Faced with no real plans for the afternoon, and determined to get out of the Eeyore mode I’ve found myself in the last day or two, I decided to finally take care of an errand I’ve been avoiding for about a week and went to buy a mouse (I spilled water on my track bad a while a go, and while it’s still technically functional, the right click function occurs on a left click on my desktop, and not at all most other places, a small nuisance which prevents me somehow from dragging text and files, opening attachments or using gmail). The electronics market is near Wensan Rd, an area I’d been meaning to explore more, so I filled my bag with books, maps and busywork and took the bus across town. The electronics market was certainly no Best Buy; two flors of booths crammed with mp3 players, cameras, computers, cell phones and all of the accoutrements that come with them. One of my teachers had helpfully told me the word for mouse (NOT the word for the animal) and told me the approximate price of a bottom-line one. I dispatched the errand without too much trouble, though I of course just bought the first decent one I found. It was a bit overwhelming and I am happy with my purchase, so no matter.
I then set off for a café on a nearby street to kill some time and relax away from campus. This was my first chance to have a relaxing Friday afternoon in a while, and damn it, I was going to make use of it. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that though I was on Wensan Rd (3rd Wen Rd), the place I wanted was not on Wen’er (2nd Wen) Rd, but WEST Wen’er Rd, so I ended up trekking a fair bit across town. It was definitely walkable, and a rather pleasant walk at that, but by the time I arrived I was more than ready to collapse into an armchair on the second floor, order a drink and a sandwich, and not move for a long time.
I spent the next couple of hours working out travel itineraries, reviewing my 1 on 1 a bit and reading, while listening to a continuous loop of lounge piano recordings of, among others, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, “White Christmas” and another that I couldn’t place but is definitely in at least two Meg Ryan movies. In fact the whole CD may have been “Sounds of Meg Ryan Movies” as I’m pretty sure White Christmas is in Sleepless in Seattle, and Somewhere Beyond the Sea in When Harry Met Sally.
Coffee house music here never fails to amuse. One place had a recording of several Beatles covers, a few sappy 1990s love songs of the Patrick Swayze variety (one really was that song from Ghost with the pottery wheel; can’t place it now, but you know the one), “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” again, but with the lyrics, and a rock version of Auld Lang Syne. Still another had “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” sung in French, as well as several similarly moody selections, but the CD was replaced after only two repetitions by an excellent 80’s mix, every other track featuring Michael Jackson. This is rare; they usually don’t change the CD all day. You can actually measure the time you’ve spent in a café here by how many times the CD repeats.
At least it’s better than the street cleaning trucks that roll through several times a day. From all points on campus you can year the truck ambling past blaring an ice-cream truck medley of Christmas tunes, mostly “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, and one tune that I swear sounds like Scarborough Fair. If you go farther West, it’s Happy Birthday, London Bridge and Brahm’s Lullaby.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Being Touristy, Part 2
This week hasn’t been immensely taxing, or even that eventful for that matter. Because class was canceled Monday, I effectively only had a half course-load this week, which I dealt with in one fell swoop at Starbucks Tuesday night. It was a rather sniffly swoop, as everone here seems to be sleeping poorly and coming down sick this week. I started getting the sniffles Monday evening, and by Tuesday I was in full-on head cold mode. I couldn’t sleep Tuesday night, a fact which was made worse by the fact that there were mosquitoes in my room. Chinese mosquitoes are quicker, and therefore harder to kill than the American ones. When I was in Beijing I bought a flyswatter, and it became a ritual every night to close the door and climb on every piece of furniture to kill my mosquitoes, each with a fast and supremely satisfying thwack. It was kind of fun, part vindictive pleasure, part prey-stalking.
