Here's Looking At You

The Crab

After a slow start on the Thursday of my first week, I went around the corner and grabbed a piping-hot meat-filled bun thing and a couple of doughy steamed things with spring onions inside, a bit like a dim sim.  I figured out how to use my washing machine with the help of Google Translate, and then mid afternoon, I met my new friend, (the teacher who had suggested the bar that I'd been to the night before), in her area on another attempt to find the elusive underground supermarket.  This time I succeeded.  It was quite basic, but a supermarket nonetheless.  I stopped to make eye contact with a motionless crab in a tank, and I'd like to think it was looking back at me,  as it suddenly woke from its daze and followed my movements.  I felt a bit sorry for it, no doubt destined to end up in someone's hotpot or fried rice.  I had to move away from the tanls as the ammonia smell was a bit unappealing, then met my teacher friend outside.  We got a taxi to the downtown area, and got out at the start of a little pedestrian street filled with food stands and little restaurants.  We did venture into some ancient courtyard areas which are meant to be the old but restored parts of Xuzhou, where I took photos of beautiful paintings at the entrance.  A few minutes later we arrived at Nice Cafe, allegedly one of the two cafes in all of Xuzhou that sells decent coffee.  Bright, yet cozy inside, we ordered a couple of 'Au bais'  It turns out that this means 'Australian flat white', Au for Audaliya and bai for white in Chinese.

Au bai

The coffee didn't disappoint, in fact it was Melbourne-level, but smallish.  We chatted about life in Xuzhou and the history and places nearby to visit.  After quite some time, we decided to head out into the cold and go to a hotpot place not too far away.  We continued along the pedestrian street and then it continued as a bustling main road.  In the near distance was a looming circular building, the same office tower I'd previously seen all lit up.  It turns out this is Suning Plaza, the biggest shooping centre in Xuzhou and the centre of town.  We didn't go in but instead headed past and came across another mall directly behind it called Golden Eagle.  The whole time my friend was telling me more about Xuzhou's important history, and pointing out various cultural landmarks, such as some ancient school that now is a plaza with restaurants, and that Kaifeng, a tiny city I've longed to visit, is an interesting day trip away, as too are Qufu City (birthplace of Confucious) and Huaguoshan or Flower and Fruit Mountian, (near Liangyungan City, to the east of Xuzhou) which happens to be the birthplace of Sun Wukong, aka the Monkey King, the hero in the epic saga, Journey To The West, of which the 1970s Japanese TV show, Monkey, was based on.  (Born from an egg on a mountain top!)

Haidilao Hotpot

Unfortunately, the Xuzhou hot pot restaurant we were going to had closed down, so we ended up going back into one of the malls to a different hotpot restaurant - Haidilao.  Not usually a hotpot connoisseur, it was my first time visiting this chain, China's largest, with branches now around the world. Originating in Sichuan, it's know for it's good customer service.  We eventually found an elevator to take us up to the ninth floor, walked past some bizarro Alice In Wonderland eating establishment, and managed to get a table.  One thing I wasn't aware of was the hotpot broth was tomato based.  This was something I'd never seen before, certainly not in China's north.  Half was spicy and the other half regular.  We ordered various vegetables and trays of meat from an electric tablet menu, then went up and got our dipping sauces, including the staple of sesame paste with chives and coriander.  Of course one has to have cold beer to accompany hotpot, and Haidilao just happens to stock a very nice witbier.  Suffice to say, a food coma eventually took hold, but not before considerable effort trying to fork out quail eggs with chopsticks from the soup.

All-in-all a great day of exploration, culture, and eating!

Out and About

Settling In

I and the new teacher in the other university program were taken on a tour of the local area by the welcoming spouse of the new teacher’s colleague. Were were shown a place that serves delicious meat-filled buns, where the local greengrocer was, the pizza joint, a hot pot supply shop, a place specialising in milk, and the better mart out of a mixed bunch. We also went on a chilly 15 minute walk to the wet market which was down some narrow road and indoors. It was sprawling and filled mainly with fruit and vegetable stands plus a few chicken, pork, nuts/grains/seeds stands and a nice place at the back stocking beef. Big cuts of beef were hanging from hooks and he had other slabs on the counter. An overhead display showed a picture of a cow segmented into various types of steaks. I pointed to one of the slabs, asked for half, then we ambled back.

