One-two-three breathe, one-two-three breath

Time to artificially breath my blog into use again :)

As some of you may know, a LOT has happened since last spring and my last post. If I remember correctly my last post was from Shanghai more or less in the halfway of my time there. Well, the rest of the spring went really well and I manage to travel around China also a bit; Yellow Mountains, Hainan tropical island in the South and of course Beijing with the Great Wall. In some point I may share the pics from these adventures but not right now.

Because now is time to reveal last 4 months which I have been in -ta-da-da-da-daa- Australia! Last June when I was already thinking about returning home and finishing my studies I got to thinking what I really want in that point. After couple of weeks of serious brainstorming I came into conclusion that studying just wasn't the thing for me anymore. So I decided to have a year off and just concentrate what I want to do. Then just before my 25th b-day I realised that Australia and Working Holiday visa would be the once in a lifetime opportunity for me in exactly that moment. Couple of more days of thinking and the decision came by itself; I got the Visa in less than 20 h from application and everything was ready to go. Next thing I realised was that actually I had no need to return to Europe in between but I could fly straight from Shanghai to Australia. Of course this wasn't that easy but you get the point ;) In reality, I had to take an 18h train from Shanghai to Shenzen, then walk to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong to Manila and finally from there to Sydney.

So there I was, 150$ in my pocket and adventurous mind. But I have always believed that when you have the will and right spirit you will find a way. Of course the first thing in the mind was to find a job from anywhere, as long as it was paid. So after first night in Sydney it was time for tremendous job hunt. This took 3 days and we found ourselves perfect job in the outback, 800 km west from Brisbane in 200 inhabitants town called Augathella.

Skipping now some things but let's just say that after Shanghai, Augathella was definitely an experience one of a kind; from one extreme to another. We worked there for exactly 3 months to get the days done for the second year visas. When on a Working Holiday Visa you need to do 88 days of rural work in the certain field of industry and in certain postcodes to secure the 2nd year visa.

I don't know yet if I want to have the 2nd year visa but at least now I only need to apply for it if I do decide that I want to come for another before turning 31. The work in Augathella was at the Roadhouse/Motel&Caravan park so basically almost everyday at the week we were doing different things; gas station, reception, cooking, kitchen hand, cleaning, etc... Time there went super-super fast but let's just say that during the last 2 weeks I was already looking forward to end our term and head to Cairns to meet our friends there.

I also experienced couple of "only-in-Australia" adventures there; like roo-shooting (kenguru shooting) and pigging (hunting wild pigs with dogs and driving around in the forest like an insane person).

But this was just a catching up post. Next one will be from Cairns (Great Barrier Reef and skydiving as my highlights) and then some more life in Outback since in couple of days I'm heading again "into the wild", eg. outback this time working on a cattle and sheep farm at least until christmas.

Stay tuned ::)

Zapata’s Taco-Tuesday

We had seen the advertisement about Zapata’s having Taco-Tuesday’s, heh quite obviously, every Tuesday evening from 6 to 9 PM. This means with 88 RMB you get buffet table for different kinds of fillings for tortillas. There were five different kind of warm meat and vegetable fillings and then different kinds of veggies, salsas, sauces, cheese, etc. to fill-up your tortilla’s. The food in general was good and we did eat quite a lot. But to be honest 88 RMB is way too much about that kind of food in bar in Shanghai. With this amount you can have a proper meal in good restaurant and actually enjoy your meal while discussing your friends. Like already said, food is good and if you are really graving for tortillas then this is right spot for you but otherwise I would go somewhere else. Drinks are also too expensive, or what do you say for 40 RMB for a coke?

Shanghai Antique market

Last weekend it was time to find the Shanghai Antique market place which had good reviews on couple of guide books. Got to say that this was the biggest disappointment so far in any guide book. The actual market was clearly only for tourists and included either same stuff they are selling you on any tourist bazaar or then clear junk which wasn’t even maintained properly. One time was enough for this. The market is in Xintiadi district and there are clearly marked entrans both from Zizhong road and Xizang road.

Cute piece of Spain in Shanghai - Lunch at De Bellottas

When looking through SmartShanghai-guide there are several lunch promotions every day. Yesterday I decided to choose Spanish De Bellotas which is located in Xintiadi, aka. very close to my place with less than 15 min walking.

The lunch set was 50 RMB including salad, main dish and one drink. Already the outside of the restaurant is very cute, opening up into a small alley. Sun was shining today and it was nice and warm so there was couple of tables carried outside. I decided to go and sit inside to look around the place more carefully. Also the interior was small, maybe 8 tables in total but oh my gosh how cute it was!

