Life in Jinhua

A friend of mine wrote me an email the other day, at the bottom of the note it read "When is the last time you did something for the first time?" It got me thinking, and the answer surprised me, every single day.  This blog is dedicated to a year of firsts.  A year of exploring new places, in a new country as a brand new teacher.

Riding a scooter, well it was not the first time, actually the first time was with Gareth in Victoria, BC, however the scooter riding here is a little different.  With Solomon as the driver, I feel pretty safe, he is on year three in Jinhua, and has some experience in the rules of the road (yes, surprisingly I think there are rules). More to come on our passing through intersections on bicycles.

There is beauty to be found here in Jinhua.  This is the path we  have been taking on our bicycle's to get to the middle of town.  It is quiet..ish, the entire path is along the river and it does not feel like there are two million people sharing the same space together.  There are always people walking and enjoying the beauty of Jinhua.

This is where we went to enjoy a massage for 40RMB, which is about seven Canadian dollars.  I'm sure my massage friends in Canada will not be handing out massages in China anytime soon.  I  love all of the side streets in China. Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, I am seeing things for the first time. It is a bit overwhelming, and with me staring at everything, and people staring at me, it has lead to some near crashes on my bike, and on foot!

MY NEW BIKE!!! Oh My goodness I am so excited to have a bike here in Jinhua.  Our camps is quite far out of town (not really, but cabbies think so and they will not come out here to pick us up). It takes about twenty minutes to bike in, and you can ride along that awesome path in the earlier photo.  It gives me the freedom I need to be able to get around and do little things, like drink coffee at Amy's, or go to Century Mart to purchase peanut butter.  

A walk in the park.  Here is a random, well I'm not sure what exactly its purpose is, however it looks very Chinese and I thought I would take a photo in front of it. 

KTV, aka Karaoke.  Very popular here in China.  I cannot even begin to explain the experience here.  It was definitely not something I had experienced before.  There were automatic flushing squat toilets, crazy pink walls, and happy birthday signs in the room we rented.  Yes, you rent a room and sing badly translated English songs with your friends.  So crazy.  But, again a first experience! 

My first Ouch in Jinhua.  A badly stubbed toe during a skype conversation with Bucky and Maca. What the heck was I thinking?! Oh right, I was running to get my coffee.  Very important.

The Apartment

This is Jinhua from my balcony. In the bottom right corner there is a new Library being built.  The great part about this is, sometimes they do construction all night, and they have the most amazing guard dog who seems to only bark, just when you are really hoping to fall asleep. On a good day you can see those beautiful mountains.  Most days they are covered and we are unable to see them, but when they peak  through they are awesome.  I've travelled across the world to find a little piece of my mountain town.

This is the view from my window in my living room.  It looks out onto the Foreign Language School. Just another part of the Jinhua No.1 School.  The students run every morning at 6:30am. I have learned to close my window before I go to bed! You can also see the beautiful river running through campus.  Although I am not exactly sure what is in the river, and I try not to think about it too much, I am glad that we have a little bit of nature surrounding this "small" city.

The apartment is pretty darn awesome.  I have lots of room for all of my shoes ;).  It is probably one of the biggest places I have lived over the past couple of years! From tent's to bunkeys to CMH hotel rooms, this one definitely is more than I expected. I love my little home, and with the addition of some plants from "The Plant Market" I am really starting to settle in.

This was probably one of my most favourite purchases! This case costs 45RMB, which equals about 8 dollars.  The best part is, when you return the bottles, the cost then goes down to 35RMB for the case of beer. What? The case is so heavy it is hard to bring up the stairs? Oh, "the man" will bring them to your door for you, leave you a fresh case and pick up the empties.  Now that is service.  The winter season brings some new flavours and I'm excited to try them when they are available.

I feel pretty happy about having some Western amenities.  Not having to use the squat toilet all of the time is pretty great, and the shower stall is awesome.  When Kyra lived here, the washroom was just one big room that often flooded, and from what I heard there were some mold problems.  We are lucky they re-did this space.

 

This is outside of my apartment.  I didn't have much use for the kitchen table inside, so we've moved it to "The Patio".  This is where I drink my very valuable coffee and have some good conversations.  I also get to look out on the mountains from here when we can see them.  

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!!

Probably one of my most expensive purchases at Starbucks, however I would like to think this is one of the most valuable so far!