Chinese Health Check

Aaaah Finally caught up to present day.

Today we went for the health check!

It’s an important step in getting your work visa.

I got picked up at 8 am and then we picked up 4 other teachers, it was sweet to finally meet some of the other new teachers!

So the hospital was interesting… none of us were really sure what to expect.

We had to fill out some personal history forms and learned some weird Chinese rules like only black ink pens allowed no blue ones.

So it wasn’t as crazy as I feared and it was pretty sanitary but there were definitely some weird aspects. For example the lady who takes your blood doesn’t change her gloves often enough, she still had someone else’s blood on her hand. The eye test was a joke, the guy just said “Can you see this? Ahh good, 20/20 vision” they also had to ultrasound my liver to see if it was intact, and xray my bones to see if they were all present and accounted for. Overall I seemed to have passed all the health tests, but I also heard that if you have a pulse you’ll make it through no problem.

It’s occurred to me that I’m writing far too many blogs, its acting more like a daily update instead of a weekly one like I wanted, but it’s just cause everything is so new and interesting to me right now, when I finally do get settled into my teaching job things will be less frequent.

Anyway tomorrow I finally get to go to Shunde to see some apartments for the first time. I also heard from one of the long time teachers that Shunde has the very best authentic Chinese bars… sweet!

Shopping In China

It’s time to shop!

I badly needed a laptop to get back in touch with the world~
The lead teacher dude Allen said he would take me to the best place for a laptop he wanted to buy a new psp also.

We hopped on a couple buses and after about 20 minutes we made it to the subway.


Good luck figuring out the bus schedule


Check out the massive KFC, its super popular in China.


The metro station was big!!



The subways rules are very clearly written….
#1: “No Hullabaloe allowed “

Oh China…

I was surprised that the subway ride there wasn’t too crowded, we even managed to sit down on one of them.

After a while we made it to the main shopping area we hit up about 4 massive stores with hundreds and hundreds of laptops each!
It was like being a kid in a candy factory… and there was so many it was hard to know where to start!


Each laptops price and specs are usually saved on the desktop background, pretty cool. But you also have to negotiate because this price is never the final one! Luckily Allen has been around and knows some good Chinese negotiation tactics.



I actually took a few hours to look through all the laptops and finally find the perfect one I wanted.


The flash makes it looks even sweeter.

I figured out later that I saved about $250 if I had of bought the same laptop from dell’s online store.

It only came with a Chinese version of windows xp, but we went around the corner and bought an English copy for him to install.


Yes you can get your very own copy of Windows XP for 10 Yuan! (about $1.80)
While waiting for windows to be installed on my new machine I sat with some locals and had my first real communication experience with them.

They were super awesome and friendly, and they knew almost no English. Between the 3 of them they would converse trying to find the right English words then they managed to put them together into sentences. Like where I was from, how old I was ect. They were always thrilled when I understood them and could answer back. It was very cool how the simplest conversation could be so fun and bring so much laughter to all of us.


They were very sweet people and at the end we took photos of each other and they told me I was their new friend and they would always remember me (awww how touching ^^)

It’s pretty cool that the locals get such a kick out of meeting foreigners since there’s so few of us.

Later near the PSP store I grabbed a shot of a Wii ultimate action sports kit, yes that’s right, 55 in 1!


They also closed down one of the PSP stores as the cops had rolled in and they didn’t have some sort of license they needed.

The market was like P-Mall on crack in the amount of illegal stuff around. Especially when it came to video games, if you bring them your DS or PSP memory card they will load on like 25 downloaded games for a few bucks.

I also needed a new watch, of course the store we went into had over 3 billion of them to choose from. They got quite mad at me when I took a picture of the store, oops!


Throughout the day I was kinda surprised that out of all the thousands of people I passed in the markets and the streets I only saw like 1 other white person, I guess I figured there would be a few more of us foreigners around.

Later we checked out the 2nd tallest building in China, we didn’t have time to go to the top of it but it’s pretty awesome. Hey look I'm actually in this picture! Now you know I'm not just making this all up :P


We took a the subway halfway back, and this time I got the real chinese experience. There was literally a lady that goes up to the door and yells at you to motivate you to squeeze in, we were packed so tight we couldnt move!

Instead of waiting for a bus to make it home we decided to risk out lives on the back of a scooter!
There was 3 of us on this thing, and in China’s crazy traffic I feared for my life every second of the way!


Allen then had the best idea since arriving in China, he decided to treat me to a massage at the mall sweeeet!
It was perfect after a long day of crazy intense shopping. It was a very classy place.


They give you an epic 30 minute massage, then after that they lay you in that white machine which generates some intense heat for you to sweat all your worries away while they give you a head massage.

