China...like a month later
Current mood: stressed

Mmmm I see that my attempts to write a decent and regularly update blog are failing miserably. I'm going to try and attempt to rescue it

We've been in China for about 4 weeks now, and wow, are things soooo different here. After we got set up and were given a place that the foreign guest house (the 2 start hotel that I was talking about.) We had about five days to get settled in. We did a tour around the campus the first couple of days, and there were lots of surprises in store for us. The first thing was the plane graveyard. It was awsome. There was about 8 MiGs, some light aircraft and 4 choppers, including a Huey! Granted, most...okay, all the aircraft there were older than most of my lecturers, but they were amazing to see non less.

The campus itself was pretty 'take you breath away' stuff. However, that was only along the main roads through the Uni, once you got around a bit you actually found some pretty dodgy stuff. (Like the cleaning guy that lives under the Compressed Air tanks for the Supersonic Windtunnel..he has a stove and everythin, and a little tarp for a roof!) But compared to RMIT, things were amazing for us. The labs (on the most part) were full of cool and interesing gadgets equipment (Although some of the buildings they were housed in were shockingly derelict...think: Maxwell Gym, or a Ghetto...or the buildings in that little town in 'Saving Private Ryan' ...some had puddles of water everyehere, broken ..everythings everywhere. But once you got where the equipment was, thing were suddenly sparkling new...didn't mean they worked though,but at least they looked good. We found this out when our Experiemental Aerodynamics teacher was showing us somestuff in a water tunnel [windtunnel that uses water for you people that understand not engineering...and all Art students...lol..Stez, Karma...smile!] and he turned in on, and started talking to us. The next this we knew there was water running down the wall, and there was a massive puddle all over the floor. lol.)

(Okay the brackets have confused me...looks like maths gone wrong I'm starting again)

The greatest thing about the campus was that there was actually alot of space, and alot of it was gardens. I know the concept of space is one hard to grasp when you think of china and 1.3 billion people, but some how the uni had done it. It was still croweded by Australian standards, ...but.we do have a country the size of china, with a population about 1.8% of that of China. Oh and the other cool thing about the campus was the fact that all the roads where lined with trees, so at night, with all the lights on, it was pretty beautiful. The newer buildings were also stunning. Like our Aerospace Building was 12 stories high, with a courtyard in the middle, with glass windows...duh...windows are made from glass. I mean big massive class windows.

The only really nasty thing about the campus is the moat (from the old Ming Palace) that runs around the campus, and the river that runs trhough it. 'Runs' probably isn't the best word, as I have yet to see it move. I swear some of the stuff (animals / bodies / trash) in it must be leftover from the Ming Palace. If its hot day and the wind is blowing the wrong way..... Nasty man!

That aside, it was a pretty decent uni, especially considering that we were in China.  From a Aerospace Engineering piont of view it had everything we needed including a hypersonic windtunel!! Yay. (thats a tunnel that can get wind up to Mach 6-12....Mach means speed of sound...so like 12,000km/h)

That first week we also met our dorm buddies, a bunch of Nepalese guys (We now call them the Nipples...derived from the word Nepal's which means to reside in or hold the citizenship of the Kingdom of Nepal) They were a awsome bunch of blokes, took us out to play soccer that first week. Oh yeah another funny thing. The soccer 'field' is actually astro turf, with sand in it, so your cleats have some sort of grip. Good luck in sneakers. every second step seems to send you 'Arse over Head' as Mike likes to say. And in this normal sized football pitch they manage to have about 200!!!!!!!!!! people playing soccer at the same time!!!!!!!!. (They divide the pitch up into lots of tiny rectangles and squares and play about 7-10 a side.)

We also got to meet our lectures that first week, and had a look that the courses that we had to take. The first words that came out of my mouth probably can't be repeated here, but we had Six (6) courses to take! Our time table was chockers! On Thursday we had 10 hours of class with only a 2 hours break in the middle started at 8am and finished at 8;30pm.

That scared the heck out of us, but the classes actually looke really interesting. In one of them, we even got to design and build out own Electrically Powered Autonomous Areial Vechile (EP - UAV), and found out that we would only have exams in three of those classes, so it wasn't that bad.

( Dude...this is soo funny, i'm listening to a Chinese version of that famous Cranberries song song...'Ode to Family'....Every second song here seem to be a rip of some popular old school song. Even the Backstreet Boys got ripped off...lol.)

