Flash Back! Three weeks!
The following morning I awoke to watch the sunrise, and traffic gather in the streets of ShangHai. SLowly the din rose in a crescendo of orgasmic traffic horns, each sounding its own immediacy and warning, building on his predecesors. I pick up my tired self, my head still spinning with the high of new travel, and decide to walk to a nearby park filled with morning children and Tia Chi. I arrived at the park to find it empty, only populated by sleepers beneath the arbers and sweepers pushing brooms through the already gathering filth of the day.
There nestled in the space of the homeless I sit. A ShangHai park, amid the waving roadways dancing girls played in dreams of steel as the butterflies rest their wings on alien flowers. Scents familiar to fancy soaps trade turns with exhaust and faeces, each vying for my nose, seeking attention as all scents do. Spiralled snails hang on the walls hoping to escape the heat of the day and survive to the next, while spotted mosquitoes, ants, and other insects molest my attempts at calm morning reflection.
I move to back to the Hotel where I meet my companions and gathered for a proper Chinese breakfast, of strange dishes and soups all unknown to me. Buns, tea, JiaoZi(Dumplings), all make appearances. We eat our fill and make out way towards the airport, a local airport which would take us to GanZhou.
We boar and exit the plane, a small plane seating no more then 50 people with the style of a 60's rock star. We are met at the airport by a van and carried to our apartments near the center of the city on the main campus of the JiangXi University of Science and Technology.
It came with little warning, and it's ruthless attack left me little more then a shell of a my former self. What brought on the attack still remains a mystery. The meat on a stick, soup, dumplings, the noodles are all suspect. sitting in the restaurant I tried to inform my friend as to the situation arrising in my bowels but he, thinking I was speaking hypothetically took little notice until I impressed upon him the urgency of the situation.
The following moments are a blur, but best I can make is that one of the ladies working the restaurant led me to a back room. I closed the door behind me and instinct took over. It wasn't until the bulk of the storm had subsided that I found myself squatting over a porceline whole in the floor. It hit me then, and I frantically searched to room and to my luck found enough toilet paper to do the trick. Stepping away from my first squatting experience I noticed that this one didn't seem to flush, but located nearby was a bucket and a tap. I took the hint and flushed down the remnants of my being myself. Leaving the room to rejoin my colleague I felt hollow, but also strangely accomplished. That had been the beginning of the ShangHai runs, The GanZhou Trots, The Chinese Shuffle.
ShangHaied.
yeah it finally happened I've arrived in China, and even to the town where I'll reside for the next 10 months. The flight was as expected long and tedious, the only movie I wanted to watch was the last one and only one that I couldn't stay awake through. I didn't sit in my own seat the whole time. In the seat next to me was a mother with a baby, actually an incrdibly cute and well behaved who barely pinched out a cry during take off. The mother assured me that the child was merely upset because of the early departure, I must admit I sympathised.
Upon arriving in ShangHai I made my way through immigrattion seamlessly, then slowly gathered my bags and relieved myself after 20 hours of blowing kisses at my seat cushon. There was no incident in customs, not even a second glance as I breased past the guards. Entering the arrivals section I quickly found my dissapointed greeter. Dissapointed merely because I had found her sign with my name before she could recognise me from the picture I'd sent. It seems that I looked "fatter" in the picture, well that's what you get being lazy and just doing it on the computer. I figure it must have just been the picture seeing when I had taken that picture I'd been feeding myself and not relying on the frequent feedings I found at home for those three weeks. We quickly weaved our way through the hurley burley of arrival traffic and stood in queu for a taxi which would take us to the hotel she'd booked.
I must say that it is rather a wonderful feeling to be met at the airport by a beautiful girl waiting just for you and even dressed up for the occassion. We arrived at the hotel late due to some rush hour traffic even though rush hour traffic in ShangHai seems to move more then at home. People seem to obey the recommendations of the lines less here. Hand resting on horn they drive, swerving to miss bicycles and scooters, pedestrians and the larger animals. Similarly to the airport we arrived at the hotel without incident. It was the nicest Hotel I've ever stayed in, a bell-boy took my bags up to the room but unfortunately was left wanting given my lack of Chinese change, he too seemed rather dissapointed.
Gina, my hostess, and I had agreed to meet in the lobby in twenty minutes where I'd meet the brit who'd arrived earlier that day. As expected, twenty minutes of soap, tooth-paste, and clean underwear we were reunited in the lobby with the addition of Edwin. A nice fellow from Birmingham who'd studied Chinese for his undergrad and had previously spent a year in Beijing and as such slightly more prepared, at least in the communication district, then I am. We then went to a fairly posh restaurant where we met a friend of Gina's who works in the city and enjoyed a nice meal. I then went back to the Hotel and slept. We would leave for GanZou the following day.
Well it's finally happened, I have my visa, I have my ticket. I leave Sunday morning at 830. I arrive 310pm on the 9th in ShangHai at Pu Dong airport. That's the plan at least...
