The other morning before I met my boss for a ride to work I saw these elderly women enjoying their morning Tai chi using swords as part of their exercises.
If this was to be seen in the UK they would all probably be rounded up into a back of a van, stuck on a rendition flight to the Cuba and stuck in Guantanamo Bay for years without a trial.
Sometimes I wonder why we refer to the countries in the west as ‘free’.
In recent weeks Lily has found a new friend in the gardens around our apartment complex. She used to feed him and I would often see him in the morning on the way to work.
Our little furry friend has not been seen in the last week or so which leaves us to believe he has either hopped of to greener pastures or participated in a rabbit stir fry with one of our neighbours!
Today has probably been the most ‘British’ of days since I relocated to China.
The journey to work started wrapped in fog which apparently caused chaos at Pudong International Airport throughout the day. Around lunchtime the heavens opened and the rain literally poured (as it still is now) which made my walk from the underground station to the apartment quite a challenge due to the flooded roads and pavements. I now wish I had shipped some wellies from the UK!
According to my colleagues we will have about 10 days of this, but living on the 13th floor I guess I won’t have to worry about the apartment flooding!
So let the story begin….
Today we decided to return a few items that we bought from IKEA last week that we no longer needed.. We are lucky with our apartment location because across the street next to Longyang Road underground station is a bus stop where you can get a free bus to IKEA.
As we crossed the road, I started walking to the where the bus stops, when my wife pointed out the error of my ways and informed me that the bust did not go from where I was heading. In fact, we were on the wrong side of the station. I contested this, but got the look. Being a good husband I followed my wife and 5 minutes later she was looking confused as she could not find the bus stop. Guess who was right? By the time my wife had realised that I was right (though she didn’t actually say as such), we had missed the 11am bus and would have to wait an hour for the next one.
So to kill time we headed to a local dumpling restaurant for lunch and then returned to the bust stop at midday. There was no IKEA bus top be seen. On consulting the time table we discovered that the buses come every hour, except for midday! That was enough, it was cold so we gave up on the free option and sought out a taxi to take us.
After about 5 minutes in the taxi I said to my wife that I thought the taxi driver is taking us in the wrong direction, after a lot of commotion my wife was able to confirm this and got the taxi driver to head off in the right direction. After another 10 minutes or so we arrived at IKEA when the taxi driver committed a cardinal sin of trying to get my wife to pay the full fare, despite trying to take us in the wrong direction. I should point out that money is very close to Chineses people’s hearts. Trying to get my wife to pay the full fare would have been equivalent to chopping one of her legs off…a heated ‘negotiation’ ensued.
I left my wife to the ‘negotiation’, returned the stuff at IKEA and headed out to discover that the Police had been called! Thinking that this would resolve the issue in a timely manner I decided to stay out of it and watch with the other passersby . Mobile phones were being used by the Police and the taxi driver, and the shouting continued.
At one point the taxi driver shouted at the Police from the seat of her taxi…did not seem a smart move to me! 
After several more minutes, the only solution was to take it down the station. I really wanted to go with my wife, but as I did not have my ID on me (you are meant to have it with you at all times), I did not want to be the one to complicate things further. So like a good husband I waved goodbye to my wife as she disappeared into the distance in the back of a Police car.
If you look carefully in the picture you can see my wife smiling!
My wife spent a few hours waiting at the Police Station before deciding she had wasted enough time, and the taxi driver had been punished enough with the loss of the afternooon’s takings. She paid the fare and headed back to meet me, happy knowing the the Police station was half way between IKEA and Longyang Road underground station so the taxi fare back would be cheap!
So, if only my wife had listened to me at the beginning of all this, we would have taken the bus to IKEA and had meatballs for lunch! So to all you wives out there LISTEN TO YOUR HUSBAND, HE KNOWS BEST! ;)
New Year’s Day was spent feasting with our family in Wuxi.
The meal has kept me going for a whole day, and only now (lunchtime on 2nd Jan) am I considering eating again!
Lily being the family hairdresser was put to work by her second cousin…
The meal doubled up as a family gathering for my upcoming birthday, fortunately the cake had candles in the shape of 30 so somebody truly loves me!
In the afternoon we strolled around Nanchan Market with the rest of the Wuxi population..
Since we have moved into our apartment, on the way to work I occasionally pop into the local coffee shop and order an Americano to go.
At first this did not go too well because my pronunciation was very bad (in Chinese a slightly different tone can change the meaning of a word). After a few days if practicing I mastered ordering my coffee and I was extremely proud of myself, that was until today when my order was met with another question from the server.
Now what do I do? Well thanks to technology I was able to determine that I was being asked if I wanted it hot or not! If only the server had asked if I wanted it cold or not then I would have understood as I learned the word cold for when I am ordering beer!
I have so much to learn if I want to get around without using English, I just hope my brain isn’t too old!
Tomorrow we move out of our temporary accommodation to our apartment in Longyang Road, so I thought I would share some shots from the balcony of our room.
This is what has greeted me each morning for the last 7 weeks.
A few days ago I passed the one month mark of being in China, although I have stayed longer on business before this is a bit of milestone having relocated with my wife and all of our belongings (well most of our belongings are on a slow boat right now!).
Despite passing through the one month mark, we are still in our temporary accommodation as our future landlord will not be vacating the apartment we have let until December 21st, my wife and I decided that we liked the apartment so much it was worth waiting for. Despite the apartment being bigger than our house in the UK I am worried that it is not big enough, others say it is too big and many of the bedrooms will be empty most of the time. I guess we will have to wait and see!
I am writing this post on a flight to Seoul where tomorrow I will be not only visiting the head quarters of my news employer, but also heading to the Chinese embassy to obtain my work permit, therefore on my return to Shanghai I can obtain my residence permit which means I will be free to come and go for the next 12 months.
I am enjoying mixing in with the local. It is so easy to hail a taxi to get to work, I more often than not chooses to take the bus. Not only is is significantly cheaper, it is faster…though I do have a 15 minute walk from the bus stop to the office. This walk, along with the healthy eating is doing wonders for my waistline, all my trousers are too big for me now and if I don’t wear a belt they will simply fall to the ground…..not a pretty sight!
It’s not all good though! Internet connectivity is somewhat hit and miss. Connectivity within China is super fast, but connecting to sites overseas is slow compared to what I am used to back in the UK. Simply activities such as downloading a 50Mb podcast can take several attempts…I cannot work out why this is, perhaps there is some traffic shaping being done by the Great Firewall, not just blocking of almost everything foreign and social. One positive thing about the Great Firewall is that it blocks Facebook and subsequently all those annoying Facebook advertisements that are all over the web now.
So what am i missing from my old life in the UK? That’s easy, family and friends, Marmite, my Sonos and Monitor Audio Silver RX6 speakers!
I used to be really good at knowing what time it was in various places in the world, but since moving to Shanghai I am totally lost!
I now have to retrain my ageing brain to understand the new offsets so I don’t call my friends in other countries when they are in deep sleep! You’d thinks this was simple, but for some reason for me it isn’t!
I think I have discovered Man’s Hell here in Shanghai.
It comes in the form of the Shanghai Super Brand Mall. 10 Floors of pure shopping hell. The only positive thing is that the Pudong Apple Store is next door.
What made the trip even worse was that Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and other Christmas music was being played at the entrance! Bah Humbug!
Fortunately on this trip money was only spent on dinner, who knows what damage will get done when my wife makes a visit alone!