Though there are mosquitoes here, they’re not as many and haven’t been a huge problem. But when you can’t sleep and you hear an occasional, ominous buzzing somewhere near your head, it can pretty quickly drive you crazy. I’d wave my arms wildly around my head, but a few minutes later they’d be back. I’d pull the covers over my head to keep them away, but quickly get too hot and decide that was a bad idea. It was awful. I’d get up to blow my nose, indignantly flick on the lights and swat at one perched on the wall over my bed. Of course, it would get away, and I’d scan the room for a minute before turning off the light and climbing back into bed. This went on for at least an hour, before finally I took out two of them with one of my textbooks, and (I hoped) shut a third in the bathroom. Left in peace, I settled into my ailing sleep for the night.
Wednesday I felt a bit better, but I also had well over five hours of class, and by the time I finished my one-on-one at 4:15, my brain was droning a monotonous mantra of “sleep…sleep…” and sleep I did, until 9:30 this morning, except for an hour and a half break around 8:00 when I sent off some emails and ate a granola bar. This morning I felt better, but a walk to the post office left me exhausted, and though I wasn’t exactly loving the idea of another afternoon in bed, I didn’t have any homework and wasn’t up for much activity.
Luckily my hand was forced by prior arrangements and a growing urge to get the hell away from campus, which I hadn’t ventured from since Monday night (Starbucks, though a 5-10 minute bus ride away, does not count as it is a place to sit and do work and come back, and has no sight-seeing aspects like other coffee houses). So this afternoon I set off with Xueqin, Shushan and Yazhen to the pedestrian area of Hefang Street, a street promising to give us the chance to haggle to our hearts content over jade cell phone fobs and Peking Opera masks. It still being the National Golden Holiday, the stores were crammed full of people, but it was lots of fun to see everyone’s wares, especially since the street seems to have been outfitted with a somewhat traditional façade, so the shops were all adorned with carved wooden signs and lanterns and such. There were also craft demonstrations of every type, which we were more than happy to gaze at in awe.
After walking the length of the street (and posing in only one picture with gaping tourists, who kept thinking poor Shushan, who’s Korean and lives in New Jersey, was our Chinese interpreter), we headed back to a teahouse we’d seen reviewed in a magazine, and were ushered to a private upstairs room. The waiters were all wearing somewhat traditional garb, and the service featured a tea ceremony that apparently takes two years of study to master. The tea, which was served cold, was refilled from a brass pot with a very long, narrow spout (we’re talking about four feet). The server could twirl the pot in all manner of configurations around his body, at last resting it on his head or behind his back, extending the other hand to the end of the spout and pouring the water, often from some distance, into the cup. Once he lunged at the cup from across the room, holding the pot high over his head, and once he even balanced the cup on his knee. We sat for quite some time, happily munching on the fruit, candies and sunflower seeds they provided us with. The place was terrific; it looked like a set from a kung fu movie, and we were definitely content to stay for as long as they kept bringing us more sunflower seeds, and refilling our beautifully painted teacups.
I’m a big fan of being touristy in Hangzhou. Much as I am getting used to living in this city for daily life, the touristy stuff has so much more stimulus, and there are better places to park and people watch downtown than on the outskirts. At the end of the day I don’t have to schlep my backpack to a hotel room, and I don’t have to think about whether or not I’m making use of my time, because I’ve got lots of time. I live here, though it’s definitely not home. Still, when I have the afternoon free, wandering around the touristy parts is an interesting and different, and somehow more cool than running an errand to buy a mouse (which I still need to do) or doing homework at Starbucks (which I will inevitably do again).
Though there are mosquitoes here, they’re not as many and haven’t been a huge problem. But when you can’t sleep and you hear an occasional, ominous buzzing somewhere near your head, it can pretty quickly drive you crazy. I’d wave my arms wildly around my head, but a few minutes later they’d be back. I’d pull the covers over my head to keep them away, but quickly get too hot and decide that was a bad idea. It was awful. I’d get up to blow my nose, indignantly flick on the lights and swat at one perched on the wall over my bed. Of course, it would get away, and I’d scan the room for a minute before turning off the light and climbing back into bed. This went on for at least an hour, before finally I took out two of them with one of my textbooks, and (I hoped) shut a third in the bathroom. Left in peace, I settled into my ailing sleep for the night.
