Technologic

My laptop hard disk started giving errors and the machine started to go really slowly. The machine is on practically 24×7 and is 4 years old. Its the entertainment centre here in my apartment and it has all my music, movies and TV on it. So it’s important. I have a TV but it shows endless period dramas and game shows.

I don’t know how to say hard disk in Chinese.

But I do know where to go to get one.

There are these computer malls with knockoffs, real computers, fakes and components in every city. If you want to make your own 2001 spec Windows XP gaming machine you are in luck here. Once I was into that but I’ve built so many computers I have no more interest in spending a week wondering why this isn’t compatible with that and why its got cooling problems.

Cooling problems are the bane of my life. cars, apartments and computers.

So before I thought about it too long I was on the K15 bus and off into the computer mall. Its filled with low tables like Arnotts of old used to be. Back in the days when I was forced into scratchy grey trousers for school. Filled with cabinets crammed with USB drives, phones, laptops, webcams, power supplies and people building desktops and people chatting on QQ.

She saw me before I saw her. I had no chance. She asked me what I wanted. Well, thats what I think she asked. She could have told me anything. If it’s outside a few limited topics in Chinese and its not them saying to their mate that this foreigner can’t speak Chinese I’m stumped.

Have you ever tried to mime a hard disk? You should try it. Its educational. Its much much better to try to do it in an language you don’t understand first.

She kept bringing me external hard disks. Almost right. I mimed breaking them and I think after the first eight times doing this she got it but to be sure she kept me at it. Then she said it. “me yo” haven’t got. So she did what they do in China. She yelled at someone else who disappeared to get one.

She came back and, yes it was the right size, yes it was the right shape and yes I wanted it. I didn’t want it, I needed it. This and the fact that I had forgotten how to say too much meant my already minimal haggling hand was weaker.

I was prepared to pay 500 and she came out with 400 so that did it for me and I handed over the cash. I’m sure it was over the odds but the drive works and losing my data is more expensive than the €43 I gave her. I’ve had too many hard disks pack up and die to be bothered fighting over a few quai. I’ll save that for the market where its all life or death bargaining over a hat or a tea cosy.

The heat

In the depth of the winter here, which isn’t that cold, I knew that when the heat reappeared I would naturally write a post about it.  The problem with winter here is the lack of any insulation and the lack of central heating.  Restaurants, schools and taxis have their windows and doors wide open regardless of the weather conditions/

Well the heat is back.

Its 34 degrees today and has been around this temperature for the past week with occasional rain.

I don’t want the cold back but I would love to be able to go out and not inhale a lungful of midges or tiny black flies.  These seem to congregate at around head height.

The number of unwanted visitors to my apartment has increased. Giant beetles impaling themselves on my light and one evening I found a small frog downstairs.

I released him into the grass before he found himself on a skewer or in a pot.  I know frogs taste good because I had some on Sunday night.

A tiny frog visitor.

Huangshan

Because we have a few days off and because its spring and kinda nice weather I think it might be time to go to Yellow mountain in nearby Anhui province.

There doesn’t seem to be a train there and it looks like I won’t have a posse.  It’s getting warmer here now so if I leave it too long its going to be incredibly hot and sticky on the climb.

Looks beautiful there and seems to be worth a visit.

Insert usual excuse for not blogging. Plus my wings have been clipped.

It’s not that nothing has happened.  I’ve been to Shanghai and Hangzhou on holidays and Chinese new year has come and gone but I haven’t had much I wanted to blog about or say in public.  I’ve concentrated on living here rather than trying to think of things to talk about or make witty observations about.

Although today I was given a warning about the dangers of foreign teachers climbing the locked gates after spending the evening in the pub.  The non-existent dangers.  We go out, we come back, we aren’t seen by students and we don’t make a fuss.

Those that do make a fuss are the SIXTEEN cameras between the gate and my bed. Always watching and since Spring Festival have been busting my chops every time I roll home late.

Heres how it goes.

After running towards me at 2am with sticks out and yelling in Chinese. (Cheers Edsko and Ray for the stick defence classes!)

Them: 你要去哪里？(Where are you going)

Me: 我要回家 (I’m going home)

Them: 停止攀登门! 使用南门 (stop climbing the gate!)

Me: *Sigh*

The fifth time in the last month and I reckon the tenth since I got here so it’s about time I got the offical call.

“We are watching. Don’t do it again!”

Gah!  Plan B it is.

Pudong

Today’s view but a lot more hazy.

Tags: Travel

First time in Shanghai

After having spent 5 days in Nanjing I thought that a Chinese city is a Chinese city but after being flung at high speed on a bullet train into Shanghai i have changed my opinion.

God this place is huge.

I paid the little bit extra to get the D train so I wouldn’t be adding around all day on the train. Worked well but by the time we got to Shanghai the train was packed. Three delightful little girls screamed and bounced off the back of my seat for an hour so that made it even more fun.

