A week in review

Well I can't believe that we have been here a week already although it has seemed a lot longer. I will not give you a blow by blow account of our frustrations at getting settled in and things to our liking, but be assured it has been an interesting and eye opening week and the saga continues although we are considerably much further along now than we thought we would be. As our middle son reminded us we should be used to the difficulties of settling into a different culture by now and he is right. It IS a process and one that we know how to deal with but it does not lessen the emotions of the clash of cultures and the frustrations of it all.

Last weekend, feeling brave, we walked in our neighbourhood and locale. We discovered Hangzhou to be a city with wide streets and a feeling of openness with lots of interesting sidestreets and shops and places to visit. It has several river tributaries running through it and there are parks and walkways beside them. It also had a festive aire as Spring Festival is finishing and there was a Lantern Festival marking in ends to take place on Thursday.


During the first days I thought perhaps we were at war and had not received the news as gunshot sounds kept going off day and night and then we heard a huge aircraft fly past. After ducking a few times I noted that no one else seemed bothered so asked our colleagues when we next saw them what it was all about. Apparently it was offices and residences letting off fireworks to bring good luck for the New Year. They must do this when they return from their New Year holidays and open up the shop or home again. It is still continuing although each day gets less. Fireworks are everywhere in the streets and gardens. There is apparently no restriction on them at all - even little ones are seen with them.

Walking along our main street (Wensan Street) we have found many stores much the same as in Canada, clothing, running shoes, corner stores ( a chain here is the C-Store and there is one right outside our main gate), eye glasses, shoes galore, sports clothes etc. There are several bakeries with all sorts of yukky cream decorated cakes and buns for sale. You can recognize them as they have pictures on the doors that look like Tom and Jerry the cartoon characters. Huge birthday or celebration cakes beautifully decorated in coloured cream icing sit in the windows. You can see people walking along with large hatbox type containers in which they carry the cakes. (I would add a photo except that I have already lost my camera!!!!) The bread unfortunately tends to be white and the brown bread remains somewhat airy and sweet. However it is edible thank goodness.

In desperation we were forced to try the local food and walked until we found somewhere with pictures, or food on display, as not knowing a word of Chinese or even being able to read or understand the characters we were at a loss at many of the restaurants. We found a lovely market with fresh fruit and vegetables on display and filled up with bananas and apples.

It is strange not understanding a single word of the language or being able to read it. Very few people other than one or two in the Company office speak English so we are struggling somewhat. We can now say hello and thank you and Mick can count to ten but we still do a lot of miming and gesticulating. We felt proud of ourselves yesterday as we managed to exchange a kettle that we had bought last week and which broke a few days later. It took a long time but we managed it AND we managed to buy an electric heater with which to keep ourselves warm. I will add pictures of them when we can get a new camera but with such a huge selection (but at much the same prices as London Drugs or Future Shop) we need some help in finding our way through the maze of options.

Although we had anticipated starting work on the 18th we now learn that we do not start until Tuesday the 26th when the University bus will collect us from the office and take us to lunch!!! Apparently start dates of schools and Universities are unpredictable so we wait and see. It has been fortunate for us though as we have spent the week attempting to get the apartment in order and to establish a routine which might work for us when we have to 'get up and out' each morning.

So far we have accomplished the following...
- we negotiated two days in a local hotel while the powers that be re-carpeted the place, brought in some furniture and painted the walls (The fact that I have now spent several hours cleaning up the mess they made is not worth considering given the comfort we now feel we live in).
- managed to acquire from the company (some of which was in the contract and already here, other items we had to remind them about) a gas stove (one ring), a wok, a steamer, a microwave, a rice cooker, some minimal crockery and chopsticks, a washing machine, towels, extra bedding, a wardrobe, sofa, bedside table, television (not yet connected), a DVD (still to come)and the promise of a chest of drawers, an iron and an ironing table.
- organized with the company's help our bank account and ATM card, our gas connection, our internet connection (not working perfectly but at least functional) and the phone connection (we have the phone and can receive calls but as yet cannot call out. Our number is 88476631 and we are 16 hours ahead of BC.
- Mick's persistence has paid off in getting a promise of someone to come and fix the desk which is broken and in getting the property manager (plumber)to come and fix the leaks in the bathroom which had us standing in water most of the time and so it goes on....but not a bad week in retrospect.
We may be ready for school next week after all.