Wednesday I felt a bit better, but I also had well over five hours of class, and by the time I finished my one-on-one at 4:15, my brain was droning a monotonous mantra of “sleep…sleep…” and sleep I did, until 9:30 this morning, except for an hour and a half break around 8:00 when I sent off some emails and ate a granola bar. This morning I felt better, but a walk to the post office left me exhausted, and though I wasn’t exactly loving the idea of another afternoon in bed, I didn’t have any homework and wasn’t up for much activity.
Luckily my hand was forced by prior arrangements and a growing urge to get the hell away from campus, which I hadn’t ventured from since Monday night (Starbucks, though a 5-10 minute bus ride away, does not count as it is a place to sit and do work and come back, and has no sight-seeing aspects like other coffee houses). So this afternoon I set off with Xueqin, Shushan and Yazhen to the pedestrian area of Hefang Street, a street promising to give us the chance to haggle to our hearts content over jade cell phone fobs and Peking Opera masks. It still being the National Golden Holiday, the stores were crammed full of people, but it was lots of fun to see everyone’s wares, especially since the street seems to have been outfitted with a somewhat traditional façade, so the shops were all adorned with carved wooden signs and lanterns and such. There were also craft demonstrations of every type, which we were more than happy to gaze at in awe.
After walking the length of the street (and posing in only one picture with gaping tourists, who kept thinking poor Shushan, who’s Korean and lives in New Jersey, was our Chinese interpreter), we headed back to a teahouse we’d seen reviewed in a magazine, and were ushered to a private upstairs room. The waiters were all wearing somewhat traditional garb, and the service featured a tea ceremony that apparently takes two years of study to master. The tea, which was served cold, was refilled from a brass pot with a very long, narrow spout (we’re talking about four feet). The server could twirl the pot in all manner of configurations around his body, at last resting it on his head or behind his back, extending the other hand to the end of the spout and pouring the water, often from some distance, into the cup. Once he lunged at the cup from across the room, holding the pot high over his head, and once he even balanced the cup on his knee. We sat for quite some time, happily munching on the fruit, candies and sunflower seeds they provided us with. The place was terrific; it looked like a set from a kung fu movie, and we were definitely content to stay for as long as they kept bringing us more sunflower seeds, and refilling our beautifully painted teacups.
I’m a big fan of being touristy in Hangzhou. Much as I am getting used to living in this city for daily life, the touristy stuff has so much more stimulus, and there are better places to park and people watch downtown than on the outskirts. At the end of the day I don’t have to schlep my backpack to a hotel room, and I don’t have to think about whether or not I’m making use of my time, because I’ve got lots of time. I live here, though it’s definitely not home. Still, when I have the afternoon free, wandering around the touristy parts is an interesting and different, and somehow more cool than running an errand to buy a mouse (which I still need to do) or doing homework at Starbucks (which I will inevitably do again).
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Expenses
Well I’ve now officially passed the one-month mark. I can mark my progress by announcing that yesterday Yazhen and I successfully ordered a delicious meal for four at a beautiful restaurant on West Lake to celebrate her birthday, that I rolled my eyes at the masses of tourists standing around on the bridges around the lake (of course I’m still more of an outsider than they are, but it’s nice to feel the distinction anyway), that I had nothing confiscated at the grocery store checkout this morning (though I didn’t buy any produce), and that I finally let myself eat fried rice again for dinner today.
