Day One: On the job and in the city

My first day on the job. Thanks to jet lag I was up before the sun so easily arrived on time to my first day of training. I'm working for an English training center that primarily teaches business English and focuses on spoken English. I’m training with three other teachers, another foreign teacher from the UK and two local, Chinese teachers.

At lunch our trainer, Robyn, took us to a western style restaurant. I guess she wanted to ease me into Chinese culture. She also introduced me to City Shop, an expat's dream when you're homesick for mac n' cheese or bagels. It comes at a steep price but, it was rather comforting on my first day. I can imagine going to seek refuge amongst boxes of Post cereal, Nature Valley granola bars and frozen pizzas.

After training I set out to really see the city for the first time. My fellow foreign colleague was nice enough to lead me to the metro station and show me how to navigate the system. He’s been in Shanghai a week at this point. The metro ticket machines have an English button which is a lifesaver. The system is really easy and the fare is cheap between 3-6RMB which is under a dollar. (7RMB=$1US) The metro is fast and clean with station stop announcements in Mandarin and English.

I took the metro to the Jing’an Temple district, an area that I wanted to explore because I’m interested in living there. It’s on metro line two so it required a transfer at People’s Square, a main transfer point and very busy station. Walking to the metro was my first real look at Shanghai. The Xijiahui station (where I'm staying) is beneath four converging malls on a main street. The shear amount of people was amazing. Forget about personal space here too. If there’s an empty space someone will soon be in it—-or even a car, moped or bike. Pedestrians are not safe and don’t have the right of way. I sometimes feel like I'm in the old B movie, Death Race 2000, where cars raced cross country and earned points for people they killed along the way.

The amount of advertising along the walk was mind-boggling. It’s everywhere and it’s HUGE. Bright lights, flashing lights, strobe lights, neon, video, gigantic projections—you name it, it’s here. It feels like Vegas and Times Square combined.