Unfortunately, my Dr. Dre beats earphones that I bought at the Silk Market were Guangzhuo quality...so two weeks later I can only hear out of one earphone.
It's that time of week again! I will have more pictures up later this week as well, more or less from the summer palace.
So one week later, and it’s time for another entry.
So the first week back to Tianjin after three weeks in Guangzhou…back to old routines and life in Tianjin. Things have changed since we were last here, but yet, like the expression says…”the more things change, the more they stay the same”. Anyways… So yeah...I am now back in Tianjin, where drivers can't go 5 seconds without honking their horn, where people spit here there and everywhere, and we are more or less the only foreigners in this city. Good to be home! Guangzhou was great, but the constant 30+ days with high humidity does take its toll. We did the final phase of the fair, which seemed to be much less crowded than what it was the first phase. Random Stuff: -I found a computer mall. Five floors of laptops, computers, phones etc....good think I only had like 20 yuan in my pocket. I then realized probably 99% of the stuff there came from one of the Foxconn factories. -I have eaten more snickers in the last two weeks than I have in the last ten years combined. -QQ is everywhere. Go on the train and everyone is using it. Except me since I lost my samsung and have since been reduced to a glorious T9 phone. No pictures this post...but since so much happened with the others, I'll just give links to their most recent entries. Andi: http://andiinchina.weebly.com/1/post/2012/05/beitragsberschrift-klicken-und-schreiben-sie-hier-zum-bearbeiten2.html Anne-Marie: http://annemarieworkingchina.weebly.com/1/post/2012/05/daily-life-tianjin-shanhaiguan-beijing.html Iliada: http://iliadalivingchina.weebly.com/1/post/2012/05/hong-kong.html Funny article I found: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/things-youll-see-only-in-china I have not seen many of these, but it sure would be funny. And a song by David Bowie...because why not? It's become one of my favorite songs. Byebye! Long title, short entry. So what did I do with my four days off? Not much really. Iliada went to Hong Kong during that time...I couldn't go due to circumstances with the work visa. Check out her blog here: http://iliadalivingchina.weebly.com she will have a post up sometime soon about Hong Kong! Friday: It was raining when I wanted to go out. I ate subway. I was like Howard Hughes and was holed up in my hotel room. The hotel gives out free milk in the evening. They know me by now and which room I am in. I am ecstatic for free milk. Saturday: I FINALLY get accepted for my after-degree in Computing Science at the University of Alberta for next fall. I throw my hands up in the air, and wave them like I just don't care. No one is around to see this unfortunately. I went to Martyr's park...where there were like 9879 school kids there (yes, I counted) since they have school on Saturdays. One kid would say "hello" as I walk by and then like 20+ others would join in. I am amused and feel like a celebrity. No one asked me for an autograph though. For supper, I go to this awesome noodle place and enjoy the hell out of the noodles there. The meal comes out to about $1.75 Canadian. Sunday: I sleep in and upon awakening, decide to go back to sleep again. I go back to the cool European island for a few hours. I yell out "WE HAVE TO GO BACK KATE! WE HAVE TO GOOOO BAAAAAACK!!!" but no one gets my reference to the show "Lost" and I look like a fool (this may or may not have happened, don't believe everything you read on the internets). There are a LOT of people getting wedding photos...I probably saw like 10+ couples doing this. Did you know wedding photographer is considered one of the most overpaid jobs around? Google it. I begin the process of making my school schedule for the fall. I manage to make an ok winter term semester, but the fall one needs some work. I get angry and yell naughty words at my computer, but then realize that there is free milk downstairs and I suddenly feel better. Schedule is not set in stone, but it looks quite good now. Monday: I go back to the TV tower. Holy crap it's hot out. More umbrellas are out now that it's sunny than when it's raining. Men like to pull up their shirts to expose their belly to help cool down in the heat. I giggle. I eat two snickers bars...one after lunch, and one after supper. I am perplexed with my own behavior. This is what happens when I am more or less by myself for a few days. Iliada comes back late in the evening and I am glad to have some company again. Today: It's the first of May! I would post a link to the song "Month of May" by Arcade Fire, but proxy is acting funky right now. So three more days of work here, a day off on Saturday and then back to Tianjin on Sunday. I will miss Guaungzhou...it's more fun than Tianjin, the people are friendlier and don't spit as much, we don't get as many people staring at us like they've never seen a foreigner before, public transportation is actually good, the girls are better looking, and it's warmer. Although a little too warm. And it rains a lot. ByeBye.          