Monday, January 23, 2012
Here I am.
5:40 PM | 
Posted by
Eric |
I have to admit that one of the first things I thought after being dropped off at my apartment was, "What the heck am I doing here? I need to go home." It's partly because of the cold, the crazy taxi ride from the airport, and the empty space in the apartment which signifies the start of something new.
The feeling didn't last long though as I went outside and started to walk around the neighborhood. It's not that there was anything that jumped out and made me think, "Oh, I'm so glad to be here." I guess it was just the normalcy of it all. Being in the city is just like...being in the city, only everything is in Chinese.
I've done quite a bit of exploring in my couple of days here so far. I've found a couple of shopping malls. One is just like a modern mall in the US, the other looked more like an indoor swapmart. Both malls though are based around a supermarket. I guess that a "supermarket" here is more literally that than just a grocery store like it is back home. The supermarket is best described, (for my friends in AZ), as a Food City meets K-Mart. They sell everything from eggs to vacuums. You want to go buy a pillowcase, a blender, a donut, and a pineapple? Go to the supermarket.
The one thing I couldn't find at the supermarket...an adapter to let me plug my dead laptop into an outlet. I needed my laptop to get online to figure out how to ask for such a thing, and I needed the thing to get my laptop to power on. I was stuck. I went around and around searching every inch of every store in the mall. I ran into a girl at a department store that said she spoke a little English. She spoke a little English like I spoke a little Chinese, so that didn't help. She did however help to kickstart my brain into thinking that I could draw the thing I was looking for on a piece of paper. So, armed with my new drawing, I returned to the supermarket to ask where they were hiding the plug adapters. "Blah blah blah blah blah meiyou blah blah blah meiyou." That is what I was told. Luckily, the one word that I understood is the key word here. "Meiyou," means, "Don't have." So, I still didn't have my adapter, but atleast I knew I could move on to another location.
At the second mall's supermarket I just happened to walk right up to an endcap that was loaded with travel adapters. I grabbed the one that looked like it should work, and just hoped that it didn't blow up my power supply. I was so happy to have found this thing. Not having access to the internet was making figuring things out pretty much impossible. Anyways, I took the adapter out of the package and it fell apart. I just had to laugh because people always say "Cheap, Made in China crap." Well, I think you should feel lucky that it doesn't say "Made for China." The stuff that leaves the country is the good stuff. I didn't have any tape or glue around so I had to wrap a cord around the thing to hold it together. As you can tell, it is working just fine so far.
Well, it's been pretty fun walking around finding new places. There is an endless supply of new things to discover. Behind every door is a mystery. I have no idea what any of these shop signs say, so the only way to find out would be to go in and ask what they do. Maybe when I learn to speak a little, I can start to figure out what's going on behind these mystery doors. Until then I am sticking to the malls and supermarkets.
Well I will leave you with a few photos from around the neighborhood. It's really too cold to be taking photos...so I don't have much. Once it starts to warm up a bit I can get this blog format a little better with photos relevant to the story.
The feeling didn't last long though as I went outside and started to walk around the neighborhood. It's not that there was anything that jumped out and made me think, "Oh, I'm so glad to be here." I guess it was just the normalcy of it all. Being in the city is just like...being in the city, only everything is in Chinese.
I've done quite a bit of exploring in my couple of days here so far. I've found a couple of shopping malls. One is just like a modern mall in the US, the other looked more like an indoor swapmart. Both malls though are based around a supermarket. I guess that a "supermarket" here is more literally that than just a grocery store like it is back home. The supermarket is best described, (for my friends in AZ), as a Food City meets K-Mart. They sell everything from eggs to vacuums. You want to go buy a pillowcase, a blender, a donut, and a pineapple? Go to the supermarket.
The one thing I couldn't find at the supermarket...an adapter to let me plug my dead laptop into an outlet. I needed my laptop to get online to figure out how to ask for such a thing, and I needed the thing to get my laptop to power on. I was stuck. I went around and around searching every inch of every store in the mall. I ran into a girl at a department store that said she spoke a little English. She spoke a little English like I spoke a little Chinese, so that didn't help. She did however help to kickstart my brain into thinking that I could draw the thing I was looking for on a piece of paper. So, armed with my new drawing, I returned to the supermarket to ask where they were hiding the plug adapters. "Blah blah blah blah blah meiyou blah blah blah meiyou." That is what I was told. Luckily, the one word that I understood is the key word here. "Meiyou," means, "Don't have." So, I still didn't have my adapter, but atleast I knew I could move on to another location.
At the second mall's supermarket I just happened to walk right up to an endcap that was loaded with travel adapters. I grabbed the one that looked like it should work, and just hoped that it didn't blow up my power supply. I was so happy to have found this thing. Not having access to the internet was making figuring things out pretty much impossible. Anyways, I took the adapter out of the package and it fell apart. I just had to laugh because people always say "Cheap, Made in China crap." Well, I think you should feel lucky that it doesn't say "Made for China." The stuff that leaves the country is the good stuff. I didn't have any tape or glue around so I had to wrap a cord around the thing to hold it together. As you can tell, it is working just fine so far.
Well, it's been pretty fun walking around finding new places. There is an endless supply of new things to discover. Behind every door is a mystery. I have no idea what any of these shop signs say, so the only way to find out would be to go in and ask what they do. Maybe when I learn to speak a little, I can start to figure out what's going on behind these mystery doors. Until then I am sticking to the malls and supermarkets.
Well I will leave you with a few photos from around the neighborhood. It's really too cold to be taking photos...so I don't have much. Once it starts to warm up a bit I can get this blog format a little better with photos relevant to the story.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
My bags are packed. I'm ready to go.
Here we go. I have my plane ticket now. I am set to fly out January 19th, landing in Harbin on the 21st. It's a total of 19 hours of flying including one super long 14.5 hour flight. Hopefully my upgrade to "Premium Economy" pays off.
I'm so glad that I ended up being able to go a week before my training starts. I really wanted to be able to have a chance to get used to the time difference (15 hours). I'm also hoping to get at least a little bit used to the crazy cold weather (-20F). What makes it even better, I'll be getting to China just in time for the start of the Chinese New Year celebration! I feel so lucky to be in Harbin during the Ice Festival and Chinese New Year. Besides the freezing cold, this is the best time of year to be in Harbin!
Well, it's all real now. Just over a week to go. Next time I post here, it will be from China. Here goes nothin'!
I'm so glad that I ended up being able to go a week before my training starts. I really wanted to be able to have a chance to get used to the time difference (15 hours). I'm also hoping to get at least a little bit used to the crazy cold weather (-20F). What makes it even better, I'll be getting to China just in time for the start of the Chinese New Year celebration! I feel so lucky to be in Harbin during the Ice Festival and Chinese New Year. Besides the freezing cold, this is the best time of year to be in Harbin!
Well, it's all real now. Just over a week to go. Next time I post here, it will be from China. Here goes nothin'!
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