Safely arrived.

Okay, this is my first blog posting ever, so I hope I write appropriately.

I just arrived in Xiwu, Fenghua, Zhejiang Province, PR China on Wednesday 9/13/06. A few friends suggested that I start a MySpace profile and blog to help stay in touch with everyone back in the U.S. so here goes.

After a very sad good-bye I left Toni in Fayetteville with hopes of seeing her again in December. Other than a short running layover in Chicago I did the 14.5 hour flight to PVG. Per my Ningbo based headhunter's advice I took a cab to the Shanghai bus station, then a 3.5 hour bus ride to Ningbo. I arrived in Ningbo around midnight local time after 30 nearly sleepless hours. Lesson learned, when Toni arrives we'll stay in Shanghai the first day, then fly or take a train to Ningbo. I usually make a point of traveling very lightly, but this time I couldn't do much w/o some help since I had my bike in a large box, a large suitcase, my laptop and backpack.


Despite the tiring trip, I woke up about 5 AM and continued to read Toni's Victoria Holt book she sent with me. I decided I needed to get past the romance novel looking cover and give the author a shot, besides, what else was I to do on the long flight. I can't remember the title. I'm enjoying it now. Being submerged in Chinese makes me long for good English.

This is the hotel I stayed in my first night in Ningbo. It was pretty nice, and cost a whole 180 RMB (about $32). The bed is on a balcony, stairs lead up just off the left of the photo.

The next morning I went and had breakfast at a restaurant just down from my hotel, then my headhunter, Sophia, came in two hours later and we ate again. At first sight I thought the restaurant was a pet store from all the fist tanks on two walls. Instead of a menu we went through a door on the send of a wall of tanks to see more tanks, an open freezer of frozen fish, tubs of snails, a few Styrofoam cooler of live octopuses, frogs the size of my fist in onion bags, and the usual fish and crustaceans. I told her I'd try anything she liked so we had snails, a basket of fried spiny shrimp-like creatures, a flounder, some kind of greens, and a melon similar to cucumber. I could only stomach a few snails, but the flounder was pretty good. I'm learning to really like vegetables.

We went cell phone shopping but I was told to wait until I got to Fenghua or Xiwu to buy the sim card. I have yet to comprehend how the cell phone system works here. Everyone has one, so any mistakes I make can't be too expensive before I catch them, hopefully. I was picked up by Shijia's driver who was accompanied by Renfen, the HR manager, who, like Sophia is in her mid 20's. I was surprised to see the car was a new Toyota Camry. We used a section of T1 cable to tie the trunk down over my oversized bike box.