Good day. So it's time for another blog post. Been meaning to do this one for awhile, but timing, laziness, and Game of Thrones have caused a bit of a delay. So let's go! What do we do at the trade fair? In case you are not aware, Iliada and I are at the Canton trade fair in Guangzhou with various people from our company (we have a rotating lineup of people from the company over the next couple of weeks, but Iliada and I will stay until the end). Iliada and I are split up. We go talk to different booths for different types of products...the halls each have different categories of stuff being sold. If something looks good, the booth is big, yada yada, we go and start talking to them. Everyone, for the most part, does speak English (some better than others) about a few basic questions. If they answer them the way we want to, the others will jump in and begin negotiating, or else we keep going. Time goes by pretty quick, and before we know it it's lunch time. The lunch choices are a bit interesting, but we have found something that seems to work quite well for all of us. We do not want McDonalds every day. So many people at this fair from around the world...from the middle east, from India, from Russia, from America...such a vast amount of people there. We notice that in Guangzhou no one really stares at us that intently as they do in Tianjin, as I guess they are used to foreginers. And it's hot here. So take off all your clothes...I am getting so hot I wanna take my clothes off. Yes...I quoted a Nelly song from like 10 years ago. I'm getting old. Anyways....here are some things that we have been doing. Sunday and Monday: Quite sick for the first few days here! Just a bad throat and cough, and a snarfly nose. Gettting used to the work, and enjoying supper with the others from the company afterwards. We do this more or less every night, and it's awesome. Plus we don't get to pay at all, so it's even better. Tuesday We went for supper with other people from the company that were Iliada's roomates for a brief time in Tianjin. Afterwards, we went to the tv tower area, which was very cool and lots to see and do. It used to be the largest TV tower in the world, but Tokyo decided to make a bigger one. Just seems like a penis meausring contest or someting. Wednesday: Hot pot. This time though, unlike the one in Beijing, it wasn't mediocre. I guess this is what happens when you go with Chinese people and let them pick out the ingredients. Thursday: First of our four days off! We work four days on, and then four days off. Guangzhou loves to rain, so of course it was raining on the day that we had off. We went to this street that was full of wedding stuff...they had a mall that was more or less full of wedding dresses. As the rain was not letting up, we decided to go to the Guangzhou museum by the TV tower and take a look at some history about Guangzhou amongst other things. It was nice to be inside away from the rain, and eventually it went away! We made our way to Shamian island, where they have this french/british area that was very cool. Notice about Guangzhou...it's a very interesting city with multiple personalities. One minute you are in this one busy area, and the next you can be in a peaceful area full of nature or something completely different. We went around some more and maqde our way through some very interesting Chinese alleyways. We then went to a different (sigh) shopping distrcit, but to eat and then to check out a lake nearby afterwards. We enjoyed a nice Italian supper and then made our way to the lake, after a bit of confusion and navigation. It was a very cool lake, to say the least. The name escapes me right now. Good day! Friday: More rain, so we hung around for awhile waiting for it to go away. We went to beijing road to quickly eat, and then went to this really really really awesome park that felt like it could have been a lush forest in the middle of nowhere...not in the middle of one of the biggest cities in China. Yuexiu Park is what it is called. While it rained quite hard, the trees did shelter us somewhat, and the rain added a cool atmosphere and feel to the place that made it seem even more authentic. Afterwards, we went to this super duper duper awesome place nearby our hotel for supper cheap meals that was filling beyond belief. I love noodles. Saturday: Went to Shenzen, to visit one of Iliada's friends, Pedro, who did an AIESEC intership with Iliada the year before. He was busy with work so we went around the city a bit. While Shenzhen, one of the few Special Economic Zones in China and the wealthiest city in China, just doesn't have really much to do. We went to a port...which was pretty lame but yet pretty funny at the same time. I guess we saw the funny aspects about spending our valuable time there. Later on, we went to this area to eat, and then met up with Pedro, who took us on a night in Shenzen. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday: Getting lazy here, and this is obviously way too long at this point. Went to Shanghai to take care of my work visa issues once and for all....it's a long story that involves sadness, frustration, laughter, redemption, 7-11 hot dogs, rekindled connections, and a clown named Binky. Perhaps you will hear it one day. Anyways, was just in Shanghai briefly, before spending a day of waiting around for trains and planes....I seem to have great luck with planes that decide to take off 2 hours later than they should. Anyways, got back for work today (Tuesday). A couple of more days and then I will have another four days off. And that's the way the cookie crumbles. TLDR: Omnomnom noodles. Slideshow doesn't want to upload for something. So this photo gallery will have to do.                               Hello everyone.
