From Changsha to Zhuzhou

Wednesday, August 20. This morning, we meet in the lobby to walk over to the school where we meet our liaisons. Tiffany, David and I meet our substitute liaison (our official liaison is on vacation now). Her English name is JuJu, and she speaks English very well (she is just back from 3 months studying in Great Britain). After some administrative details, we find our driver and a very nice van who takes us back to the hotel to get our luggage. When I get to my room, my key won't work so one of the cleaning ladies lets me in. I then lug all of my things out to the elevator. Fortunately, same cleaning lady helps me get everything on the elevator. When I get down to the lobby, one of the doormen helps me get all my stuff outside! All of the hotel staff has been so nice and helpful.

The back of the van is nowhere close to being big enough to hold all of our luggage so some of it goes on the back bench seat. There's just enough room there for Tiffany to sit. David and I are in the bucket seats in the second row with things piled all around us. JuJu and the driver are in the front. The drive to Zhuzhou takes a little more than an hour.

When we arrive, we drive by our school and go directly to a nice restaurant where the principal and vice-principals are waiting to host us at a wonderful lunch. We feel very important! :) They are all very nice but only one, other than JuJu, appears to speak or understand English. I'm seated next to the principal. At one point, I'm having trouble picking something up with my chopsticks so he leans over and does it for me!

We go back to our school and drive to our apartments where all of the men (3 principals and the driver) help us carry our luggage up to the fourth floor! Quite heroic on their part since our luggage is VERY heavy.

Later, the driver and JuJu take us to a giant department store/supermarket where JuJu (liaison) helps us buy Chinese cell phones. The phone itself cost about $50 (Nokia, the cheapest one!) and we gave China Mobile about $15 upfront which should last awhile. I also bought stuff like towels and other doo-dads to make life a little more comfortable, also cleaning products and food! Total cost, about $85. The dollar goes a long way in China, even though the exchange rate isn't as good as it used to be. As David said in response to email I sent to Jed, Eleanor and a few others, "If I understand you correctly, today you went to Zhuzhou, met JuJu and bought frou-frou!" That about sums it up!

Our internet connections weren't working so at about 9 p.m., JuJu came back to our apartments with three men (not sure why all three were necessary since one of them was clearly the Geek Squad guy who hooked up the internet but they seem to do things in groups here - or maybe it's just that everyone wants to meet the foreigners!). My computer is working fine here. so far anyway!

I'm in my apartment, which is just fine. The apartments (Tiffany and David are the other two teachers at my school and are in the apt right next to me) are on the fourth floor (good exercise there!) and are quite spacious. There's a big, long room that you come into from the front door that has a very nice table and chairs and at the far end is the kitchen. On the left, near the front door is the bathroom (perfectly fine - more details later), then continuing along the left, the doors to the other two rooms. There is an office/study with two chairs, a TV, a nice desk, a computer worktable with bookshelves above and an air conditioner (my only major problem so far is that the a/c is leaking from the unit on the wall down onto the floor and the TV so I had to turn it off and mop up the water). The bedroom has a double bed and two wardrobes and a bedside table. Both bedroom and study have fluorescent ceiling lights. The main room is very dimly lit so we may buy a couple of lamps (I definitely want one for my bedside table). The apartments are a little bleak so will be much better once we have some things on the walls etc.

Interesting story: At one point we were talking to JuJu about needing our passports in China to travel and to check into hotel rooms, she said that when her group of Chinese teachers got to England, their leader took all of their passports and kept them until the end of the three months so they couldn't leave the country.

JuJu has taken our passports for the purpose of going to the police station to register us as temporary residents before we apply for our actual resident permits. However, when we suggested we might want to travel during the 10 days we have free before school starts, she said that it would not be a good idea to travel now, because of the Olympics there are a lot of foreigners in China and there are two foreigners staying at the Zhuzhou police station tonight because someone tried to kill them? She says we should wait until October (first national holiday) to travel. Not sure why this is but, trust me, I'm going to be very compliant in this country!