The massage completely kicked ass and even topped any massage I had in Thailand by far. Probably the most relaxed I’ve ever been in my life.


We took the scooter back and I wasn’t as terrified this time.

Next I have to go to the hospital for a complete physical and make sure I’m healthy!!

I met up with my friend Maggie aka Margaret in the morning (she was nice enough to meet me at my hotel) We went out for sweet breakfast of rice and beef. In this restaurant the cutlery is stored in the table… So after you sit down they slide out a drawer and grab your napkins, chopsticks and soup spoon for you… saves time to come from the kitchen!

The food is also served with free tea!

I totally thought I took a picture of my food but I guess not!

After that we went to the bus station and Maggie helped me buy the ticket. They slapped a sticker on me that says where I’m going (very awesome idea to keep foreigners from getting lost during the transfers) and I was on my way.

After about an hour we made it to the Chinese border. They had a special line for foreigners which super long and about 8 lines for everyone else which moved quickly. I’d soon find out this line made me the last guy from my bus to make it through. It also didn’t help that they gave me the wrong arrival card to fill out on the bus so I had to toss that one and fill out a new one when I finally got to the front of the line.

At this point I had rehearsed my answers to the custom questions a bunch because I was entering on a Tourist Visa so I had to pretend my trip had nothing to do with working. I was a little worried because a lot of countries hate letting you in without a return flight, and I had no hotel booked and I was also carrying a guitar (not many people would bring a guitar for a short vacation) To get into America they make you answer like 15 questions and they try to get a backstory on your entire life, I figured China would be even worse because of how strict the government was, but to my surprise the questions I got were.

“So how long are you going to stay?

And you’re just on vacation right?

Okay go ahead. “

No problem, nice.

After taking so long in the foreigners line by the time I made it through there was a Chinese dude running around checking everyone’s stickers when he saw my sticker he let out a big laugh and a sigh of relief then called someone on the walkie talkie said something in Chinese and laughed some more he then got me to follow him to the bus which looked like it was about to leave without me lol. I think they were saying something like ‘of course the white guy is the last guy to make it hahaha’ well I was the only foreigner on the bus ><

After another 2.5 hours I arrived in Foshan the main district all the LingDong English schools are in. I met up with Ken my Chinese contact dude and he took me on a tour of different schools, we also got my photo taken and he started the long process of getting me a work visa, and also a foreign registration card. Eventually he took me to the Nanhai school… Nanhai is not where I’ll be teaching but I’m going to be living there for a few days cause the people who will help me get my apartment in Shunde are on vacation for a bit.

I’m glad I’m not going to be staying in Nanhai cause it kinda sucks, it’s like out in this cut off industrial area with nothing around it. Shunde is going to be a much nicer area.

Here’s a poster of our school.

And the main slogan on the wall…

Yes that’s right… The Insight is our Proud... suck it.

That would worry me but all the other English in the school is correct haha. I checked out some of the books on the teaching philosophy and the methods and it’s really impressive, they really know how to teach English as a second language.

My temporary room here totally sucks too, it’s got nothing in it and the bed is literally as hard as a board that I put a couple of sheets over… but I can’t help love it since its mine. I’ve never lived on my own before its fun!

It’s also really creepy… my room is decorated with a bunch of Mickey Mouse posters with motivational sayings under them! Weird… I mean I love Disney… but at least get some Lion King in here!

One hard thing about Nanhai is finding food… there’s a couple little street restaurants… umm not really restaurants, more like a tent over top of some road with a guy who cooks stuff. They’re about 10 minutes away, the only thing is without knowing Chinese is pretty impossible to order, the foods not precooked so you can’t just point at what you want and they don’t have menus, your just supposed to ask for stuff.

Luckily the schools have Teachers Assistances a group of Chinese girls who speak pretty good English, if you need help with anything (including ordering food) they’ll go out of their way to help you. My first meal in mainland china… noodles with… stuff…

For dinner I found out you can get the TA’s to order food from you over the phone and people will deliver it to the school (awesome) she warned me though that its really expensive. But really expensive in china is only $2 Canadian! This pork was pretty delicious.

Despite that Nanhai kinda sucks, I seem to be in a permanent good mood. I think being in a new place where everything is different and interesting does that to me.

Anyway since there’s nothing at all to do in Nanhai me and the head teacher of Nanhai Allen are going into the super busy area of town tomorrow to experience Chinese shopping!

1 Night In Hong Kong

Ahhh and then there I was in Hong Kong.