So the first week of the Canton Trade Fair is over, and we are all enjoy a well-deserved break! This is just the first of the three phases of the fair, so Iliada and I still have a couple of weeks left to go before heading back (home) to Tianjin. So this is not a full fledged post (that will probably be next Tuesday or Wednesday), but I just wanted to do a quick little ditty to keep everyone entertained. Hello again. So here is a quick little entry about what I've been doing. What's Guangzhou? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou What will I be doing there? Attending the China Import and Export Fair (http://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en/). I will be going with Iliada and some others from the company. Some of us will be coming and going, but Iliada and I will be there until May 6th so yeah.....bye bye for now to you Tianjin! That being said, I want to do an entry about what's been going on this week, as I'm not sure how much time I will have for blog posts when I am in Guangzhou. That being said...let's begin shall we? We shall! So this week was a little quieter than last...although granted, we were in Shanghai last week, so it's really hard to compare the two. We did have two significant evenings this week involving FOOOOOOOD and LOTS of it. Tuesday night, we went to Tianjin University to meet up with Donna from AIESEC TJU, who took us to a restaurant nearby, where 15+ AIESECers from TJU were waiting (bit of a miscommunication there I guess). The food, like 95% of the meals we have at restaurants here, was GLORIOUS. I'm pretty sure I ate 50% of the food for a table that had about 9 people (my rule: if people won't eat it, I will). We enjoyed some nice discussions on various topics, and all around had a great time. Thanks AIESEC TJU! Thursday night, Linky Sense (27 of us) went to a pizza place. PIZZA. Yep, it was once again amazing...from the pizza, to the spaghetti, the fries, the popcorn chicken, the cake...so filling (I think I've lost a bit of weight since getting here, so having a fatty meal like that every once in awhile is....satisfying to say the least). Afterwards, we played a silly game in which two cans are passed around the table...when someone says stop (or the music stops), the two holding the cans get punished. Some of the punishments including belly dancing, drinking a cup of coke with ketchup, or smooching. All in all, it was a lovely night with amazing food and amazing people. Oh, and thank you, both to AIESEC TJU and Linky Sense, for paying for the meals. We really appreciate that. So for tonight, the last night in Tianjin for awhile, we are going to Xiaoran (the restaurant in which we are treated as rock stars) and then go from there. I leave tomorrow morning to go to Guangzhuo, get to to enjoy the city for a bit before going to the Canton Fair the day after. So take care everyone, and keep the comments coming! They mean so much to me. Bye bye! Ok so that title contains many inside jokes with the intern entourage, so don't worry about it. I was going to do an entry last Friday, but weebly wasn't cooperating. Thankfully today, it is! So here is my next entry. Before I begin: Thank you so much everyone for all the comments and words of encouragement! I didn't think this blog would be such a big hit with some people. Anyways, keep the comments coming as they will encourage me to keep me posting! Let's begin... I love Shanghai. What a beautiful place. Where the air is much cleaner, there is a much larger European influence, the people are friendlier and more civilized, and where you can walk down a street that has a completely different feel, look, and style than the street before. No wonder it is called the Paris of the east. Monday: Ok a very interesting for all the WRONG reasons. We were supposed to fly out to Shanghai Monday morning but due to some........complications we weren't able to get on the flight. After some negotiations with the company (thank you kind lady who could speak English! Iliada hopes you call back so you can go swimming together one time), we were able to get a flight booked for the night free of charge, as well as some money for the taxis and a free lunch for all the time and hassle that we faced. We went back to our apartments to nap and enjoy an Instant noodle dinner before heading out to the airport again. Despite everything that happened, we were able to look on the bright side and had some good group bonding sessions. We eventually arrived in Shanghai after midnight, and at that point we were completely wiped and just went to bed. Tuesday we would wake up early and go enjoy Shanghai. Tuesday: After a great sleep and a great breakfast at the hostel (OMG TOAST), we made our way to the metro line and headed into the city center. We went to the Bund (which I love to say for some reason) along the riverside, in which the Pudong district is across the river. It is a spectacular spot (tons of