Shanghai Hongqiao station is enormous. Truly epic in scale. Took me a few moments to get the bearings but I was soon on the way to my lodgings for the night. It’s a hostel. It’s clean, charming and it’s better than a lot of hotels I have stayed in. Better than pretty much any hotel in London that’s for sure.

I went for a walk earlier and found KFC for a bite to eat. I eat enough Chinese food to allow myself that indulgence. Down around the corner from that and about a 1 mile walk was the middle of the Bund. You know the picture you always see of Shanghai. Luckily for me there is an Apple store right beside it. I spent an hour in there looking at all the machines I know I want but I could never justify buying. I escaped with just an iPad cover.

Tomorrow the fun starts. I have to go and pick herself up from Pudong airport which is a hour subway ride from here and 2 full hours from the bullet train station. So were getting the bus to Hangzhou because it’s less complicated.

Such an amount of excitement for one day. Could be worse if the 102 had been any slower (nothing to do with me leaving at the last second of course) I could have missed the train I queued oh so impatiently for 10 days ago.

Tags: Travel

Update on The Cold.

My Chinese colleaue came over the other night and remarked on how freezing this place was.  He got the remote and banged the AC up to the max and hey presto gales of hot air.

Yes it was that simple.

Sheesh!

Endings and new adventures.

The college term is just over and the dorms are deserted.  Two weeks of oral exams was followed by a knees up with the college staff,  many of whom I only met for the first time.

It’s funny but it feels like kinda Christmas all over again and “Happy New Year” is the greeting of choice.  Everyone is delighted to be getting the hell out of here.  The teachers have been scattered to the four corners of China and the students to the four corners of this pretty small province.  All of them giddy to be getting away and resigned to being stuck on crowded buses and trains.

I’m off to Shanghai soon to find the Girl and drag her around China.  The way we are doing it we should hopefully be going the opposite way to everyone else and also on the faster trains that are a little more expensive.  The plan is to get the very fast G train from Shanghai to Hangzhou for the laugh.

I hope she likes it here.  China can be a bit odd sometimes and I guess some things take a bit of getting used to.  The first part is going to be pretty quiet and around the West Lake in Hangzhou.  I think it will be great to just sit there and do only the things we want to do.

To be followed swiftly by the madness that is Shanghai.  Big, brash, expensive and modern.  Woo hoo!

I think that from these two contrasting cities she will get a feel for what China is like.  I can’t wait to get out and explore.

Shanghai

******

As an aside In May I have been invited to visit Dalian in the North East of China which is a marathon 30+ hours by train.  But that’s a long way off.

The cold

i am sure this post will be mirrored by a post entitled “The heat” in the summer but it is bone chillingly cold here at the moment. This province, because it is south of some river or other has no central heating and the windows aren’t double glazed. They aren’t even sealed properly. The floors are also tiled. This all means I am freezing all the time.

I have taken to running around like an eejit or being tucked up in bed with a slanket, an electric fire and anything from one to three hot water bottles.

I don’t know how the Chinese do it to be honest. You never seem to warm up.

Dentists and fireworks

So last Friday morning I woke up with what I thought was a tiny stone wedged up inside my lip.  It got me thinking.  I mean I eat many crazy things here but stones aren’t usually on the menu.  So I had a feel around the inside of my mouth and found that it was a filling that had snapped and fallen out.  I think it was there about eight years.  Not the stone.  The filling.  Keep up!

It didn’t hurt and helpfully the school hospital is in my building.  So I got my colleague to go with me to the doctors office later on that day.  He basically told me that if I swallowed the filling they would go in and get it and anyway what can he do, he’s not a dentist.  He sent me to the hospital.  It was Friday evening at that stage so we put it off until today.  I pass through the school clinic on my way to the classrooms every day and this was the first time I actually went in to an office there.  They mostly seem to be watching TV, smoking or yelling at each other.

Dentists at the best of time make me a little nervous but this one was OK.  We turned up at the hospital at 9:25am and I was seen within 15 minutes.  A public hospital in a county of 1.3 billion and little or no waiting around.  This entire country and the people are geared up for moving large crowds of people quickly and efficiently.  There is momentum to the Chinese.

The dentist asked my colleague did I have any pain.  I said no.  So she gave the tooth a whack and tapped around.  Then out comes the drill and she grinds down the edges.  Without anesthetic.  She remarked about the original filling being of high quality.  It would want to have been because it cost me ten times the amount this one was going to cost.  She filled it there and then, no fuss and out the door again.  The whole visit cost me 8 Euro in total.

The whole incident and the sheer speed of it makes me wonder if they pour glue into everything in Ireland to stop it working.  Sure, China is communist but the volume of people here is immense compared to Ireland.

While I was trying to sleep so I could get up early to go to the hospital the local hotel decided to have a fireworks display at 1:35am.  The bangs were so loud they rattled my windows.