Arrival in Qingdao

Sorry its been a while since I wrote. I haven’t really been traveling, so my activities these last couple of weeks maybe be less interesting. Still, there has been a lot going on as I settle down here in Qingdao, a major port in the north of China and a former German colony, and get started with my classes.

I spent my first weekend here in Shanghai, meeting up with an old friend. This was my first time in Shanghai, and I didn’t like, but then, I’ve always hated Shanghai, even before I went there. Beijing and Shanghai hate each other, and I liked Beijing when I lived there two and a half years ago.

From Shanghai, I took an overnight train to Qingdao. I had arranged to stay with a Chinese guy, Bob, I meet online through couchsurfing.net, a website that connects travelers with people who have a place to stay and an inclination to meet people. The idea is that you let someone stay on your couch and you get to meet them and show them around town or whatever.

I rolled off the train that morning in Qingdao, emerging onto the streets from the Bavarian-style train station. I meet him at the main entrance to the university later that morning, and he grabbed one of my bags and helped me drag them to his dorm, up seven flights of steps.

He had arranged for me to stay in an extra bed in his dorm, three rooms crammed with 12 guys on bunk beds. I got there at around 9:30 in the morning. In the center of the largest room, there were four computers, surrounded by several bottles of open beer and cigarettes burnt down to the end half put-out in the ash trays.

Everybody except for Bob were just in their underwear. Some of them had not yet woken up, others were just on their computers, playing Warcraft, a computer game some of my roommates at UGA had been addicted to.

Staying with them was a fun experience, a real look at college life in China, something I had only seen glimpses of before. In the two nights that I stayed in their dorm, three of the 12 guys didn’t go to class once. These were the guys playing Warcraft in their underwear. As far as I could tell, these guys never left their room except to get food, and even this they did fairly efficiently: while the other two continued playing Warcraft, one of them would go pick up something and bring it back to the room, where the three of them could continue to play while eating.

After staying in the dorm for two days, I left to find my own apartment. It was kind of difficult to find a lease for just two months. I did the best I could, but I could only real find one place that worked out. It hasn’t been remodeled since the 70’s. The ‘kitchen’ doesn’t have anything for cooking, except some random piece of plywood, which is fine because I was born without the ability to cook. I found a couch in the second bedroom, under some more plywood and a desk.

Apparently there was some water damage, and the walls have been spoiled by mold. I scrubbed that off with bleach, and it looks like I killed it all. The bathroom is pretty messy, but there’s not much I can do with that. The circuit breaker is a little loose. Before, when I wanted power I had to take a stick and smack the circuit board until the lights came on. I think I’ve fixed it because I haven’t had that problem for the last week or so.

Finally, I have a trash can that was here when I got the lease, but some of the previous residents appeared to not have one. Instead of taking the trash out to the pile of trash in the parking lot, they just dumped it out the back window. Not entirely sure why, but the area outside my back window is completely covered in what looks like a foot or more of ramen noodle packages, plastic bags and pieces of paper. Not that it matters. The area behind my apartment is a little brick wall and, behind that, construction.

The bathroom is also lacking. It’s pretty dirty, and I don’t have a hot water heater. The landlord said that they had fixed it, but it still doesn’t work. I didn’t want to bother with it, so I just fill a bucket with water and use that to shower. It may sound bad to those of yall who’ve never been to India, but it’s not really that bad. Kind of refreshing in fact.

My bedroom is alright, good enough for me at least. Overall, my apartment is good enough for me for two months.

If you want pictures, I’ve put some up on my new picture site:

http://picasaweb.google.com/agenbite.lee

I’ve also put a lot more of my pictures from the trip online.

Writer's Block

For those of yall who do keep up with this, I apologize for not keeping up with things. I'm in China now and it appears this website is blocked. It took me a little while to figure out what I was going to do about that. Now, I'm sending the things I want to say to someone in the US and they are updating the site. I'll put the post the things I meant to update, and the date on there will be the time that I meant to update them for.