tourists) and lots to do around there. We wondered around for a long time, through parks, through food streets, to the residence of Mao when he would stay in Shanghai (this we stumbled across accidentally)...there is so much to see and do in Shanghai! There are plenty of street vendors that you can barter with...Kerim is Turkish, so he was a pro at it and was able to score us some good swag for super low prices. Afterwards, we went out to go have some fun. Did I mention I love Shanghai? Wednesday: Bit of a later day due to the night before. Kerim and I went to the Shanghai Museum, which was very cool and goes to show how much history exists in China and how we are but a drop of water in an endless ocean in the long run. Once again, we wondered around, although this time we went across the river and went to the Pudong district. We went to a shopping market with tons of clothes, shoes, electronics that you can barter for...pretty fun to say the least, and we were all able to pick up some quality goods for cheap prices. In the early evening, we went to the Hyatt Hotel to the top to Cloud 9 bar. Suprisingly, you don't have to pay to get to the top and you get an AMAZING view of the city...it was about 85 floors up to give you an idea. Afterwards, we we met up with one of Raghda's old friends for supper, Oscar. Oscar is one cool dude, and hopefully we get a chance to hang out with him again. He took us to Brown Sugar, a very cool bar with live music. The band was AMAZING, and the singer, Carlton J. Smith (http://carltonjsmith.org/) had boatloads of charisma, talent, and showmanship. Thursday: Our final day in Shanghai. Luckily, our flight did not leave until 9:30 in the evening so we had plenty of time to explore the city and finish up what we missed. After another quick stroll through the bund, we made our way to Yuyuan gardens. Along the way, we came across a budhist temple, a park, and another street that was full of food and no tourists. Quite crazy what you will see when you go off the beaten path. Yuyuan was GORGEOUS. There was an amusing incident there in which there was a Turkey tourist group going through...Kerim would listen to the tour guide and then translate it for us. Thanks again Kerim! Afterwards, we did a bit more wondering around the city, before going back to the hostel to pick up our stuff and head to the airport. We took the maglev to the airport, which is the high-speed train on the magnetic track...unfortunately, the train only goes its maximum speed (about 430ish km/h) at certain times during the day, and when we went, it only topped out at 300km/h. Kinda bummed out to say the least, but whatever. So....that was our trip to Shanghai! Since I got all this momentum writing this entry, I'll write about the weekend as well. Friday: Work work. There have been some..........interesting developments with the sudden departure of one of the interns, but that is for another time. Just took the evening off (I had some me time) to think things over of what happened in Shanghai, as well as what I want to do next. We wall all need time like that every once in awhile. Saturday: A trip to the Tianjin Water Park! No, this isn't ACTUALLY a water park (like the one in West Edmonton Mall)...it's just a really really nice park! I have not been there before, and it's an amazing place to go visit! We enjoyed some food (mainly chips and sushi) and enjoyed a lazy afternoon with a lot of sitting, listening to music, and talking. That evening, we went out for supper, and enjoyed some billiards afterwards. Easter Sunday: Happy Easter! We went to the Magnetic City in Tianjin and picked up a few things that we would be enjoying for our Easter supper. Jon and Ilyana joined us for a feast at the girl's penthouse which consisted of Chicken, salad, pasta, scrambled eggs (omg) and mashed potatoes (OMGYEAH). We enjoyed some oreos and ice cream afterwards for desert. What's next? So next Saturday, I will be going on a business trip (along with Iliada and several people from Linky Sense) to Guangzhou for about three weeks. We will be working four days on, and then four days off for a bit, so we will have plenty of time to check out the area. I look forward to seeing what southern China has in store for us! During that time, Anne-Marie from Quebec will be coming to work here. Hi Anne! Guess we will finally meet face to face in early May. So that is it for all.........very long entry but once I get started it's easy to keep going. Enjoy reading, as well as the pictures, and please feel free to leave some comments...I will try for another blog entry before Saturday before I head off to Guangzhou. Until next time children...keep your stick on the ice. | AuthorYou should know who I am. If not, I'm Paul from Canada. I am in Tianjin China for six months doing an internship at an E-commerce company, called Linky Sense, via AIESEC. Woot woot. Archives |
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