ChinaTeacher

I have just returned to Hangzhou after spending a couple of weeks in Vancouver.  I had a wonderful time visiting with old friends and gorging on favourite foods but found myself longing to return to China after a week or so.  I miss the cheap lifestyle – It’s awfully expensive living in Vancouver, even if you try to limit your expenses!

Upon my arrival last night, I didn’t see any snow in Shanghai, but here in Hangzhou there is lots!  Many of the highways only have one lane open, and there are huge chunks of black snow everywhere.  Over the past 2 weeks, China has been crippled by snow storms the like of which they haven’t seen for over 60 years!  This comes at a particularly bad time because it’s Chinese New Year here.  For most people in China, this is the only time they can go home to see their families.  it’s common for many people in the countryside to work in the cities throughout the year, returning annually with enough money to tide their families over until they return again (yes, much of China is still cash-based so seeing people with shoeboxes full of cash comes as no surprise.  

My apartment is so cold (no central heating), that I went to bed last night with my room heater on and a space heater, as well as my electric blanket – turned up full!  Thank goodness the electricity didn’t go off!  Looks like it will take me several days to warm up my apartment!  The bad news is that they’re expecting more snow next week!  My apartment is still so cold that I had trouble ‘squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube’ this morning!

Today is New Year’s Day (it sounded like a war zone last night when all the fireworks were going off all over Hangzhou!).  Most stores will be closed today and, with all the students/teachers away for the holiday, this campus feels like a deserted village!

But, no worries – a couple of days from now and things will definitely improve.  In the meantime, provided the electricity stays ON, I will be able to get a headstart on my Lesson Plans for next semester!

If you have a moment, check out the PHOTOS Link on the right side of your screen for lots of pictures of beautiful Vancouver!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 8:08 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.