Alright, so I’m definitely behind
on the blog posts L
and if you know me at all, that definitely isn’t a surprise lol!! Anyways, so
some quick updates following my oh so lovely train ride. We arrived in
Shenzhen, and boarded more tour buses that took us through a dark and windy
path to our hotel in Shenzhen (which is kinda Shenzhen weird considering
Shenzhen is a giant city full of lights, but I digress) The hotel was MUCH
nicer than the one in Beijing!!!! It had softer mattresses (although only
slightly, as apparently the Chinese like to sleep on rocks, don’t ask me
why!??!) and the shower was amazing, as you can see from the pictures below ;)
This room looked far nicer when we first saw it!
So the bathroom definitely looks better in person :p
View from our room is pretty relaxing, and makes me feel like I'm not really in Shenzhen!
Day 1: August 20th
– Arrival day J
Helloooo Shenzhen!!!!
So we arrived at the hotel around
9:30/10 PMish, and were of course told that we needed to meet in the entrance
at 7 AM the next day to find out what we were doing… yay (blatant sarcasm) On
the bright side there was a strange buffet “dinner” for us when we got there.
This buffet included some small cake squares, fruit, dinner rolls, and the
highlight of the meal…wait for it… French fries!!! (and a weird kind of French
toast that apparently had peanut butter in it??) There was basically bare
knuckle brawling for the French fries, but eventually everyone got some. We all
guess that this is what the hotel thought westerners liked to eat, not
surprising, but we were all very happy J
Saw this underneath our bedside table... pretty sure it is for fire, but who knows...
Day 2: August 21st
– Health Check Day
7 am: Wake up and get dressed in teacher clothes, since they
are necessary for police interviews… yay :/ Anyways, head downstairs to find
out that I just woke up for nothing!!! Aghhhhh!!! Seriously CTLC, I could have
slept in, since Futian District (my district) had nothing scheduled until 1:30 PM
(oh I wanted to cry at that moment) However, being my extremely mature self, I
just trudged with the rest of the group to the restaurant to get breakfast
(which was far better than the preceding night!!) Breakfast consisted of,
fruit, noodles, rice, and a variety of Chinese dishes that weren’t half bad! After,
that I basically headed back up to my room, flipped on the tv, quickly
discovered trying to understand the Chinese shows was too much, and instead
opted for taking a nap J
1:30 pm: Time to go to the hospital for the foreigner
medical check!!! Yay!!! (again, I hope the sarcasm is evident) This was a very
interesting procedure… It consisted of several parts, x-ray, blood draw, urine
sample, ultrasound, ECG and a general eye, blood pressure, and weight check.
This entire process was extremely crowded, not super organized, yet in total
took less than two hours. After the health check, we headed back to the hotel,
where we had the lovely surprise of getting our picture taken, as we were
obviously looking our best following the hospital visit lol!
The we had the rest of the day free, and most people just
chilled with friends, before dinner (of which there was more, pretty decent,
Chinese food)
Day 3: August 22nd-
Police Day
Ok, so this day was really chill,
as the only thing that was planned for my group, was the CTLC wide police
lecture at 3 PM. So of course I began my day by sleeping in, then getting food,
and then getting to read my book and just chill. As 3 PM rolls around we all
head down to this big conference room, where I somehow end up in the front row,
lucky me!! :D The whole meeting consisted of a the police officer stating the
regulations in Chinese, and them being translated into English, which took
ages, and can essentially be summed up to, “Follow Chinese law”, “Don’t pick
things up off the floor” (there is scam in China that you pick something up
from the sidewalk, and then someone claims it is theirs and that you stole it
ect), and “Shenzhen is the most safe city in all of China (yeah okay ;) ) Then the meeting ended and we were finally
free until dinner, and we were then able to celebrate before the Contract
Signing Ceremony tomorrow!! Oh and I almost forgot to mention, I (and most of
CTLC) finally got phones!!! Although it is a cheap and small phone (ironically,
the exact same phone I got from tracfone in the states), it works and will
allow us to connect with one another, when we head to our respective schools. J
Day 3: August 23rd-
Contract Signing Ceremony
Finally the day has arrived where
we get to meet our contact teacher (the person essentially assigned as our
translator/babysitter) and possibly our school headmaster or another
representative. I have been placed at Shenzhen Number One Vocational School of
Science and Technology, along with a British girl, Catherine Hughes (who I hadn’t
talked with at all before) The Ceremony started at 10 AM and we all headed over
there and entered the hall, to mass chaos. There were Chinese teachers
everywhere, waving pictures of their foreign teachers, or huge bouquets of
flowers, as the looked for the foreign teacher!! I was in the third row from
the front, and it took awhile to get up there, and then I found my contact
teacher, whose name is Tiffany, and was had a massive bouquet of flowers, that
was half my size. Tiffany was there with one of the three vice-headmasters from
my school. I had to put the flowers in a chair next to me, as they wouldn’t fit
on the table, and then Catherine arrived. Catherine seems really nice and
hopefully we will get along, as we are living in the same apartment together!