It’s a really weird thing when you step off a plane, at least with me, I never feel like I really went anywhere. Its like you’re in Canada, you step into a box, watch a movie of clouds going by then you step out. The fact that you travelled literally half way around the world doesn’t seem real.

After wandering cluelessly around the airport for a bit I managed to find the right counter and took a sweet shuttle bus to my hotel. It was a pretty cool drive, Hong Kong is intense, the buildings are huge and there’s kajillions of them, its like they have a Toronto sized skyline of skyscrapers around every corner. There was also a lot of sweet mountainous areas closer to the airport.

I tried to get pictures but my cameras not too friendly when your in motion, they all came out super blurry.

Anyway I was told to find a hotel in Hong Kong for only $70 a night meant I was in trouble, I’d have to sleep with my clothes on, under the bed, fight off the cockroaches, barricade the door and I’d still probably get my organs stolen in the middle of the night. Luckily that wasn’t the case! My hotel was awesome!

They even have a coffee maker, and a sweet robe for you to wear.

In the washrooms they have complimentary toothbrushes, combs, cotton balls, and shower cap… (little weird I know) Oh and 2 free water bottles which came in really handy.

And even in china hotels come with a trusty copy of the holy bible… china edition of course.

With perfect timing my toenail finally decided to come off. Actually I had to bend it forward a bit then peel it off… it was gooey…. (queue cringes)

Curse you June Yang!!! I shall have my revenge!!!

…kidding luv you!

If there was someone going to steal my organs during the night, this is the door he’d come through… I put the table in front of it just incase.

After cleaning myself up (I smelt alarmingly bad after the flights) I decided to hit the streets to see what was around.

I had no idea Hong Kong was so bright and animated.

There was so much crazyness everywhere it was… crazy!

I wandered into this once place called Game Palace (I thought it might have been an arcade) but it was way more like a chucky cheese kind of place, everyone was going crazy trying to win tickets!

In the back was a huuuuge room with probably hundreds of people around 16-20 and there was a whole bunch of asian style photo booths. There photo booths each with a different theme like a certain cartoon and style and you go in and take pictures of yourself and friends and the pictures get decked out with a bunch of crazy graphics and effects. There was also huge circles of teenagers all going crazy on their cell phones, eveeeryone had a tricked out cell phone in Hong Kong, it all seemed extremely Japanese.

Hong Kong was intense to say the least!

I’ll have to go back when I have more than a couple hours to spare and see a lot more of it!

Next I go to mainland china!

Touchdown in Hong Kong!

So there it was 4:45am on August 25th and my alarm went off, telling me it was time to wake up... to go to China... for a year!

A big "WTF am I doing?" went through my head and I thought about how crazy this whole tripped seemed for a minute but then I managed to shake it off and reminded myself it was going to be super awesome, and this trip was totally what I wanted!

After grabbing everything I needed (except my watch which I left next to my alarm haha) I made it down stairs and grabbed all my stuff and after some sad goodbyes to Mom we left for the airport.

Things went real smoothly there, didn't have any problems with my guitar or my one way ticket said another goodbye to Dad and off I was to my stop over in Vancouver.

It was a pretty nice 5 hour flight (I love airplane rides) tried to sleep for a bit then watched the new Star Trek (awesome movie)

Anyway I had a 5 hour layover in Vancouver and thanks to Aunt Julie's advice I took the sky train into town.

The skytrain is a new train built for the 2010 olympics its kind of like a subway except way newer and cooler, for half the trip into town it goes overtop of everything on high rails, then once it hits the city it goes underground like a subway, its a super smooth and pretty fast ride.

Here's some shots I took from the window.

Once in town I had a couple hours to check out a few sites around. Due to my atrocious sense of direction I decided not to stray too far from the station but it was cool to see the city.

Vancouver has some cool art around

Yep theres a deer way up on that streetlight

The countdown to the olympics!

I decided to grab some lunch in the nearby mall... hmm what to eat for my last meal in Canada?

Yep, went for the burrito taco combo, figured they would be pretty impossible to find in China, and they were mighty delicious!

Anyway back to the airport!

I had a few minutes before my flight so I figured I'd get a drink.

In good canadian spirit I made sure the last thing I consumed while in Canada had to come from Tim Hortons.

Well done Devin.

Listening to what I made my theme song for the day (The song gets awesome around 2:22) I took a few shots from the plane.

My favourite thing about flying is looking at the clouds from above, I think its amazing.

And when you think of all the thousands of years throughout history before people could fly in planes, it really makes you appreciate the incredible sight.

There was some cool mountainous terrain below along the way too.

Anyway after a 13 hour flight I had finally made it to China!

... you know your in China when there's dragons on the airplanes ;)

up next, my one night in HK~