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I was surfing and found this excellent post about how to cross the street in Wuhan. It really does hit the nail on the head. I haven’t been conditioned to cross the street like a local still and I’m in my second year. I live right across the street from my school so I cross the street every morning. A vehicle could be 150m down the road going about 50 km/h, I’ll stop  even though I know I can make it across in time if I walked briskly. I think I just hate hearing the horn go off.

Speaking of horns, I hate walking down Liufang, it’s “the village” just up the street from us. I hate it when I’m walking down the narrow streets and hear a van come down it while s/he’s blaring the horn to let you know that they’re there. It’s LOUD! Try standing at the bus stop and have a bus honk their horn 20m away. That’s even louder!

If there are others with me while crossing the street, I let them take the lead. I still hesitate when they decide to cross but I do my little freak-out skip across the street instead of the calm and collected prance of my neighbour.

I don’t think it’s a China-only thing. When I cross at a crosswalk in Toronto, I still don’t cross if there’s a car that looks like they’re still going 30 km/h and barely slowing down. I wait for them to come to a near stop before I walk out. I’d rather be safe than sorry. I can’t assume that they noticed the blinking crosswalk lights with all the distractions in cars.

I’m bored and without sound on my laptop. The sound card appears to have come loose or just went plop and died. No sound from the speakers, no sound from the headphones but I can use the microphone. Any guesses? Listening to your iPod over and over again just isn’t the same as having 680 News running in the background. I can’t watch my TV shows either and we’re at the end of the season. *violin plays in the background*

This week, I’m working on a project for my students. Little paper craft houses for our little town. I’m glad I have a small class just finishing up the last few and then I’m off to bed. Anyone want to purchase property in our little town of 12? Contact Karen Realty, you know where to find me.

I’m Canadian. I am taught that you should always put on your seat belt when you enter a vehicle. No one does that here but me. I get into the front seat of a taxi, I put on my seat belt. I’ve assimilated somewhat. I get into the back seat of a taxi, I don’t put on my seat belt. I don’t think I do that in a Canadian taxi either. It is very rare to find me in a taxi in Canada so I don’t recall if I do put on my seat belt.

Today, I went to extend my resident permit. I was going with someone from HR and two other people that needed to renew their permits, too. I felt like I was doing something wrong by putting on my seat belt when I sat down in the van but I can’t help from doing it. I’ve been in a few accidents, one of them in China, so I understand how precious the seat belt really is. I feel like I should stop wearing it so I don’t offend the drivers but Wuhan driving is kind of crazy sometimes.

We have school buses that drive students home after school. The buses are supervised by two teachers. I had to take over someone on Friday. I love the driver, he’s an awesome guy, but I get scared when I’m in the bus sometimes. I don’t know exactly how fast he was going but it felt like 80 kph because it sounded like the bus was working pretty hard but maybe it was only 60 kph. We’d hit bumps on the road and I’d fly half a feet into the air. I would flinch whenever he braked hard to avoid the vehicle in front of him or the person that was jaywalking across the street.

As I am tired, I am going to stop right here and go to bed. Good night. :p

It’s 07:00 in the morning and it’s pouring rain. Mr. Chen arrives in his van to pick me up to take me to the airport. It’s my bumpiest ride to the airport ever. The first bridge that we cross in Wuchang is all pot holes. There’s a pot hole every five centimetres, I kid you not. I don’t remember ever going over a bridge like that in Wuhan. The rest of the ride to the airport is smooth though. I am scheduled to pick up my paper ticket at the Ctrip Counter #38 between 08:00 to 09:00 in Terminal 2. I arrive on time. So good, so far. I stand in front of the monitors looking for my flight number to figure out which area I go to check in my luggage. After about 10 refreshes, I find it! Sections A08-16. I head there and find a tour group of 20 standing around in front of the counters in a haphazard queue, if any. Check in just opened, I have lots of time so I wait patiently behind them. It’s finally my turn after some random guy–not part of the tour group–decides to cut in line right in front of me. I keep my mouth shut, though my mind rolls its eye at him for being so rude.

My luggage is checked. I head to the waiting area but remember that I have a bottle of grapefruit juice in my bag. I sit down and finish my drink while listening to some music playing on someone’s laptop and watching whatever is playing on the huge monitor in front of me–it looks like some Victoria Secret fashion show of Santa lingerie. All done. I find myself a recycling bin and head to the “Safety Check Area.” No liquids? Check. No lighters? Check. Some man is boarding in 10 minutes, I let him go ahead of me. Carry-on scan time! “I have a laptop.” “Okay, take it out, please.” I walk through the detector, green light, I’m clear. I don’t have to take off my shoes this time because I’m wearing my Crocs. I pack up my laptop and head to the departure gate. I set up shop a couple rows from my departure gate. I’m in denial and think that Wuhan has turned to the light and decided to offer free Internet at their airport. No luck. The only unsecured wireless network is China Mobile’s and they require a CMCC account. It’s about 08:30 and my flight isn’t scheduled to take off until 10:20 so I end up listening to music until about 09:30. I look at the monitor above my departure gate: “ETD 11:50″ Delayed 1h20m! Fine. Listen to more music, stand up and stretch a million times, open up a bag of Chinese chip-style rice-cake-like snack to nibble on because I’m getting hungry. (more…)

I gave up on the shoe hunt and just bought myself a couple pairs of Crocs, entirely vegan. Unfortunately, may not be as Earth-friendly as advertised. But what’s bought is bought.

Everyone at school wears them, so I’m just jumping on the band wagon 10 months late at the school and 4 years late in the world. I bought a full-back version of the Malindi and an Audrey. I don’t like the bow on the Audrey much but I was there and I was buying one anyways and they were going to be indoor shoes so it didn’t really matter that much. I like the Olivia but the huge faux-gem kind of irked me so I put it back on the shelf. I spent 428 CNY for both, which according to the website and today’s exchange rate and taking into account Ontario taxes, I’m paying the same price. They’re kind of comfy. I’m just not fond of the plastic-on-skin noises if I’m not wearing socks. Some of their styles are cute but others are really tacky. You win some, you lose some.

You gotta love sleepless blog posts.

Last night was the finals for the 2nd Annual Guānggǔ Music Festival (光谷音乐节). The students came in second place in the children’s division! They were great on stage! First place went to a 4-year old girl that did a dance number. Our second performance ranked third in the scoring but since we won second place already they gave it to another girl that sang the Beijing Olympic song. It was a long night. It ran from 6:30 P.M. to almost midnight!

The Guānggǔ Music Festival is a televised event in Wuhan. I’m not sure about the rest of China. It seemed like a big thing. The production had stage monitors, fancy-shmancy lighting, pyrotechnics like fireworks and flamethrowers, smoke machines, bubble machines, and exploding containers of gold paper that would shower the stage. They were passing out signs for the audience to hold up to the cameras when it passed by and whistles and glow sticks and colourful lightsabers. They cued fake applause, cheers and whistles. The works! It was pretty cool to see it all first hand.

I haven’t been able to find any articles on last night’s show yet, but here is the old one.

“光谷音乐节” on 武汉晚报 (May 24, 2009) (*.pdf) You can read the article in shoddy English here.

Wednesday night. We arrive in Nánjīng (南京). After walking around a night-shopping/food market we head to the hotel. One night and I have 15 new mosquito bites! The pain! Seven on my right arm, three on my left, two on my right foot, three on my left.