News from Shanghai!

Here is the first english post in my blog !

I know it took me a while but I didn’t have any computer for more than 5 weeks…and ok…I’ve been quite lazy ;-)
Anyway, let’s sum up these last 2 month I spent in China:

Life in Shanghai:

It’s now been 5 month since I arrived in Shanghai and I’m doing fine. Of course, this is not always easy because of the culture and language barrier and I think I will never get used to the huge gap between poor and rich people.

But I just realized there is only 2 month left so I might as well try to enjoy every minute here.

The Weather:

The weather changed a lot in the last weeks. It was 35° in August and September and the temperature suddenly dropped down to 20° in the first week of October….weird!!

Blue sky in Pudong new development area:

@Work:

Well…..this is not going that great at the office.
The activity of selling luxury trips to Europe wasn't working well so the Boss decided 1 month ago to change strategy and fire half of the people + reduce by 30% the salary of the remaining employee.It was a hard period and since then I haven’t felt that great at work.


Friends, Nightlife:

It’s going quite well actually on this side!
Lots of students arrived in early September and I met lot of nice ones + I’m hanging out more often with a few of them.

Scandinavian Massive! Matti (Finland) , Magnus (Sweden) and Sven (Danemark)

I also discovered new cools nightclubs like Pegasus which is a HipHop Club where a lot of Chineses dress like Gangstas….so funny!!

The Flat, my roommates:

Everybody is doing fine in my flat. And so is the cat. Anne-Sophie decided to take one 3 month ago. I didn’t think it was a good idea at first but now I’m used to it and it’s fine.

But it has a strange behaviour. Here is its favourite sleeping position:

There is only 2 working weeks left for Olivier at Carrefour, and then he’ll go back to France in the beginning of November.

Barbecue on Henri’s roof with the “Carrefour Connection”

And every month we’re having a big party at my flat which is really cool!!

Chinese Wedding!

I was lucky enough to be invited to a Chinese wedding!!
It was the 18th of October in Suzhou; Bob, one of my work colleagues got married to Helene (from Beijing). They met in France 4 years ago.

Bob and Helene with their French friends:

The wedding was at Suzhou Sheraton 5 star Hotel, 240 guests, and Bob asked me if I could play piano, I of course accepted his offer!

I really have to write a whole post with other pictures about the wedding. It was so funny!

Chinese

I’m improving but it takes time. It’s been 2 month since I started taking Chinese lessons twice a week and I can now make myself understandable in Mandarin.

I can have short talks, for example with Taxi drivers. I can’t really read but I can recognize around 300 symbols which is sometimes useful.


Travels:

I didn’t travel a lot at the beginning but I’m now catching up!

In August I visited Zhouzhuang, a nice small town near Shanghai.

In zhouzhuang old streets with Constance and Anne-Claire.

At the end of August I went to Guilin which is one on the most beautiful places in China.

In the north of Guilin, Longsheng ‘s paddy-fields:

The amazing rocks in the south of Guilin:

In the end of September I went to Hong Kong and Shenzen

Lionel and I on front of Shenzen’s highest building.




Hong Kong is also very impressive, like a fusion between Asia and the Western world.

What next?

First, my parents are coming to visit me for 10 days in the end of October. So we’re going to travel a bit: Beijing, the great wall, and maybe also Xiamen or Chengdu, we’ll see!

So, when am I going back to France?

Well, I should be coming back home before Christmas, the 29th of December at the latest. Then I’ll probably stay 1 month in the South of France before moving away.

I don’t have exact plans for now, but I don’t really want to go back to Asia.
I would really like to go to Australia but I don’t have lots of contacts so far so I may go somewhere in Europe. I will see!

Anyway,

I hope you’re all doing well. Feel free to post any comments or give me some news! I would really appreciate it!

See you!

Ben

(bmaurel@gmail.com)