New experiences
Firstly some good news.... I have a new job! I had a hectic day before I left home where I had two job interviews at the Dept of Primary Industries for very different positions, one for a Project Officer, the other for a Post-doctoral Scientist in Soil Microbiology. I did well in both interviews and was offered a second one for the PO job. I told them I was off to China for five weeks and was not making any commitments until hearing about the Scientist job. Low and behold, that job offer came through on Wednesday! Hooray! I haven't worked in a full-time research scientist role since July 2004, so it will be amazing to have a proper income again, stable hours, a proper project to sink my teeth into and a two year contract instead of working week to week wondering when the project budget would run out. I'm so excited. Downside, doing the 9-5 will shock my system for the first while (haha!) but it is great that the job is on the northside! When I was at Monash Uni Clayton the 2.5-3 hour round commute sucked up too much of the day - time that could be spent at home with RB, or putting in a few more hours in the lab, was instead spent sitting on the tram, train and bus. No more...!!!
Back to China... Yesterday I was going a little stir crazy sitting in this hotel apartment room so I took myself off to the gym. It was a rather nice quiet little space with a view onto the Pearl River, the freeway and more apartment highrises in the distance (new swish looking ones). I had a good time working out my muscles on the fixed weights and doing some cycling and rowing. I'd better keep going while I am here as it is hard to keep an eye on your diet when you eat a lot of meals in restaurants or cafes. Our apartment kitchen is barely set up for cooking though we had sandwiches for dinner two times this week after eating big lunches. I have a lot of fruit on hand to eat too. We also wash all our fruit & vege with a nifty detergent especially for this purpose! Got to say, it was weird washing my tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum, onion, and lettuce in a frothy sink, but luckily I resisted the automatic reaction to fill the sink with hot water first!
Last night we visited Shamian Island. It was a little oasis of trees, lovely gardens, old buildings from the 1800's and early 1900's and a massive hotel shaped like a hip flask that towers over the island while illuminated at night. Shamian Island is also famous for being full of babies. People stay there when they come to China to adopt babies because it is close to the consulates, and a much more pleasant place to while away the 20 days you must spend on the mainland before whisking your beautiful little Chinese bub off to a new life. There are loads of shops with babies clothes or shoes, and advertising stroller hire (strollers aren't commonly used in Guangzhou). The Thai restaurant we dined in last night advertised a baby menu and baby highchairs and spoons etc to encourage baby toting patrons.
After dinner we ventured out to a Chinese nightclub. Australian live act Infusion were playing at Baby Face, so we went to seek them out. It was a bit of a mission to find the club but when we walked on in at 10pm it was jumping! Full dance floor, busy bar, happy people. There were all ages of people in the club (read young chinese and old chinese men chasing young chinese girls). We didn't always like the DJs selection which included disco house and some odd 80's remixes. Ride the White Horse was the only song I recognised and it is only passable if it is the breakbeat mix but we stuck it out waiting for the band. The place just got more and more crowded as people kept streaming in. I started to feel like I was in a pinball machine as I was constantly bumped by people. There were couches in booths but we weren't allow the sit in them :( so we just had to stand amongst the throng. Meanwhile their were loads of people standing at the small high tables throughout the club drinking what looked like iced tea in big jugs and playing a drinking game with that involved having a set of 6 or so dice in a cup. Strangeness. Also there were bowls of cut up fruit on each of the tables. More weirdness, seeing people munch on fresh fruit in a smokey crowded nightclub. We split before Infusion came on, beaten down by sore legs, dodgy music and a huge crowd of single expat men flooding in the door. Clubbing in Melbourne is much nicer :D
Back to China... Yesterday I was going a little stir crazy sitting in this hotel apartment room so I took myself off to the gym. It was a rather nice quiet little space with a view onto the Pearl River, the freeway and more apartment highrises in the distance (new swish looking ones). I had a good time working out my muscles on the fixed weights and doing some cycling and rowing. I'd better keep going while I am here as it is hard to keep an eye on your diet when you eat a lot of meals in restaurants or cafes. Our apartment kitchen is barely set up for cooking though we had sandwiches for dinner two times this week after eating big lunches. I have a lot of fruit on hand to eat too. We also wash all our fruit & vege with a nifty detergent especially for this purpose! Got to say, it was weird washing my tomatoes, cucumber, capsicum, onion, and lettuce in a frothy sink, but luckily I resisted the automatic reaction to fill the sink with hot water first!
Last night we visited Shamian Island. It was a little oasis of trees, lovely gardens, old buildings from the 1800's and early 1900's and a massive hotel shaped like a hip flask that towers over the island while illuminated at night. Shamian Island is also famous for being full of babies. People stay there when they come to China to adopt babies because it is close to the consulates, and a much more pleasant place to while away the 20 days you must spend on the mainland before whisking your beautiful little Chinese bub off to a new life. There are loads of shops with babies clothes or shoes, and advertising stroller hire (strollers aren't commonly used in Guangzhou). The Thai restaurant we dined in last night advertised a baby menu and baby highchairs and spoons etc to encourage baby toting patrons.
After dinner we ventured out to a Chinese nightclub. Australian live act Infusion were playing at Baby Face, so we went to seek them out. It was a bit of a mission to find the club but when we walked on in at 10pm it was jumping! Full dance floor, busy bar, happy people. There were all ages of people in the club (read young chinese and old chinese men chasing young chinese girls). We didn't always like the DJs selection which included disco house and some odd 80's remixes. Ride the White Horse was the only song I recognised and it is only passable if it is the breakbeat mix but we stuck it out waiting for the band. The place just got more and more crowded as people kept streaming in. I started to feel like I was in a pinball machine as I was constantly bumped by people. There were couches in booths but we weren't allow the sit in them :( so we just had to stand amongst the throng. Meanwhile their were loads of people standing at the small high tables throughout the club drinking what looked like iced tea in big jugs and playing a drinking game with that involved having a set of 6 or so dice in a cup. Strangeness. Also there were bowls of cut up fruit on each of the tables. More weirdness, seeing people munch on fresh fruit in a smokey crowded nightclub. We split before Infusion came on, beaten down by sore legs, dodgy music and a huge crowd of single expat men flooding in the door. Clubbing in Melbourne is much nicer :D
posted by Polecat at 7:17 PM
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