With the outside temperature a crisp 5 degrees, I ventured out of my new home at the crisp hour of 8am on my second day, with an unbelievably painful sore throat, to meet the same student whom I'd met the night before. He was accompanied by his brother, and then another guy appeared, also a new teacher. We drove north, in the direction of the downtown area, passing by the huge inland lake to our left before stopping opposite a smaller picturesque lake to the right. After some admin kerfuffle and paper shuffling, both myself and the new teacher lined up for the first of a series of medical tests, as part of working visa requirements. Having gone through the rounds once before, I knew what to expect, and what I expected wasn’t pretty. This time around it was all pretty clinical - no jumping needle attacks, although the needle did hurt quite a bit. Who knows what my blood will be used for!
I did come prepared for the dreaded vision test, and despite some agro by both the unastute doctor (who hadn’t understood or properly read my note explaining the state of the union), and subsequently myself, it was over within a minute. The urine test was interesting - was given a very flimsy tiny plastic jug and a flimsy little plastic test tube. I did notice the lack of soap and privacy in the bathroom. Lastly I had some chest xrays taken. Once all the tests were done, it was time to register for a residency permit. It was already mid-morning and I was famished and didn’t really fancy the offer of milk. I did accept a bag of chestnuts as we drove the short distance to our next stop, then we went to a mall, and I purchased a much-needed kettle for my apartment. I’m sure there’s an ancient saying somewhere that the measurement of a person’s worth is directly correlated to the size of their kettle! We then ordered lunch and I was able to start practicing my Chinese (xilanhua, huanggua, tudou (not to be confused with Justin), and other phrases involving the size of vegetables.
In the early evening, I met the same new teacher from the morning, and we walked 20 minutes south along the large university road, trying not to get hit by motorscooters zipping by. I had been informed of a small but good Chinese supermarket somewhere along a much larger and bustling road a good 20 minutes away on foot. Sadly we didn’t find it, but the street was bustling and there were restaurants everywhere and many barbershops. It looked very much like parts of Da Nang in Vietnam, except with more scooters and many Chinese people. We ended up walking back to the sleepy street we live on and entered a larger restaurant. I ate delicious sweet and sour, and the portions were enough for three people. We stuffed ourselves before it was time to call it a night.
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