The waitresses spoke good English and I was immediately noticed when I walked in. The lunch menu wasn’t that large but from my experience when restaurants focus only on couple things, those couple of things are done extremely well. This was the case also here. For the main dish I ended up with creamy chicken and mushroom pasta. All I can say that the pasta was perfectly prepared and the fact that I could see the preparation in front of me due to the open kitchen only brought value for the experience. The salad was very basic green salad but they are using their own mixture of balsamic and I guess at least there’s some sweet onion along. Anyway the balsamic was extremely tasty. On top of all the waitresses were wearing pig-shaped hoops in their ears which I find charming detail. This is a place where I will definitely return!

Congo River exhibition at Shanghai Museum

My reason to return to Shanghai museum on Friday was the opening of the River Congo Exhibition. The exhibition is done in cooperation with some Paris African museum and is open in Shanghai now until June 2013. The exhibition is located on the top floor of Shanghai Museum with clearly visible signs.

 Even though I was waiting the River Congo so eagerly I was mildly disappointed for the exhibition mainly due to the fact I have visited Brussels’ Africa Museum which is absolutely magnificent and has set the limit high for me. This one in Shanghai included only some man-figures and masks and in general the exhibition was really small compared to the PR campaign there has been done for it. The info signs next to the items however were well done and explained the history with interesting details.

Shanghai museum

Last Thursday was a public holiday here so also the writer decided to have a smallish holiday from blogging. Since the holiday was on Thursday, according to some weird Chinese habit also Friday was holiday for most people and the school/work from Friday was changed to Sunday (yesterday). Weird indeed… The holiday was the Sweeping the Tombs, as it was nicely translated into English. The idea is families going and cleaning the tombs of their relatives on the courtyards.

My great plan was to visit small towns Suzhou and Hangzou which are both located rather near Shanghai during the long weekend but of course Thursday and Friday were raining and it was foggy everywhere. That’s it for the great plan. So instead of acquainting myself with nearby cities I decided to get to know better for Shanghai. The plan included Shanghai museum with all its exhibitions.

The museum itself is located on the southern end of people’s park. It is open every day, excluding Mondays and public holidays, and it is totally free for everyone to visit. The building is also quite a piece of art with its 5 floors. There seems to be also great lines of people getting in all the time.

The museum includes several sections, mostly focusing into China of course. I went through all the sections and my personal favorites were The Chinese painting area and Ceramic area.

All in all the museum was rather interesting but I definitely took too large bite going through all the sections in one day (excluding the River Congo). I should have choose couple of areas and focus on those. Even though I now also spent several hours wandering around, it wasn’t that enjoyable and in some point I realized I had become quite dull for the new things. This was of course  a shame since the collections are quite large and well presented. But still I do recommend this place. Gives good picture about China, though, I don’t really know why the name is Shanghai Museum since there are no particularly Shanghai oriented items 

Salmon suit

Money money money - Try to put these into your pocket

Course platter in SHU - Study overflow

A bit more about my University studies. So first of all, I am studying in Business program and Chinese language until mid-May and after that only Chinese language 20 hours per week until July.

I had a huge problem of choosing which courses are interesting and which ones to take since all of those sounded good. My solution? I decided to go to all first lectures and then deciding which ones to choose. Result? All of those are still interesting so I am sticking with all of these. 

Class schedule

So my current course are:

Chinese Business Law: I have already taken the basics of Finnish business law so this one sounded definitely good course. And it surely is. The teacher is good and tells lots of examples about how to do business in China also asking how is the situation in Finland. Sometimes these lead into interesting side discussions, for example whether to have a holding company in China, Hong Kong or in British Virgin Islands.

Computer Networks: Basic course of digital networks, for example how 2G, 3G, GSM, Wi-Fi networks and internet are built. Basic level but includes also much of technical info.

Digital Communication systems: The development of communication system. How different kind of . Quite technical topic and needs some background info to understand.

E-Commerce: E-markets development focusing especially on China. On the first lecture we listened Justin Bieber J This course is together with French, German and Dutch students and the teacher is, krrhhm, expecting very little from us.

Chinese Culture: Chinese history and culture. Explains since the very very beginning the development of China. Very useful! Teacher knows a lot and makes good comparison to Europe from the era’s to clear examples.

Chinese Economics: This course focuses on how the modern China has built together. The beginning of course we focused on surviving the communist era and how the re-building process was carried out. Current topics are for example on the FDI development and how the Chinese markets currently operate. For me this very interesting and one of my favorite courses.

Chinese Language: Heh you can’t study in China without studying Chinese. 9 hours per week is efficient and the inspiring teacher gives a lot input. Like already stated in some of my previous post I totally like this!

Lesson outside

Homework for Chinese

These all takes in total around 35 hours of school per week (which is much for an exchange student I know) until that mid-May and afterwards 20 hours per week. In total this spring gives me around 50 ECTS which is actually more than I would normally get from my home Uni. Let’s see where I can put all of these courses in my study plan.