A Goose Chase Or Two

In the opposite direction, along a far more built-up shopping street, that oddly looked much like streets in Da Nang, Vietnam, with about the same number of hairdressers, foot massage places and beauty salon was meant to be the closest local proper supermarket but hidden away inside a building down an escalator. I’d ventured out there on the Tuesday night with the other new teacher, and tried to find it but to no avail. The area was teeming and noisy with music and loudspeakers, scooters everywhere. I did find a supermarket but not the highly recommended basement one. On Wednesday, I was introduced to another expat teacher who has lived here for many years and is a wealth of local knowledge, culture and history (and more importantly knew where to buy good coffee). She recommended a bar downtown, up some little hill. I finally bit the bullet and summoned my first DiDi taxi ride (China’s Uber), stupidly during peak hour traffic. We eventually arrived somewhere, with the driver stopping at the top of a narrow street that wound around Hubu Hill (that has some ancient horse training platform on its crest. Brilliant neon views of a small cityscape greeted me, with one cylindrical tower changing colour and showing videos. (Turns out that was Suning Plaza in the downtown area, a few hundred metres away, and the largest mall in Xuzhou).
 
As nice as all this was, it was bitterly cold and I couldn’t find the bar. I kept walking up and down and opened the door of a place where the We Chat maps had pinpointed the location of the bar. I startled an elderly couple who were seated eating dinner, but I asked them in Chinese where the bar was and was met with a point in some unknown undeterminable direction. However, I just couldn’t find it and was almost going to give up. With much to and fro, and bone-chilling coldness settling in, I finally discovered that I had been dropped off at the correct place (next door to the couple eating), but the bar was unusually opening later than normal and the entrance wasn’t lit up. Of course, had I looked up more, I might have made out the barely discernible unlit sign for the bar in the darkness but it was very easy to miss. I went on a little touristy walk for 15 minutes down a flight of steps, along what I found out was the old restored part of town. Everything was closed but the location made for nice photos.

A Happy Place

Despite being only 5 degrees, hypothermia was settling in, and luckily the bar had just opened when I walked in. I was greeted by the owner, a local who spoke fluent English and taught it by day. The bar was small, with soft lighting illuminating the dark red colour scheme. Outside was a large patio looking out over the nice view. I sat at the bar, enjoying a couple of small servings of fried goodness, but trying to work out exactly what the white sauce accompanying the fries was. The owner was busy conducting a lesson in the corner, then some more locals came in, a guy and two ladies. The guy owns a restaurant nearby and also works at the bar. Suddenly I was asked to join them all, and I sat there, not really understanding what was being said, unless spoken to me in English, but still felt cozy and warm. Indoor smoking is still permitted here and it seemed I was the only one who didn’t partake in such activities. It definitely gave my Melbourne lungs quite the workout. All in all, I had a good time, made some new contacts, and enjoyed a glass of wine on the house.

craft beer grandma

what $A9 can buy!

Spiky Long Green Things

For a whopping A$9, and a few elbows from Chinese grandmas (who all descended on the greengrocer next to my apartment complex, a minute after I entered), I bought: a packet of flat bread, 2 large carrots, a head of garlic, 2 onions, a pack of button mushrooms, 3 brown mushrooms, a bunch of celery, 3 big potatoes, a big knob of ginger, a pack of kumquats, 2 medium chicken marylands, chopped, and a dubious looking long spiky green cucumber.  

Down, down at Coles?  pffftt!  One could get quite used to living here!

A Trip To The Doctor

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.            

The Road To Xuzhou

It was a week ago that I was frantically packing and about to leave for the airport on the long road to Xuzhou.  This journey, actually began last year when I landed a job teaching Academic English at a university in Melbourne as part of preparations to teach in their joint venture program in China.  Fast forward 5 months and here I am - we made it!  And what a journey it’s been.  Similar to my Daniel Babji personal travel memoirs, I hope to write about my time living and working here, warts and all, and everything in between. 

Xu-what???

Xuzhou, somewhat pronounced as Shoe-Joe) is largely unheard of outside of China, other than Sinophiles and within the Chinese diaspora.  Located in Jiangsu Province some 700 km south of Beijing and 600km northwest of Shanghai), Xuzhou is a major city of 9.5 million people and lies near the borders of Anhui and Shandong provinces.  During the Han Dynasty, it was known as Pengcheng and was the capital of the new Chu Kingdom.  Fast-forward to modern times where it has reinvented itself from a coal-producing area to a major science and educational hub. More interestingly for me, it has become a household name across China as a food paradise.

