Today was the first day of school after the vacation.

Although we really only got our books and the class schedule. I now obviously have to pay around 200 yuan for the books too, even though I was told they were included in the course fee I paid! I complained, and so far I haven’t needed to pay – but I guess time will come. The people who didn’t end up in my class, or with an intensive course, started their classes today – but mine doesn’t start before tomorrow.

I don’t really have a lot of classes, so I’ll guess I’ll have to study some on my own to get to my desired goal. Which is as simple as being able to talk about basic things in Chinese. So far I can only understand the “how are you?” type of conversations. And diverse words and characters.

So here’s how I will be spending my school week;

Monday:
9:00 – 10:20 “Computer learning”. Not sure what this is yet, but it obviously contains learning on computers.

Tuesday;
9:00 – 10:20 “Listening skills”. I’m guessing we’ll learn some words too.
20 min break.
10:40 – 12:00 “Listening skills”.

Wednesday;
9:00 – 10:20 “Intensive reading”. Although I’m guessing it won’t be very intensive at my level.
20 min break.
10:40 – 12:00 “Intensive reading”.
1 and a half hour lunchbreak.
13:30 – 14:50 “Oral practice”. Or talking lessons if you like.
20 min break.
15:10 – 16:30 “Oral practice”.

Thursday;
9:00 – 10:20 “Intensive reading”.
20 min break.
10:40 – 12:00 “Intensive reading”.
1 and a half hour lunchbreak.
13:30 – 14:50 “Oral practice”.
20 min break.
15:10 – 16:30 “Oral practice”.

Friday;
9:00 – 10:20 “Intensive reading”. Although I’m guessing it won’t be very intensive at my level.
20 min break.
10:40 – 12:00 “Intensive reading”.

I seriously need to find myself a new hobby. I’m so used to school taking up the entire day, and now I have more spare time than ever. Unless they decide for us to “have fun” with the class assignments. xD

Or ballet flats if you like. And of course you do.

After all, who does not love a good pair of shoes? Or a pretty pair if you’re not that much into comfort, like me. If I can get a pair of both pretty and comfortable flats/heels/sandals/you-choose, that’s great, but I value the good looks a bit more. Which is probably why I almost always wear and bring along those nifty heel band-aids in case of a blemish or two.

I think my love for pretty shoes is border lining fanatical some times, but after watching the Sex and the City series, I get the feeling a shoe obsession’s rather normal for girls? And if you add the number of females one usually sees when entering a shoe store, it can be too far out either.

But let’s get back to the main topic; my new, pretty ladybird flats. Yes, ladybird. Bow-ladybird.

Please ignore those socks. Wait, do you have an opinion of the crossed socks?

This picture was taken before I managed to buy my self new, white ankle socks – which by the way gets dirty already on the metro station to school over here. There’s so many people rushing, and stepping on your feet in the process.

And no, not a doggie bag or a dog in a bag (like we’ve seen so incredibly many times before).

I was sitting in a metro train, along with some friends, on my way to a night club when I noticed: the girl sitting behind Nini had a dog on her lap. Not a real one, and not a stuffed animal (though I thought so at first). I actually had to poke it’s owner and show my camera to her before I could take some shots – both because of the angle and me wanting a good picture).

I’ve seen people brutally stuff their dog into a purse down here, so I think this is a good solution if you absolutely need to carry a dog. That, and it looks even better in real life. I haven’t seen any of these before though, and so far I’ve seen quite a lot of purses so far (bags? shoes? watches? DVDs? xD ).

So does anyone know where to get one of these? Is it a brand or something? Because the thing looked damn expencive.

I love pandas. Pandas, cats, hamsters, cute pigs, Hello Kitty things, basically everything cute.

But I’ve never seen something like this one before. It’s adorable, and backpacks usually aren’t all that, so it’s nice to see something uncommon every once in a while. Also, I’m amazed she’s wearing it on her back. In Shanghai, most people wear their backpacks in front of them – like a stomach pack!

Sorry about the quality though, I’m not fully compatible with my cameras settings yet, and I really don’t like to use the flash.

Reminds me, I used to have this really cute, small Pikachu backpack when I was 10 or 11.. I wonder where it went..

One thing I’ve really noticed in Shanghai is actually the men’s nails.
No, seriously.

Most of the men I’ve seen so far have had really feminine hands. With long, well-cared for nails. Far prettier nails than I’ve ever had. The pinky finger’s nail is usually very long, so I’m thinking it has something to do with the older dynasties as their long pinky finger with ornaments. And now you might be thinking it’s just a lucky sight, yeah? Well, so far I’ve seen to many for it to just be a coincident. The drunkard on the air plane (nice drunkard though – he gave me the spare cookie bag), the men in the passport control on the airport, four taxi drivers (including EF’s) and lots of people in shops and on the street.

Fascinating, really. I wish I had a picture for this one.

I actually liked flying with what seemed to be the combination on China Airlines and Lufthansa on the second part of the trip.

The seats were good, the food was better than the usual plane food (and you got to choose between two dishes for each meal), they showed decent movies and we all got a blanket and a pillow each. Also, no one used the seat next to me (at first, anyway), so I had a lot of space to put my things and an old, Chinese woman at the end of our three seat row. Now, that old woman is a whole other story.

Sounds good, hm?

