Skip to main content

The First Adventure

 I had my first of adventures in Shanghai, and this is when I realised I was starting to like it. The company had provided us with a a metro card with 50 RMB-I had no idea how much this was, but I was very grateful. I knew, unlike most of my fellow cohort who were remaining in Shanghai, that I probably wouldn't use the money. 

Jason, who seemed to like me, invited me to go out with him to explore, so we met up together downstairs in the hotel. We found a place close by the hotel on the evening called 'Yang's dumplings', and of course, I ordered the cheapest thing, because I was worried about money, so I bought the 8RMB dumplings, which were pork soup dumplings, one first of the most delicious foods I had ever had. I was trying to learn to use chopsticks, but just ended up sticking them in the middle of the chopsticks, which I learnt was rude because I just wanted to eat. 



Figure 1: Shanghai's famous skyline.

We caught up with other members of the group and saw an impressive 'stone government looking building', perhaps an embassy of some sort. I didn't want to go in as it looked intimidating and I had no idea what it was, a Chinese government building? I'm still unsure, but one fellow former British 'bouncer' who was also going to be working in Shanghai said 'let's walk in and just look like we belong'.....'I rolled my eyes and thought.....among a load of Chinese', 'like that will work'. But I decided to go along, with every step thinking that we would be thrown out. We walked over to the lift, and decided to push a button to the very top and realised there was a bar that overlooked the impressive Shanghai skyline. This was a time when I didn't drink-I had no idea what kind of alcoholic drink I would like....all I remember was my grandfather smelling of whisky and my dad of beer-so I ordered Hot chocolate, which I remember paying the equivalent of 5 pounds. I enjoyed it, I really did and I enjoyed Jason's company. 


Figure 2: Shanghai CBD

Then the real challenge came of 'how to get back to the hotel'. It was getting late, perhaps around 10pm, and so we decided to get back by metro, but of course we didn't really know how it worked. We went to the nearest station to the hotel that one of us could remember....but we had no idea which exit to take...there were so many exits, we just took any exit. We still struggled to find the hotel, and I seemed to be dragged by Jason to some sort of muddy underpass, while we were still in work clothes. Eventually, after walking in circles we found it and successfully made it back to the hotel....that was my first mini adventure. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mario Brothers and Team building

 Since this was my first 'real' job, I had no idea what an annual 'team building' activity was. I assumed it had something to do with being in teams, perhaps a type of sports. The company, EF, decided to host the first team building event I attended in Suzhou, around the time of Halloween, with each 'centre' having its own 'theme'. Since Andy Oliboni was the manager of two centres we decided to have a combined theme of 'the Mario Brothers', though, I really have no idea as to how the theme came to fruition, and all I knew was that it was a Nintendo game involving two, if I may say, Italian-looking men with thick black hair and moustaches, overcoming obstacles to get to a beautiful girl with long blonde hair in a pink dress, with a similar look as Aurora in sleeping beauty. It was decided that there would be only one Princess Peach from each centre, with everyone else dressing as a Mario Brother. I really didn't care who I was, but I was told ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cafe culture

 China isn't a country associated with the term 'cafe culture', but rather a more Western concept in European countries such as Sweden with Fika and Italy and their coffee culture. When I visited my GP in the UK before coming to China to get medical advice he replied 'why would you go there, they have no milk in their tea', which is partially true, in the case of green tea, which the Chinese are most well-known for within this topic.  Cafe culture was emerging in China with the rising 'openness' of its borders to Western influence. There's a Starbucks on every street corner with one shopping mall often having at least three shops, each selling the exact same products. Though in Hangzhou one that I really liked was known as 'Cash Miel', where I could buy a cappuccino, latte, or vanilla cappuccino and could choose from a range of, mostly Danish pastries. I liked this particular cafe because it was a smaller space than that of Starbucks, cheaper at ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Iris

Iris Iris will always be, my best 'Chinese friend', always. Her background, infectious, larger-than-life personality, with her maturity and wisdom made her 'someone special' to me, and a positive influence. We initially met 'in passing' at work in EF, because we were based at different centres, she was in Binjiang Centre, while I was in Yingtai, but she was someone who was talked about in the office always positively. Since Yingtai centre was closing down and I was being transferred to Binjiang centre, we were going to be getting to know each other better, and the colleague-dynamics at this centre would be different from my current one. At Yingtai centre, it was me and all male colleagues, with Dan, Vincent, Chris Yu and Andy, at Binjiang it would be me and all girls, or mostly girls. My future colleagues would be Chinese Janet, who studied in Ireland, Cheryl from Wuhan, Suki, who had studied in Australia, Kat from Manchester, and Lewis, from York, who had two k...
Post a Comment
Read more