(I'll get started on my I HATE HOW CHINA RIPS EVERYTHING OFF speech later...i can gpo four hours on that one....i even saw a Ripped of Version of a Toyota Echo and Russian Planes...lol.)

Neway, once we got classes started, we've been pretty busy. I don't think i have everworked this hard in my life. its getting normal to spent 8-12 hours sitting in the cubicles that they gave (how cool it that!! its like 'Office Space!'...without the fire....although with the OHnS here.....) I've actually developed a twitch under my right eye that comes and goes now..i feel like little blond kid from Southpark

The city of Nanjing is pretty nice. We've been out and about a bit, to the Fuzi (Confucious) Temple, Downtown, and the Clubbing district...lol. There is actually a whole city block that is like a designated clubbing area, full of clubs, like hundreds of them. And most of the ones that we saw were as good as,  if not better than  most Aussie Clubs. The musical tastes leave comthing to be desired though. Its not that cool to dance to Britney Spears or Ronan Keating.

The shopping has been great here. everything is soooo cheap. I've looked around, but haven't actually picked up much. There is so much I want to get though. The scholorship money came through last week, I'll actually have some money to spend. After that all I need is some free time. I had to turn down going to the observatory this morning with Mike and Jas, and our Chinese friend Carrie, cause I had to look over my Aerodyamics notes (it took me about 6 hours to actually uinderstand 35 pages of the book! the thing is 600 pages!...I could be readying it for the rest of my life!) I think i'm the slowest out of these four with my work. I always seem to be miles behind. Mike went over the same notes, and even wrote them out his computer in about 2 hours!

Neway all this talk of work is reminding me how much i have left to do.

Au Revoir....Zaijian....and again excuse my spelling

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Bye Nana

To all of who know me and my family, today was a very interesting day.

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China, Week ee (One), Part 1
Current mood: calm

Okay, so after lots of promises about bloging this China trip, I've finally gotten my act together, borrowed Trevor's computer and decided to get started on it. Its been about 6 days since we've been in China, and OMG have they been crazy. But lets start from the begining.

We left for China on the 14th of Sept, last Thursday, early in the morning. We had to get to the airport by 0520am so that mean leaving the City at about 0450. I had no way of getting there on my own so I spent the night at Micheal's place, and his mom took us up to the airport. So I got there for free. I'm a great Indian! (Poor guy, i forced him to stay up 'late' waiting for my while i munched on some Poutine [Thanks LEEVA!] and chatted with Asintha.)

The flight out was fine. Jas had his mom there as well, my mom called, so at one point there were three mothers telling us all to be careful and not get hurt and here is your incurance numbers and don't eat this and drink that and remember to change you underwear etc... quite hectic. Trevor (who is xNavy and 27) must have been laughing at us 'children' being mothered.

It really hit me where we were going when we got to the terminal. The four of us were the only non Chinese at the gate and there wasn't a word of  English to be heard. I was like 'crap man, we're still in Australia, and i'm already feeling like an outsider.'

The rest of the flight was fine. I sat next to this cute Chinese girl (yes, Mike gave me the ' you're in' wink, and promptly started blushing like a little school boy) who didn't speak a word of English, yet reenforcing my trepidation about the trip. I tried to ease my fears by grabbing Jasons Lonely Planet Phase book and working out how to say the basic 'hello' 'thank you' 'excuse me' stuff in Chinese. Totally got stumped by the whole tones thing. That needed about half the flight to get a handle on.

We arrived in Guangzhou, after a brief stopoever in Sydney, where my cute chinese girl (who I had said 4 words to) was replaced by ugly middle-aged guy. (yes, Mike gave me the 'you're in, in a gay way' wink, and then did the whole blushy thingy). And where we got inflate the fifth member of our trip, Skippy.  While the words 'inflate' do have a slightly negative connotation, the words 'blow up' have a worse connotation at an international airport.  Oh and Skippy is a blow up Kangeroo...i mean an inflatable Kangeroo.

Guangzhou was an eyeopener. The first thing we noticed was that it was cover it smog. Reaching for Lonely Planet, we discoverd that 16 of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China...the rest are in India. lol. It was quite intersting, as you didn't see the airport till we were 500ft of the ground, thats how bad it was.

The airport was massive. I mean like it made Heathrow look tiny. You could even rent golf carts to drive you around it, thats how big it was, and many people were doing so. Yet what was weird was that even though it was sooo big, it seemed very empty and bland. There was very little colour and not many people. It was a bit eerie.