Before I left for Shanghai, I took a look at my money situation. At the start I kept a close eye on where I spent my money, so if I were wasting a lot on one particular expense I would know, or I could consider buying a multi-use bus pass or such. I quickly decided that this was a bad idea, because I am not traveling but living here for a semester, and cataloguing everywhere my money goes will only make me anxious and unreasonably cheap. Still, I really haven’t been all that extravagant. I’m enjoying Hangzhou and getting out, and I even go for a cup of coffee to study once or twice a week. I’ve accepted taxi rides as an occasional necessity, and I’ve gotten used to watching a ticker on my desktop alert me to exactly how much I’m spending on internet time. I haven’t bought an electric scooter, or plane tickets for weekend trips, or daily lattes like some of my classmates (I can’t make that not sound judgemental, but it’s really not, I just have my own way of doing things and it involves not buying a 35 yuan latte every day).
Not including my Shanghai weekend (but to be fair, including the last two days of August), I figure in my first month I spent about 2000 yuan, or 260 dollars. This seemed pretty reasonable to me, especially considering that 500 went to a cell phone and five month phone plan. I’ve succeeded in passing an enjoyable and non-Puritanical month, and I am under budget. I was pretty proud of myself. And then I remembered that one of my teachers let it slip that his monthly salary is 3000 yuan.
3000 yuan! And then you need to pay taxes, pay rent, have some savings, etc. If most people live on maybe 1000 yuan or less spending money a month, where exactly are my luxuries? The occasional cab ride, a drink at a bar now and then. I don’t cook for myself, but I hardly dine five-star; I eat a lot at the cafeteria, and breakfast is usually yogurt or a roll. I’ve bought myself very little: a towel, some shampoo, some clothes hangers and laundry detergent, a pen case, notebooks, maybe a few other things. My weekend in Shaoxing put me back around 200 and I spent 150 on the soccer ticket. I’m not saying I have regrets about having fun around here, but it certainly puts things in perspective. All in all, you could definitely live on that little money for a month, but it would be a fairly simple life, with little entertainment and a lot of nights at home. Someone should tell Paris Hilton…could be a spinoff?
Before I left for Shanghai, I took a look at my money situation. At the start I kept a close eye on where I spent my money, so if I were wasting a lot on one particular expense I would know, or I could consider buying a multi-use bus pass or such. I quickly decided that this was a bad idea, because I am not traveling but living here for a semester, and cataloguing everywhere my money goes will only make me anxious and unreasonably cheap. Still, I really haven’t been all that extravagant. I’m enjoying Hangzhou and getting out, and I even go for a cup of coffee to study once or twice a week. I’ve accepted taxi rides as an occasional necessity, and I’ve gotten used to watching a ticker on my desktop alert me to exactly how much I’m spending on internet time. I haven’t bought an electric scooter, or plane tickets for weekend trips, or daily lattes like some of my classmates (I can’t make that not sound judgemental, but it’s really not, I just have my own way of doing things and it involves not buying a 35 yuan latte every day).
Not including my Shanghai weekend (but to be fair, including the last two days of August), I figure in my first month I spent about 2000 yuan, or 260 dollars. This seemed pretty reasonable to me, especially considering that 500 went to a cell phone and five month phone plan. I’ve succeeded in passing an enjoyable and non-Puritanical month, and I am under budget. I was pretty proud of myself. And then I remembered that one of my teachers let it slip that his monthly salary is 3000 yuan.
3000 yuan! And then you need to pay taxes, pay rent, have some savings, etc. If most people live on maybe 1000 yuan or less spending money a month, where exactly are my luxuries? The occasional cab ride, a drink at a bar now and then. I don’t cook for myself, but I hardly dine five-star; I eat a lot at the cafeteria, and breakfast is usually yogurt or a roll. I’ve bought myself very little: a towel, some shampoo, some clothes hangers and laundry detergent, a pen case, notebooks, maybe a few other things. My weekend in Shaoxing put me back around 200 and I spent 150 on the soccer ticket. I’m not saying I have regrets about having fun around here, but it certainly puts things in perspective. All in all, you could definitely live on that little money for a month, but it would be a fairly simple life, with little entertainment and a lot of nights at home. Someone should tell Paris Hilton…could be a spinoff?
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