Zhongshan, Guangdong, China!

Hey everybody! So as you probably all know, or will know by the time you finish reading this sentence, I have recently moved to Zhongshan, China, to teach English at the university here. I left Canada with my friend Steph at 12:30 on Friday August 24th. We flew through Detroit where we enjoyed our last North America beer for the next 7-13 months. After that we boarded our plane to Tokyo for a short 13 hour flight. Holy crap... I forgot how boring movies could get after a few hours!! We arrived in Tokyo and killed our time during the short layover by being amazed by all things Japanese. Our flight to Hong Kong was only 4.5 hours but it felt like a lifetime. I think both Steph and I would have given almost anything to have just been in our beds at our hostel. FINALLY we arrived in Hong Kong and went through customs with no problems... and not even one question, so strange after some of the interrogations I’ve gone through at US customs. After collecting our luggage we headed for the bus (Steph we smart and actually did some research and probably saved us about $100 on taxi fare)! At 1:30am in our new time zone, we arrived at our hostel in downtown Hong Kong and passed the hell out.

The next day Steph and I woke up in decent time in an attempt to drop kick jet lag in the face, which I think we did fairly successfully. We ventured around the city trying to find our way to the waterfront. After about an hour and a half of wandering we decided to take a ferry from Hong Kong island to Kowloon peninsula where we had our first, and probably most expensive, beer in Asia. From there we headed to Victoria Peak which is located on the highest mountain (big hill by Canadian mountain standards) on Hong Kong island. To get to the peak of the mountain you can choose to walk, which takes about an hour, or take a really cool trolly to the top - we picked the trolley. We stayed at the top for a few hours just meandering around and of course, we drank some more beers. After taking the trolley back down we found a hole-in-the-wall restaurant where nobody spoke english (luckily though, there was English on the menu so we actually knew what we were ordering). Let me tell you... authentic Chinese food blows North American Chinese food out of the water, you really can’t even compare them. You guys should probably all just come here and try it to find out just how great it is. Anyway, after that Steph and I crashed pretty early because we had to be awake at 6am to catch the ferry to ZHONGSHAN!!

Me and a view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak!

The view from Victoria Peak without my funny looking face :)

We got to Zhongshan with no issues and got settled into our apartments fairly easily. On the advice of Anne and Gill we headed straight to the supermarket to buy Raid so we could spray for cockroaches... within the first hour of spraying my cockroach kill count was at 5. That night Greg arrived and we welcomed him with some delicious 50 cent beers. 

My living room/the view as soon as you walk in

Another view of the living room

My tiny kitchen

My super tiny and slightly scary bathroom

My bedroom

My weird laundry /kind of balcony room

Since then the three of us have spent our time wandering around our neighbourhood in Zhongshan trying to get aquatinted with our surroundings. We met some of the students at the university when they helped us open up our Chinese bank accounts and buy our Chinese cellphones. We also met another English teacher named Chris. He’s lived in China for a few years so he speaks some Mandarin which comes in really handy when you’re trying to catch a cab to a bar and the taxi driver speaks no English. We have gone out two nights, first to an Irish pub and then another “american style” bar where most people drink Budweiser or Pabst Blue Ribbon because they think all things American are awesome... I wish I could introduce them to some decent beer. The other night we went out to a club that Anne recommended called 18. It was ridiculously amazing. Within 2 minutes of walking in the door a tall Chinese man offered Greg a beer to chug because they were both so tall. We bought a bucket of 12 beer for 240 Yuan which is about $37 CAN (just for the record that was really expensive compared to what we normally pay for beer here... we’ve found a decent one that’s a quarter per can). By the end of the night we’d made lots of friends and even had a guy buy us a bucket of 12 beer. I will elaborate more on how ridiculously amazing Chinese clubs are after this weekend when I have had a little more exposure!

Steph and I with the Canadian flag in what I'm fairly confident is Friend's Bar

Steph and I at Club 18 with the weird dancing girl... she has a lot more clothes on in this photo than she did earlier

Greg and Steph both started teaching on Monday and have so far informed me that their classes are going fairly well. For some reason I am teaching in a different department and they are not yet organized so I have this week off to do as I please... and I am already bored. I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom and it has only been 2 days! I guess I should start my lesson plans for next week but, let’s be serious, I’ll probably just spend my time wandering around Zhongshan instead.

Well folks, that’s all for now. I’ll write another post after I have started teaching so I have more stuff to talk about. If you have any specific questions for me just ask and I’ll answer to the best of my ability! 

This is a photo taken in the beer aisle at the grocery store... yes, they think A&W Root Beer is real beer

Miss you and love you all!! xoxoxoxox