Immigration was bloody eerie as well. Everyone from our flight seemed to have bunched together, and were a big noisy group, but as soon as we got to the Health Check / Immigration area everyone went silent, except for this one child that was crying.  Weird huh? Fear?

Me and Trevor got through the Health check okay, Mike and Jason, who had a bit of a flu before they left Melbourne, and therefore had to tick 'Snivels' 'Cough' and 'Temperature' on the health card, where directed towards this little room in the corner. (Mike missed the little room and found himself getting yelled at as he entered the ladies toliet). They were checked out by a doctor, Mike was fine, but Jason was told to head to the main hospital to get check out for Avian Flu. The whole way we kept making jokes about him getting a probing.

We found our hotel for the Night, (in the process almost getting ripped of by some dude), and took Jas to the hospital. That was another experience, with the receptionist not being able to speek English. AFter a few minutes we managed to locate a nurse that spoke a little, and later on a doctor that seemed to be pretty okay at it. They asked him some questions, 'have you brain tumor?' which totally freaked him out and made him worry about what tests they were going to do to him. Suddenly the probing didn't look to bad when compared with a biopsy [thank you Srubs for my medical vocabulary] of the brain.

But a blood test and a x-ray later, he was fine, and we were feasting on some great fried rice at a road side stall. (Somthing that we were told specifically never to do...but it smelt soooo good!)

We got to Nanjing the next day, and were shown our choice for accomodation. We were given an option of an amazingly nice apartment 20 mins walk away from uni, or staying at the Foreign Guest House, which is prety much like those little 2 star airport hotels, that was located at uni. Went with the cheaplooking place, that actually cost us more, becuse we wanted that whole on-campus-dorm experience. And because it also meant: Cable TV, Broadband Internet, lovely little Chinese ladies that make our beds, vacuum, clean our bathroom and can hopefully unclog toliets....not me! But we had to wait till Saturday to see if we could actually stay as they were short on space.

The  rest of the first day Nanjing Uni of Aeronautics and Astronautics was pretty mcuh all of us crashing out and sleeping. Mike and Jas were still pretty much wasted with their flu. Mrs You (Miss you...get it... lol) our guide got all our uni cards organised and stuff. Me and Trevor experimented with the Campus Canteen for dinner, and felt ripped of when our meal cost more that 6kwai ($1). The two of us were aclimatising fast. The two had a wonder around the Campus...that took an hour and we'd only seen about a quarter of it. (RMIT, eat your heart out!) . Mike and Jas spent the day recovering from their flu.

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Tickets

Okay this week was rather interesting.

Firstly we booked our tickets to China. So there is no going back. We managed to get great deal from our Chinese professors contacts, on China Southern Airlines. The first thing Mike says when he hears what airline we are on is 'Should we also take out life insurance as well?' It cost us $770 'direct' from Melbourne to Nanjing. This is via Sydney, with a overnight stop in Canton (now called Guangzhou...or somthing like that.) in a 4 star resturant. I've decided that I'm offically in love with all Chinese Airlines. China Air last year gave me a  great overnight in Taiwan, at  4 star golfing resort (near a Taiwanese airforce bombing range...even cooler!! ) on the way to my sisters grad in Canada.

Incase anyone is wondering, the reason that we got a one way ticket is that we are intending on coming back though Lhasa (Tibet), Nepal, then India. After that the boys will head back to Melbourne, and I'll to Isreal for pilgrammage. We're planning on taking the new train from Shanghai to Lhasa. Lhasa is so far up that they actually have to pressurise the train. Cool huh. From there we're going to fly to Kathmandu in Nepal. We were thinking of driving it, but didn't want to be the 3rd, 4th and 5th Ozzies making it into the news this year for karking it in the Himalayas.

After that we'll rickshaw it to India, head to Dehli and see the Temple and Taj, then of to Chandigarh to see some of my old friends and some friends from here. If we have times then we'll head to Goa. Holiday central.

Okay yeah we also got our Visa taken into the Chinese Embassy here. I love all the documents. There have all these red stamps with big stars in the middle. Wonder why communism adopted red as a colour?  Everything seems to be okay, as we received the offical okay from the Ministry of Education of the People Repeublic of China. It was actually written on what looked like rice paper (it was very see-through), with a typewriter (hehehe) and stamps (or seals as they were called). I loved it. I think I'll take a photo and post it up.  We're expecting to the Visa's on Monday and I hope that they are as cool as the MOE's letter.

I'm very excited about getting a new Visa. my passport is starting to get a nice collection. I have Brasil, India, Czech Rep, Vanuatu so far. I think I'll have Nepal  India, and PRC by the end of this trip. 