Planes and Trains

My flights were quite smooth overall, although I only managed to sleep 3 hours on the first leg from Melbourne to Guangzhou, arriving at 6am.  I usually have negative experiences at Guangzhou Airport, both the old airport and the new sprawling one.  Having watched Joker: Folie à Deux on the flight only added to my grumpiness.  This time around, shops were open, and staff made far more of an effort to assist than on previous visits.  Discovering that the China Mobile sim card I’d been given wasn’t working, and there were no wifi login stands around, I spent half my 4 hour stopover time attempting to get connected.  When I finally did, I tested my new We Chat payment facility linked to my WISE RMB wallet. Thankfully it worked and I was able to savour my breakfast of Ferrero Rochers.

Wedged between two guys who clearly hadn’t come across the notion of bathing regularly made for an interesting flight to Shanghai.  Upon arrival, I grabbed my two 23kg suitcases, took an elevator down to B1 then walked a short distance to the subway stop.  Realising I had no wifi, and therefore no means to pay a ticket to go one stop, I had a slight stroke, but the subway staff pointed and said “Hongqiao Station walk 5 minutes”.  And so I did, a nice workout, all very easy, and arrived at the fast speed station with over an hour before departure.  Having been to Hongqiao Station once before, on a public holiday, with arguably a million people in every direction, this time it was more subdued.  I was told that ATMs were upstairs on the departure level.  Unfortunately, there were none.  Also unfortunate was my brand new nice deodorant spray being confiscated, because apparently, sprays can set off the smoke detectors on board the fast trains.  When the barriers opened to head to the platform 10 minutes before departure, I set off alarms and held everyone up for 30 seconds as I didn’t know I was meant to be stuffing my passport in some scanner and had already packed it away, much to the barrier attendant’s irritation.

Xuzhou Arrival

The very fast train journey was uneventful other than the bag of assorted snacks I was given.  Upon arrival, and after lugging both suitcases down 3 flights of steps, I was met by a student holding a sign with my name and a bunch of flowers for me.  I was not expecting that!  I followed I’m to street level and he ordered a taxi but it turns out the taxi rank is in the basement, so after hauling cases back down, we made it to a taxi and headed to my apartment.  My first impression of Xuzhou was that I’m back in the land of haze, as the sky had a brown tinge to it.  Being somewhat hilly and mountainous, Xuzhou reminded me of South Korea except it has endless banks of brown apartment buildings.  Every so often and at every traffic light, overhead cameras flash endlessly, taking photos of everyone. A little dystopian but comes with the territory.  We finally came to the main road on which the university is located.  A couple of km further down is a little shopping street with gigantic gated apartment complexes to the north, south and west. 

The Apartment of Cupboards and Drawers

My apartment complex has some 30 buildings spread out amongst leafy little streets and paths.  Each building has multiple entrances which makes it seem even more huge.  My apartment is on the 7th floor, looks out onto the street at one end and with a view to the huge intersection and distant hills, and at apartment buildings at the back.  Needless to say, it was freezing inside and it took some time to get the heaters on.  Conveniently, there were two hot water systems, which created confusion as to which one to use and then how to operate it.  Additionally, the stove wasn’t working either.  Joy.  In the end, the landlord had to be summoned and repairs made, while my patience was being put to the test.  Finally, some semblance of hot water was created and I was left to myself.  The apartment is medium to large, with low benchtops in the kitchen, six light switches near the entrance operating all kinds of lights, from downlights to fake chandeliers that light up in blue.  It seemed every available inch of unused space had been converted into either a cupboard or drawer.  In the spare bedroom was a large bunk bed and underneath the window sill were cupboards and drawers to make for some kind of home office.  I’ll stick to the kitchen table for the time being!  

After unpacking the stored items left by a previous teacher that had been carried over from his old apartment (that had been suddenly sold late last year), I made the bed and made note that there was no kettle or bottled water or toilet paper or even operational guides for appliances like the heating, remote controls - basic items one would expect to be provided in these situations (as has been in numerous prior roles).  I went for a walk up and down the street, looking to see what stores were open.  About two-thirds of them were restaurants, and I went into a Lanzhou Pulled Noodle place that had a few pictures labeled in English, pointed at one, and a few minutes later a humongous plate of rice with a few pieces of beef and lots of green capsicum was served.  A good feed, then a barely hot shower then to sleep in the king-sized bed.