I got really home sick about half-ways into the flight. I missed the parents, the cat, my siblings, family and friends, my music, not to mention my own room. The plane was shaking every minute, and that old lady I mentioned before took all of the pillows – including mine when I took a small trip to the toilet. She didn’t need them though – she wasn’t the old, shaky kind who needs pillows for comfort – my pillow became her cuddle bear for the last five hours of the trip. Also, she wasn’t even polite enough to wait for me to stand up and move out of the row so she could pass into the hallway, instead she stood up in her seat and walked over me, stepping on my things in the process.

Being so far away from home, and without a pillow it was too hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in, the homesickness got rather bad. And the crying-cliché Hong Kong romance drama they were showing on screen didn’t really make anything better. Good movie though, funny with good actors and a very handsome main actor. It was named “lies”-something, but I really don’t think I’ll find it with subtitles even if I remember the name.

Anyway, I got over the homesickness when I got breakfast, and I’ve still only had two more hours of it (the homesickness, not the breakfast) during the one week and two days I’ve been here. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so busy, or maybe it’s because I’ve managed to get some friends. Or maybe it’s because I sort of distanced myself during the time I couldn’t contact people outside Shanghai – I didn’t get an internet connection in my apartment before yesterday. I felt a bit helpless the very first day though. My EF connection didn’t give me the right apartment address (so I’m glad the EF driver knew where I was going to stay), and insisted on the schools address being my own – so I couldn’t go too far in case I managed to get lost. I didn’t know my way around, didn’t know where the store was and didn’t have anyone to contact. A girl named Yi Chu called me later in the evening though. She’s Swedish, a classmate of mine and arrived on the same day as me. We ate dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken that night, and, even though the food definitely wasn’t good, it made me feel less helpless to get a friend who lived nearby.

I actually managed to meet one of my classmates, Nicole, from EF already on the airport. We’d both ordered a transfer from the airport and to our places, so we both got into the EF cab, and let’s just say we weren’t exactly impressed by taxi driver’s driving abilities. It’s not very common to have belts in the back seats either, but we’ve still been advised by the school to sit in the back when taking a taxi. The most dangerous seat is obviously next to the driver.

The weather down here is really damp, at least comparing to Norway. I actually started sweating on the airport (and it takes quite a lot before I start breaking a sweat back home), and the heat inside the airport was actually quite chill opposed to the weather outside. It’s almost as hot as it was at Lanzarote when I was there with my family in May last year.

You get very thirsty here and, although you can’t drink the tap water at all, the bottled water is very cheap. I usually buy the large ones costing less than 4 RMB (about the same in NOK) and then fill up a small bottle, 1.50 RMB or less, to bring along with me.

I’m going to make a post about the apartment and the neighbourhood somewhat later, but let’s just say the apartment is nice. Very nice. Wood panel floors, a ceiling with different levels, pretty furniture and turquoise sofas. It’s “a bit” worn down as well, and I’m definitely going to buy my own cups, bowls, plates, forks and such. It’s also got a gas oven, which I’m very scared to use because you need to light the gas with a lighter. A short lighter. Did I ever mention I’m scared of flames?

Also, I was rather shocked when I found out that it’s just as comfortable to sleep with a blanket in the windowsill as using the bed. If you knock on the “mattress” you’ll hear a metal echo. Ironic though, I thought my bed at home was a bit uncomfortable. I don’t get why they make beds as hard as this – it removes the point of having a bed.

Pictures are on my Flickr album!

14:54

Did we change time zones already, or have I’ve really only been sitting on this plane since 13:30? That can’t be right, and I’m so confused. Also, my dearest mp3-player, a Creative Zen Micro Photo, just died. And no, not power wise. I brought an extra battery in case that would happen. There must be something wrong with the firmware? Something certainly is wrong with it. It automatically goes into recovery modus, and none of the given options work (although I must admit I haven’t tried reinstalling the firmware yet). Hm, I need an internet connection – hopefully the airport in Frankfurt has a free one. Without music, I’m in for one verrry long plane ride. Other than that, I need hand cream (desperately) and a place to charge my netbook. The Aspire One’s only got about one hour left before the power shuts down – a three cell battery just doesn’t get you very far.

Oh, and the nice lady in the next seat gave me a carrot. ^^ Mucho appreciated.

12:45

You know, travelling far away from everything you’re used to isn’t quite as scary as some people like to think.

It’s thrilling, fun and not to mention something you can learn a lot from. Mucho self-development. Especially if you’re on your own.

Right now I’m sitting at Oslo Airport, gate 40, waiting for my plane. While this one goes to Frankfurt, my actual destination is Shanghai – and I can’t wait to get there! I’d post some pictures, but there’s not all that much to see (and the internet here isn’t free either, which means I’ll have to do something else than surfing the net). I’m staying in Shanghai until the beginning of June, so I’ll have plenty of time for both self-developing and taking pictures! My Nikon D50 is staying home in Norway though, along with all my wonderful lenses so I’ll have to get used to a small, compact Lumix instead.

There’s so much I’m looking forward to do! Like visiting the textile market, the botanical garden and the old part of Shanghai. Much more, too, but it wouldn’t be all that useful to write a long list and post it here. I’m also quite curious about the weather – I’ve heard it’s hot, humid and, erm, rainy? I’ll need to buy a new umbrella when I get there. A fancy, colourful one. ^^ And a computer lock for my mini-Acer.

Ooh, I think we can board the plane now! ~<3