Harbin

My number one travel destination while I'm in China is:

Harbin.

Do yourself a favor and google it. All I can say is YES. Did anyone say ice sculpture festival?

Taxi

My taxi driver sped through Shanghai, flashing his brights. One block of darkness, then sudden illumination. Memories were evoked of dark back wood roads in New England lit by slivers of lightning, decorated with raindrops and delicate whispers from the wind. Such a strange parallel, now in China reminiscing of my youth. A time not far from the present, but seemingly lived in another lifetime. I know I am alive. I felt for the first time what I have never felt before. We weaved through what felt like empty streets, only littered with people who would soon be washed away to their homes in the rain.  Dim lights from cars, red lights from street signs and green lights from numbers on busses, blended, and blurred together. An oil painting that will never be duplicated. My mind's eye trying not to blink. Each click of my driver's light switch congruent with my mind's thoughts. Trying to see clearly, but mist and smut cluttered my vision. Each glimpse of light blacked out by prolonged periods of darkness only to have extreme clarity, if not only for a second. Never stopping, never quitting, always reaching my destination, no matter what the price.

Camera revitalization

I haven't been taking my camera out lately because I just want to soak in the city. Sometimes when I have my camera with me I feel like I'm out doing an art project. Always looking for angles and colors and attitudes that try to express my inner voice. HA! I kill myself sometimes. Regardless I have been trying to get my ground and figure out locations and see how things are relating to each other so I can feel like I'm more part of the city. I'm starting to get the energy of the city. With that said I'm going to make sure I pack my camera with me everyday this week. I regretted not having it in a few places. I could have gotten some incredible images but I guess they were meant for me to see. Shanghai is not a city that will let you down visually. There will be plenty left to see tomorrow and the next day. With my first day of work tomorrow and rain falling from the dark Shanghai night, I think I'm going to relax and read a little before I call it a night. 

Thanks for the subway stories KID - thinking of home always gives me sweet dreams as I fall asleep :)   

Ashy to classy

I'm back to being busy. From nothing to something. I'm living the....Chinese dream? So I have three jobs. Think I overdid it? Who knows? I'm sure I will in a week haha. I'm putting in 40 hours a week with scholastic teaching kids. Young, young kids. They should be from 4-7 years old. I'm working Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wed. Then on Tuesday and Thursday I have two tutoring jobs. One is a business man who will be going to Ohio to work for some computer company, and then after that is the young boy Sean who you see in the picture below from a day ago. The scholastic job consists of only 25 teaching hours however. The other hours are meetings and collaborations and things like that. I'll be at Scholastic, but I won't be teaching during those times. There will never be more than 14 kids in the classroom and I will have an assistant there with me. She is very quiet so I don't know what she is really going to do. I observed some classes today and there are some really great assistant teachers. Too bad I didn't get one of those. The location of the center I'll be working at is actually really close to where I'm living right now which is a huge relief for me.  Scholastic will pay for the trip one way, so I'm not too worried about spending money. I think the trip by taxi might only cost me 2 American dollars. Maybe 2.50. I could be riding a cab to work everyday for the same price as the subway. How sweet is that? I opened up a bank account and am officially on the clock. I have a 6 month contract and will have the opportunity to resign if I feel like it when it is over. May 19th sounds like a nice date to return to NYC, with the summer just beginning and my birthday around the corner, so we'll see how that goes. I'm not quite sure where I'll be after my contract is over, but I'm looking at new locations I might want to travel to and work at. These are secret locations and will not be revealed...Russia? Denmark? I can't tell you, but you'll wish you were there.

Getting cold

It's starting to get cold here in Shanghai. It's officially jacket time. Hats and gloves can't be too far off..

This is Sean. He is an 8 year old boy that I'm currently tutoring 2 nights a week here. He's really smart and speaks English very well. He lives in a nice part of Shanghai and I look forward to tutoring him each week. I have a meeting with Scholastic tomorrow so I should know my schedule by the end of the day. The next post I put up will have all the details about my job.

View from my room