Then the ceremony began and we listed as the contract was literally read
verbatim in Chinese and English, along with a couple speeches and then we sign
all four copies of the contract (2 in English, 2 in Chinese, so that everyone
would get a copy) After the ceremony we put the flowers in the minivan that was
waiting to take us to the school, and went to the restaurant for the banquet.
Eating was a little awkward, as it is honestly really hard to be graceful with
chopsticks!! Then we finally collected our bags from our rooms and headed down
to the van to see our new apartment!!
Me, Vice Headmaster Qiu, and Catherine (oh, and our massive flowers)
We arrive at the apartment, which
is located in the Meilin area of Futian District, as we have an off-campus
apartment. I’ll discuss more about our apartment in a separate post J (trust me, it will be
worth it!) We then went from the apartment and headed to our school to fill out
some paperwork, before going to the police station to register. So here’s a
little more about our contact teacher, Tiffany. Tiffany is about 27 years old,
single, and lives in the teacher dorms on campus. She has pretty good English,
and has been super nice, if not super knowledgeable, because she is new to
being a contact teacher. Which leads me to why we spent about 4 hours in an
office, as Tiffany attempted to get all the paperwork we needed together. Then
around 4:30 PM we get to head to our local police station to register, only to
be told that we don’t have the right paperwork, and that we should come back
tomorrow… seriously!!! Aghhh! However, then Tiffany had the driver take us to
our closest grocery store (which is a Carrefour [the French version of Wal-Mart,
if you haven’t heard of it before]) There we were able to pick up some basic
cleaning supplies, water bottles, food and toilet paper, and then walked home
(which only takes maximum 15 minutes) After this Tiffany left, after telling us
that the driver would pick us up at 8:35 AM tomorrow, for more fun paperwork,
and we were finally able to relax. Catherine and I were starving, so we headed
out to look at the local restaurants, and after wandering around decided to eat
at a nearby Ajisen Ramen (and it was delicious!!)
Me, Tiffany (my contact teacher), and Catherine (and again, our massive flowers!)
PS: I feel like a giant next to Tiffany, since I am wearing flats,
and she is wearing, at least, 4 inch heels in this picture!
Day 4: August 24th-
Paperwork Round Two L
Ok so today began, with an early
wake-up and shower, before heading down to meet Tiffany and the driver. Once in
the car, we promptly headed back to the school, for more paperwork, during
which Catherine and I simply sat on a couch and watched… exciting… Then when we
were oh so close to being done with the paperwork, we couldn’t find the right person
to sign it, so we had to wait until after the lunch and nap period to meet him.
*NOTE: In China there is this strange (at least to
Americans, and British people) custom where after lunchtime, from 1-2, everyone
in China takes a nap and everything essentially shuts down. We don’t know why
this happens, when it began, or why it continues, but that’s how it is, and it
can get realllly inconvenient at times.
Anyways, during the naptime,
Tiffany took us to the MixC mall where we were able to walk around, get a nice
lunch, and essentially kill time until the leader (that’s what Tiffany calls
him) and the school driver were available. Once we finally had the proper
paperwork, we returned to our ‘friendly’ local police station. They took care
of our paperwork, with only the minor mishap of confusing Catherine and I.
(Please note, that I have am 5’5” with blondish-red hair and a roundish face[as
the picture they got with the paperwork indicated] while Catherine is about
5’7” with brown hair and a thinner face) So how they confused us, we’re not
sure…
Then from the police station,
thankfully over with, we headed to a nearby Bank of China to set-up our Chinese
bank accounts, before we have to relinquish our passports to the Education
Bureau for visa processing. The visit to the bank was interesting, as we signed
up for basic accounts, which essentially let us just use the ATM’s, however it
took forever to sign-up! The guy who
helped us was really nice, and Tiffany was able to translate, but it took a
long time, and we had to input our pin about a million times, but now we are
official members of the Bank of China, where our salary will be directly
deposited J
Following the bank visit we had one
final stop to make, at the Education Bureau to drop off our passports and the
rest of our paperwork, so we could get a multiple entry visa to China (allowing
us unlimited access to Hong Kong!!!) Of course once we finally found the place
and they started to check our paperwork we discovered that Tiffany hadn’t made
enough copies for both myself and Catherine, so she would have to return the
next day with enough forms, which definitely sucked for her
L (but at least we
didn’t have to go too, for which I was secretly relieved) Then we were finally
able to head back to our apartment and start to settle in. Oh, and we learned
that we won’t start teaching until September 10
th, since the school
is still under construction, or I guess I should say reconstruction lol!
However, this means I have a mini-vacation!! Albeit one where I cannot go
anywhere, as I don’t have a passport, oh woe is me! Jk, it gives us time to get
to know Shenzhen and I cannot wait!!
So this guy is pretty important in the Education Bureau, although I'm not sure who he is, or what he does, but he made us feel victorious!! (Note the hand holds please, lol)
