Krusty wants off

I love everybody (especially my brother) who will appreciate the title of this entry.
Oh fine you're right I love everybody.
But especially Jeremy
It's Saturday night here. It's hard to believe how the time has just flown by. It's scary to think that my time is here one-quarter over. Kind of sad. But it makes me realize that I'll be on a plane home before I know it.
Thursday night we took the little city bus to Kowloon City. The little city bus is an experience in itself. Remember the movie "Herbie"? Yeah. It's like that. Only on a little bus that is straight out of Toon town, that flies around corners and has a digital display of the velocity in kph so that the passengers can calculate the force of impact using F=ma, and you have to yell out to the driver when your stop is coming and he waves to let you know he heard you. Tough to do when everything looks the same and the streets twist and turn. Also, the return route is never the same as the original route. I don't know why they have to do it this way.
So we arrive and follow the signs to the Walled City Park. The city of Kowloon used to be walled and somehow outside of the British mandate back in the day. It got torn down and turned into a very impressive Feng Shui park. I could have stayed there all night (and I would have if it hadn't gotten dark). To anyone who's seen Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Chinese garden in Vancouver, it's like that only much larger. I tried to pay special attention to how every window, and every tiling pattern is different. We looked at the little collection of Bonsai trees and peered into the little ponds. Very pretty place and truthfully a welcome break from a very tiring week of school.
We then wandered the streets looking for options for dinner and found a restaurant in the basement level of the shopping mall. I know it doesn't sound very exciting or romantic but it was the best Cantonese food, presentation, and service I've had here. Although I am getting a bit tired of rice. After dinner I followed Barb around as she tried to find masks for all of the students for their excursion to the cookie factory (no I'm not kidding - my brewery field trip is still better). This really cute girl in the grocery store actually ditched her boyfriend with a cart full of groceries led us back into the streets and then on a 10 minute walk to the drug store. He showed up a little while later. She was so excited to use her English. It was really really nice of her. He appeared to be very tolerant of the whole thing.
Friday night, a few of us had a nice Thai/vietnamese meal in the TST area (Tsim Shai Tsui) which is like Yonge street back home. Then one of the other teachers and I walked around peeking into all of the little shops. It's like those little trading companies in Toronto only with way, way more stuff.
Saturday wasa big day. After my first week at work, spontaneously waking up at 5:30 because of jet lag, being woken up at 4:30 by a wake up call that was supposed to come at 6:30, and staying out in the evenings, I can't believe I woke up early enough to be in the lobby by 6:30. Our tour guide picked us up and we drove in a bus to the ferry which took us over to China. We had stickers with the tour company name and each of has a number. We had to line up in order to go through Chinese immigration. I find it strange that there were over 10 people working there but only one agent on duty. They scrutinized our passports and finally let us all through after about half an hour. One of our students got pulled into a room and had to empty her purse. Pretty funny actually, some of them were actually kind of secretly laughing as they watched our reactions. They put her passport under some kind of machine and then one of them brought it to within one inch of his face. So much for Chinese Efficiency.
Shenzhen used to be a fishing village and now it is a city with a population of 14 million. I don't even know what to say about it. Because the urban infrastructure is new there are modern highways and avenues. They are lined with trees and so on. The people live in very, very tall buildings. On the way home I marveled how it is possible to have so many people and no urban sprawl. Just skyscrapers.
First our guide took us to an amusement park called "Window to the World" Apparently it's 18 hectares of reproductions of famous sites from around the world. We didn't go in, we only stopped to take photos that the photographers could try to sell us later on. I don't know what to make of that. There is a little tiny blue monorail that circles the park. Hence the title. I could not wait to get back on the bus.
