewhat dangerous, with their three-bunk high interior they're prone to tipping over when driven in strong winds or by careless, reckless drivers. I've ridden Chinese sleeper buses before though, and it's a tolerable if not desirable way to travel. I much prefer lying down to sitting upright for long periods, especially overnight as I can't sleep in an upright position. Fellow travellers on sleeper buses can be rowdy and raucous, drinking baijiu and smoking, taking their clothes off and walking around with beer bellies on display. Smelly feet and lack of on-board toilet also present problems for the hygiene sensitive western traveller. Luckily, many years living in China have hardened me to these situations.
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