Shanghai

I've finally arrived in Shanghai, and gotten a bit settled in. It took me forever to find a proxy server that wasn't blocked by The Great Firewall - which seems to have gotten a bit more extreme since I was last here.

I landed in Pudong on Sunday night and was thwarted by Paidui Day THREE TIMES within the first half hour - at customs, at the luggage carousel, and attempting to catch my bus. China rage begins early on.

My apartment is AWESOME. Way bigger than my digs in DC. I feel pretty guilty when my language partner comes over though, I've been to her dorm and it is much more typical China. I'll most likely be getting a roommate, a foreign student not in the program I work for, but I don't know when they'll arrive. In any case, that should be fine as the apartment is two bed, two bath, a "full" kitchen and a generous living area.

I've spent the last few days getting used to my new neighborhood, which is pretty busy for a residential area, but I guess this is China. I just have to get reacclimatized to the people everywhere business. I'm finding that I'm not homesick for home, but rather for Beijing. Beijing is a China I know. Here I feel like a first time visitor to the country, and I'm having trouble even working up the nerve to go to the newspaper stand to buy a phone card. But, I've only been here three days, so I'll just have to shape up and stop missing Bei Wai. I hate being a laowai.

Got a bike today, crucial first step in life. It is purple and glorious, and feels like China. Also biked in a downpour today. Shanghai has the most fantastic thunderstorms. Every day. Torrential. It's mind blowing. Note: do not bike in white skirts in downpours.

I've been keeping pretty busy being jetlagged, prepping for my students to arrive, doing random training, and relying on my language partner to show me around. Sun Zheng, I would probably have been run over by a bus and/or be starving in a corner without you.

I'll write a much more interesting/descriptive post later when I've conquered jetlag and exhaustion inducing humidity and have taken some photos.