Can't wait.

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Melbourne, Victory

Alright! Melbourne won! 3-2

Who ever said soccer was boring needs to shot. 5 goals, one guy swallowed his tongue, another broke is collar bone, some one got sent off, and the three Brasilians made some classy displays of skill, there was a hot columbian player (according to the girls) and a drunk scotsman midfiellder  oh and a penalty. It was awsome. 40,000 people packed into Telstra Dome. Take that 'Gay' FL.

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Blogs here I come!
Current mood: contemplative

I have decided, since I'm soon to be of to China, that I should get into this habit of writing a blog. I would like to give everyone the opportunity to follow me on this journey as I head into this very unique country. I'm sure there will be many moments of joy, humour, laughter, tears and frustration as I try to come to terms with concepts and ideas that are way over my head.

I mean, take the language for instance. There are millions of characters, each with a different sound, each that means something different, and as if thats not hard enough, there are five different tones in with you can say that same word, and each tone gives a completely different meaning. For example: Ma, in a neutral tone means 'mother.' Ma, with a rising tone means 'horse.' It's pretty obvious to all just how pear-shaped a situation could go. 

 "Can you thank your horse for the coffee"

[while screaming and adpoting 'Crouching Tiger' Position] - "You calling my mom a horse?" 

"O Crap!"

Or, trying to work out which toilet is male or female. They don't use those effective symbols of a stick figure with, or without, a dress to signify gender. No, they use characters for each, which to my vastly untrained-in-the Chinese-character eye, look very similar. Maybe if I grow out my hair again I could save some embarrassment. I'd sure be the ugliest girl they will ever see.

But aside from the very many (millions) things about China that are going to be a challenge, I'm actually looking forward to this trip. I think it'll be one of the greatest experiences of my life. (Or I could wind up with my organs being 'donated' to the highest bidder, helping to fund the Chinese Gov't amazing Economic growth. Knowing me and my big mouth...) 

I find it funny that the first things that I mentioned were negative, and very easily identified, but yet when I think of  what is positive, I find it hard to say more than 'I think this will be a great experience.'  Those words seem to sum it up so well. Or I'm just being lazy and trying not to put to much thought into this. Maybe I need to redefine the question to 'what am I most looking forward to about China.'

Looking forward to do in China, lots of stuff. Firstly I can't wait for cheap food. In my mind I'm making China look like Malaysia, with hundreds of out door vendors, lots of noise, multitudes of aroma, and weird and excitingly different types of foods, all at a dollar a meal  I'm looking forward of becoming a fat little man. That way Khadijah can stop commenting on how 'yiddle'-er I look every time she sees a photo of me.

The other thing that I'm looking forward to is to compete with (at least in my mind) some of the best minds in the world. I personally think Indians and Chinese people are some of the smartest people, mainly cause if you want to stand out in a country of a billion, you have to be pretty damn good. I know that they will kick my butt in all subject areas, but the challenge will at least improve me, my learning skills, my intellectuality etc... (Ironic that I can't actually spell interllectuality...actually wait that looks right...mmm) And then when I get back to Australia, It'll be the Boeing and Hawker de Havilland prise for most outstanding student for me. At least thats the plan. Plans have been known to fail quite miserably before, and I'm assuming that this one will be no exception to that probability.

Third thing I'm looking forward to is getting involved with Baha'i Activities in China. China is like the next India of the Baha'i world, with people so receptive to spirituality (look at the Chinese in Malaysia) and incredibly committed (look at the little Chinese business man working at the corner store down the road. He will be driving a Merc in 4-5 years, and own a whole chain of 7-11's. Unless the Indian guy doesn't beat him to it) From that point of view I really feel that I would be on the vanguard of the Five Year Plan, bring ideas and concepts that people are actually excited to hear about spirituality. Unlike the whole Western side of Baha'i existence that seems to sap your very spiritual energy and leave you a hollowed container getting blown about in the wind. Dejected and very much unmotivated. Like trying to dig a hole China with a toothpick.

I thinks its that third point that will be the most exciting, and the most rewarding experience for me. I can't wait. I can get food anywhere, and test my mind against any genius, all transitory stuff. But what I can learn from the Faith in China, permanent and can be used anywhere.

On that note, I'll have to go. Now to go and learn how to sign numbers in Chinese. And get ready for Melbourne Victory vs Sydney FC. Go Victory!

9:43 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment