As you read this, I am already onboard an airplane with my girlfriend bound for the USA. We left Pudong International Airport around 1pm today, flew to Seoul, and are currently bound for L.A.
Now, I’m not blogging from first class or anything so fancy-pants bourgeoise as all that. I’m using WordPress’s scheduled posting feature. It’s pretty cool! I decided I didn’t want to waste precious time at home blogging, so I put up some posts ahead of time so …
This morning when surfing CNN.com I ran across this ad for travel to Malaysia:
Truly Asia, eh? The implication there is that there are some “so-called Asia” nations that are actually no more than a bunch of posers. Which nations are the posers, I wonder? Anyone care to speculate?
I also began to wonder: does China have any similar tourism slogans, or is it too busy scaring off the rest of the world to bother? What slogans might China use …
The interview appointment time was 8:30am. We were both nervous, worried we’d forget something, worried all the work would be for nothing. Here is our checklist of things to take:
In addition, I had to take my bookbag so that she could give me her purse, cell …
Last Thursday was my girlfriend’s appointment with a State Department official here in Shanghai about getting a tourist visa to the United States. Fortunately, she got it. For the benefit of others who might be in a similar situation, I’ll describe the process we went through.
My girlfriend had a pretty big advantage from the start: she has been to the United States quite a few times on business. Every time it was to L.A. for a few days. The …
My sister Amy arrived last Thursday night, which just so happened to coincide with the arrival of rain and considerably colder weather in the Shanghai area. We haven’t done much so far in Shanghai, although we did get to meet Michael of Chairman Meow and Living in China fame and his friends. Very cool group of people. Then we went to Hangzhou.
I gotta say, any decent city in China requires at least a week of touristing. I foolishly only …
I’ll be in Australia for the next two weeks, so I won’t be updating for that time. Australia’s a big country, so I won’t try for more than a few places of interest in Queensland. For the time I’m in Brisbane, I’ll be staying with Ben, a friend and former ZUCC teacher. Wilson is meeting me at the Brisbane airport. He’s already been in Sydney for over a week.
In the meantime, you may want to check out …
Things tend to happen to me in China in clumps of weird connections. Example: my first year in Hangzhou I lived with my Chinese friend from UF’s fiancee’s dad’s boss’s son. (Didja get that?) This past Saturday I went to Wuzhen, a small, scenic, historic town (guzhen in Chinese) with a small group in order to film a travel show for the Zhejiang TV station. The trip was unpaid, but I didn’t pay for anything either — transportation, lodging, …
Hmmm, it’s a new weekend already and I seem to have neglected to mention what went down last weekend. Nicola and I headed over to Shaoxing to meet up with Erin Shutty and gang. Part of that gang is Vivienne Carr, who the ZUCC gang had already met earlier in October when we went to Putuo Shan together. Erin was the connection to Vivienne, but I hadn’t actually met Erin face to face until this past weekend. (As I’ve …
Next week is the National Day holiday (October 1-7). That means no class, and most likely a free 2-day trip with other ZUCC foreign teachers to Zhou Shan (an island off the coast of Zhejiang Province) and Putuo Shan (another nearby island) October 2-3. I’m also probably meeting up with Black Man in China‘s Aaron Benjamin tomorrow, and Shutty.net‘s Erin Shutty next week. She might even go on the ZUCC trip too, with her co-worker “the Scot.” Later …
Haha, I had to share this description of a city in southern China. It’s from a Dave’s ESL Cafe discussion board post again, by “oscar tame” this time. This guy’s evidently been in China a while (maybe too long?)…
Zhuhai – suspiciously pleasant climate, disturbingly broad visual spectrum, the ground unnervingly free of people and phlegm. the atmosphere mundane in the extreme, no swimming through and inhaling the interesting coal-and-diesel-fume soup air substitute that has been so conscientiously and considerately …
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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