We only had a day and a half in Shanghai before we headed for Taiwan. We mostly spent it fixing up our apartment and getting settled.
After arriving we went to eat at the mall. The mall near our place contains a bunch of upscale chain stores that were way out of my regular budget and a few restaurants.
We managed to stay up until a reasonable hour in spite of jet lag by keeping busy unpacking and moving around the furniture. We went to sleep with only the little blanket we bought for the plane because the one provided in our apartment was sort of stained and gross.
We took a cab to Ikea once it was close to 10:00. Ikea in Shanghai is very similar to the one in the states except everything costs about 2/3 of the price. We went a bit nuts shopping, but we hadn’t brought much stuff with us and our place looked way too bare.
I thought they paid PhD students badly in the states but we found out in China it was way less. Ronxing’s monthly salary was quite a bit less than what we spent at Ikea. I felt sort of bad when I realized it, but he does get free housing and food at the super cheap cafeteria.
After lunch we stopped by the main office from my work so I could do some paperwork. The office was pretty nice, hopefully my school will look equally nice. We met another teacher there named Beth on the way out. She was really friendly and showed us where to get a sim card for our cell phone. Danny talked to the woman at the cell phone place in Chinese and picked out a plan and all. I was sort of mad because he didn’t translate anything and I had no idea what happened. Note to self: learn Chinese. We got a plan with a few minutes and a few megabytes of downloads that we could use for Skype. I used up about an eighth of it when I Skyped my family that night. We still need to figure out a way to get internet at home so we don't have to keep walking to Danny's office.
When we got back we unpacked our Ikea stuff so our place looked a little nicer and we took a long jet lag induced nap.
We walked back towards the fancy shopping malls for dinner. On the way we stopped at the electronics mall to see if they had dvd players since we packed a bunch of dvd and our place came with a tv but no dvd player. We figured out why Ronxing had recommended we order our electronics online... Danny was sort of overwhelmed by it. The electronics mall was 10 floors of extremely pushy sales people selling all types of computer gadgets. They are super high pressure. Turned out they didn’t sell dvd players for tv’s anyway but I don't think we'll go back anytime soon.
After we gave up and left the electronics mall we decided to try Italian for dinner since we wouldn’t eat much western food for a while. I had garlic bread and pizza, which tasted pretty much like bad diner food in the states. I think we are going to have to search a bit more to find western food that is actually decent.
Danny was really excited to find a place that he knew from Taiwan that specialized in Dumplings. They had a few veggie options and I figured since it was our first night in Shanghai we should get some sort of Chinese food so we gave it a try. We ordered green veggies, spicy cucumber and a few buns. Danny's buns were filled with meat and stew, mine were filled with vegetables. The whole meal was less than $20.
We managed to stay up until a reasonable hour in spite of jet lag by keeping busy unpacking and moving around the furniture. We went to sleep with only the little blanket we bought for the plane because the one provided in our apartment was sort of stained and gross.
We woke up at 5:00 am the next morning. For some reason it didn't occur to either of us that businesses don't open that early so at 7:30 we walked to Ikea to get a start on the list of things our apartment needed. It was really hot and everything was closed but it was still cool to see the neighborhood a bit.
We tried taking the metro home. It was ridiculously crowded, a bit worse than Manhattan rush hour. I'm thinking of taking taxis to work instead. We also discovered after reading a brochure from my work that metro cards work in taxis so that is pretty convenient.
When we got back we looked around the park across the street from our place. It was really pretty and a lot of older people were out doing morning exercises.
We tried taking the metro home. It was ridiculously crowded, a bit worse than Manhattan rush hour. I'm thinking of taking taxis to work instead. We also discovered after reading a brochure from my work that metro cards work in taxis so that is pretty convenient.
When we got back we looked around the park across the street from our place. It was really pretty and a lot of older people were out doing morning exercises.
Then we took a look around our building. It has a really cheap cafeteria where we bought a bun for about 30 cents. It wasn’t very good though. Nobody there spoke English so I’m not sure I could order food there without Danny.
We took a cab to Ikea once it was close to 10:00. Ikea in Shanghai is very similar to the one in the states except everything costs about 2/3 of the price. We went a bit nuts shopping, but we hadn’t brought much stuff with us and our place looked way too bare.
Danny’s boss was supposed to take us to lunch. She couldn't make it so we made plans with Ronxing in her place. He seriously lives at the office. We went to a somewhat fancy place. Each table had a private room with curtains you could draw for privacy. They didn’t have much of a vegetarian selection, mostly just plain vegetables. I got green vegetables and a corn dish which were fairly decent. Ronxing was really sweet. His English turned out to not be quite as bad as I thought. He clearly studies English in school but I don’t think he had ever really spoken to native speakers before. We had a nice talk with him, except for the boring parts where him and Danny discussed physics. It was sort of like hanging out with Drexel people.
I thought they paid PhD students badly in the states but we found out in China it was way less. Ronxing’s monthly salary was quite a bit less than what we spent at Ikea. I felt sort of bad when I realized it, but he does get free housing and food at the super cheap cafeteria.
After lunch we stopped by the main office from my work so I could do some paperwork. The office was pretty nice, hopefully my school will look equally nice. We met another teacher there named Beth on the way out. She was really friendly and showed us where to get a sim card for our cell phone. Danny talked to the woman at the cell phone place in Chinese and picked out a plan and all. I was sort of mad because he didn’t translate anything and I had no idea what happened. Note to self: learn Chinese. We got a plan with a few minutes and a few megabytes of downloads that we could use for Skype. I used up about an eighth of it when I Skyped my family that night. We still need to figure out a way to get internet at home so we don't have to keep walking to Danny's office.
When we got back we unpacked our Ikea stuff so our place looked a little nicer and we took a long jet lag induced nap.
When we woke up we stopped by Danny’s work and chatted with the other post doc there, Zhaoyu. He was really friendly and spoke pretty decent English. I tried to invite him to have dinner with us but then I realized it was almost 9:00 at night there and he already ate. I still haven’t quite gotten my time zone right.
We walked back towards the fancy shopping malls for dinner. On the way we stopped at the electronics mall to see if they had dvd players since we packed a bunch of dvd and our place came with a tv but no dvd player. We figured out why Ronxing had recommended we order our electronics online... Danny was sort of overwhelmed by it. The electronics mall was 10 floors of extremely pushy sales people selling all types of computer gadgets. They are super high pressure. Turned out they didn’t sell dvd players for tv’s anyway but I don't think we'll go back anytime soon.
After we gave up and left the electronics mall we decided to try Italian for dinner since we wouldn’t eat much western food for a while. I had garlic bread and pizza, which tasted pretty much like bad diner food in the states. I think we are going to have to search a bit more to find western food that is actually decent.
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