Week 2

It’s been a tough week. On the plus side I’m starting to feel a lot more chilled out about being here, on the down side there was so much stuff going on at home this week I really wanted to be there. So it’s been tough.

I thought long and hard about posting all this as it makes me sound like I’m regretting being out here – I’m not at all. It’s just when you’re still in this transition period as I am, everything seems heightened somewhat and you don’t have a circle of friends or family around you to help you deal with things. So I wanted to be honest about how I’ve felt this week.

One thing I think everyone kind of pays lip service to but no-one really understands until you’ve done it is how much you miss your family and friends. Particularly at the start, when you have no friends where you are.  I knew I was going to miss them, I didn’t realise quite how much.

So, that’s been my state of mind this week -  now onto less heavy things. One thing I am getting used to is being stared at. Sure, there are Westerners here but they’re still few and far between. And being a 5ft 10 blonde Westerner means you’re guaranteed to get stared at, and 9 times out of 10 you’re also being talked about. (Tip: if you hear the word ‘Laowai’, you’re definitely being talked about. It means ‘Westerner’.)

What it does mean is that you have to develop a thick skin. From constantly fretting what people were saying about me, I’ve gone to really not caring in the space of a couple of weeks. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Wonder if I’ll keep it up when I get home…

Speaking of home, last week I booked 2 trips home – one in August for Standon Calling and a quick holiday with the family, then two whole weeks at Christmas  - which I’m already excited about…

Good news on the apartment front – I found one! It’s on the Puxi side of the river, about a 10 minute walk to the Metro Station and then 4 stops (I think) to my office. It’s near Jingan Temple – which is this area here:

 

 

 

Had confirmation today that I can move in on Saturday, and the shipping company can deliver my stuff on Saturday too! So hopefully by this time next week I’ll be a lot more settled and will have my things around me which will be great.

One more thing from this week- I had my first real ‘smog’ day on Sunday. So far, as the weather’s been fairly interchangeable, it’s not been too bad. But Sunday was definitely a stay indoors day. They have an air quality index (AQI) here, which is in real time so you can check the pollution/smog levels – in particular the PM2.5 levels, which are the ones that are harmful to your health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says anything below 100 is acceptable, 100-150 is unhealthy, and anything over 150 is really unhealthy. And anything over 200 is really really unhealthy. So Shanghai at 1pm yesterday afternoon was 209!!!!!!! In comparison, London was 40…… http://aqicn.org/city/shanghai/ (use the search bar to compare to London).

And you could taste it when you went outside, it was kind of like when you’ve been sat in a traffic jam on a hot day and all you can smell is the heat of other people’s cars, it was a bit like that. Very strange. Luckily those days are few and far between, and there’s always indoors with the air con on as an alternative.

Two things to talk about in more detail next time – dress sense and language lessons…

Things I’ve learned this week:

‘Coffee’ is the same in every language, as is pizza

Staying inside when the pollution index is over 200 is perfectly acceptable

Apartment hunting is soul destroying no matter what country you’re in

Never go outside in June without an umbrella – no matter how hot it currently is, unless you want all the Chinese people with umbrellas to laugh at you as you get absolutely soaked.

Apparently it’s OK to bring your pet kitten into work for the day (no I’m not joking).