Next up was a visit to the small collection of terra cotta warriors. The bulk of them are in the north however there were five on display there. They were in different poses with different clothes representing different ranks and positions. We also got an introduction to all of the different types of jade and sample some light, delicate tea that I will try to find and bring home. I had no idea there were so many different colours of jade. There is the green and it ranges in intensity, but there is also red, yellow, pink, and purple. I asked one of the girls in the gift shop how you can tell high quality jade from low quality or fake jade and she explained that it feels cool to the touch, is very smooth and hard, and has a high clarity when put up to the light. They had some beautiful pieces for sale that would cost a fortune in the art shop in Hong Kong and only cost a small fortune there. I knew we had a long day and didn't want to carry around a large rock for the rest of the day. I may regret that, we'll see. However, I did buy a bangle and a dragon pendant. That was a nice spot. We were the only people in the whole museum and everybody was very nice. Sharp contrast to my general experience here (although people are nice here) and a huge contrast to where we went next.
We visited a silk factory and I found out that it takes 33 square meters of mulberry to provide enough food for enough silk worms to produce one silk shirt. And that is probably a small shirt for a small person. Makes you think doesn't it? There were stunning quilts with silk covers and stuffing that were very reasonable considering what bedding costs back at home. I had never even heard of a silk quilt. If I hadn't just bought a feather one, I would have been tempted. Beautiful things. However, not exactly a tourist attraction which made us wonder what kind of scheme our tour company has going here - either that or they think there really is nothing to see in Shenzhen. They don't even know how beautiful the country side is for tourists.
The final stop was a shopping mall. All rules are off here. There are no prices, all the stores are broom closets and sell the same thing, they run after you and grab your arm and yell prices at you as you flee down the hall. Because the Olympics are coming the police are cracking down on fake purses and jewelery so you need to look through a list, tell them what you want, they make a phone call with one eye on the door for police and one eye on you to make sure you don't walk away. Ten minutes later some runner shows up with a garbage bag full of purses and then the haggling begins. Some of the girls have done this before so I watched them, fascinated, and tried to stay out of the way. I then followed one of the other teachers around as I figured things out. She would say how much, and once they told her she would laugh in their face and walk away. They would run after her and cut the price in half. She would then say something like "I have to go" or "You're crazy" or "I only have so much money". She would yell it at them with an angry face but a twinkle in her eye! After watching the first transaction. I informed her and the other teacher I was with that this was a personal circle of hell for me. I might have said "I'm in hell" ten or twenty times. I don't remember. I watched them buyfour 32 gigabyte fake ipods for 20 CAD each. Good deal but the whole process took an hour. You have to love the hunt and love to argue or else you will never survive. The shops crammed together and it's like walking a gauntlet. They grab you and say "missy missy" want sunglasses/belt/pretty cloths/Tiffany jewelery etc..After I got the rhythm of things I went off on my own to buy some junky cloths to wear here. I would not buy anything serious there. You pay for drek...
The amazing thing is how fiercely they argue and how aggressive they are and you have to be. You literally have to walk away and they will chase you. TWICE. After the price is decided however, they settle and become normal, smiling people and want to know all about you. I kept getting asked if I was from Australia. They love to chat and practice English. Then they give you their card and tell you to come back! It's one big annoying game. You can't do any serious shopping there because the whole ritual takes FOREVER!
For the last half hour, I escaped into one of the foot massage/pedicure parlours for 30 minutes. It was hilarious. The size of my bedroom with 10 women in comfortable chairs being tended by 10 people sitting on tiny stools hunched over their feet. When the guy saw my feet, he insisted on scraping away all the callouses and I tell you I was powerless to stop him. Then another girl went behind my chair for a shoulder massage, and when they realized I was running out of time, a third one started on my other foot. All this was going on while a nice woman from Hong Kong was getting to know me and the ladies in the parlour were smiling at me. I must have been quite the spectacle. It was a ridiculous experience. But my feet look much better now, and it really was much better than running around in that crazy place. Thank you Adam/Bernard for suggesting that.
We took a light rail train back into Hong Kong and were all wired/exhausted from that day. I was a little stunned and shocked from the experience and could not make any decisions until I self-medicated with a toblerone bar. Even then a few of us couldn't figure out to do so we ended up at Macdonalds for dinner.
This was a long one. I'll try to post more often. Thanks again for visiting.
Leslie