Our first full day in China was a whirlwind of awesomeness!
***Disclaimer. This post will read like a "bed-to-bed" essay, where I'm pretty much going to tell you all that we did, from the moment we got up, to the moment we went back to sleep. I don't have the creative juices to be eloquent right now!***
Due to jet lag, Kayla and I were up around 5 am. Well, I should begin by saying that our apartment is great. It's HUGE! 3 bedrooms, small kitchen, lots of marble everywhere, and a surprisingly nice Western-style bathroom.
We met with our new friend Jack, a Chinese national who works for the school helping the new teachers arrange stuff. When he's not doing that, he's working reception at the school.
He met us around 930, and took us to the school where we met our director, and most importantly, the lady who doles out the cash!
After that, we headed to China Telecom to set up internet. Here, you pay for the internet one year in advance. Odd, but cool seeing that we don't have to worry about payments.
After that, we headed to China Mobile to set up our cell phones. Kayla and I went old school. No smart phones for us, headed back to the dumb ones. It's nice because it makes like...simplified.
Once we were done with all the setting up of things, we headed to lunch, met a really nice teacher named Lisa, and headed to a foot massage parlor.
Now, when they say foot massage, they actually mean a WHOLE BODY massage. They did everything, from shoulders to back to head/neck, even legs! We were very pampered and it took over an hour. How much, Stephen, did you pay for such an amazing body relaxing experience? $50? Nope...for the both of us...it was only $17!!!! This is definitely something we will be doing frequently.
Once we were finished with that, we did a few things on our own. Mind you, we hadn't even been in the country for 24 hours yet. But we rode a bus, went to the world's largest Wal-Mart, shopped in the craziness, and took a cab back. ALL ON OUR OWN! I'm pretty proud of ourselves.
We chilled at home for a bit, then went out to met our new friends, Tom and Eileen, for some delicious Thai food. We chatted about many a things and Kayla and I have now found some dear friends. We first "met" them by perusing different blogs from teachers who work at QSI. We've emailed, skyped, and even spoke on the phone while they were in the states. We were very excited about meeting them and so glad that we have them around to be our Obi-Wans. They showed us around, took us to a few grocery stores for a few essentials, and showed us their apartment.
All in all, China to me has been a place that, while it's foreign to me in many respects, it's still familiar. Kayla and I were both expecting Cairo, with a heaviness and quick-paced mess of millions, but Shekou has not been that. Granted, parts of Shenzhen most likely are, I mean, there are 18 million people in this town. But what we experienced yesterday was great. The weather is hot, but not as hot as Houston, and at night, there's a very pleasant ocean breeze. All-in-all, I feel overwhelmingly blessed to be here.
Pics and videos will be coming soon!
Much love,
Stephen
