Dragonboats!

Today I went Dragonboating! Woke up at 5.45 am to jump on a bus, then a metro, then another, then walk 2 miles, to get to the pickup place. My guardian, not wanting me to lose anything else, came along too to help me get there, and we arrived on the dot of 8 as the shuttle bus was about to leave.

Dragonboating is an ancient Chinese traditional sport with over two thousand years of history, but from the Shanghai team you wouldn't know it. Numbers weren't high (lots of people were put off by yesterday's weather), we had 14 people in all, two germans, an austrian, a hungarian, myself, three guys from the Phillipeans, a japanese man, and the remaining five actally natives. The team trains at the National Watersports Centre, where the Olympic rowing, sculling etc. teams train.For anyone keen to come along, its 50 RMB for a session (about 2 hours on the water, plus the bus ride there and back) and the bus leaves from 20 Shui Cheng Lu at 8am on a sunday, just outside the starbucks with the lawsons next door PAST THE CARREFOUR (there are in fact, unbelieveably, two starbucks within about 60 of each other, AND BOTH HAVE A LAWSONS NEXT DOOR!! This fact NEARLY spoiled my boating hopes!). Combine boating trips with olive oil and roquefort missions for extra points.


I confess that this picture is a fraud - it's from their practice a few weeks ago and I'm not in it. No-one had a camera today, I'll replace it as soon as I get one with me in it!

Initial impressions: they go slower than rowing boats, but you can't get your legs involved (your strongest muscles by some distance) so thats not too surprising. It's very tiring on the back becauseyou have to lean forward to row. TAKE SOMETHING TO SIT ON (ie. a towel), my bum is aching very much at the moment! Otherwise it was great fun, paddling about, we had a swim, and the people were awesome, very keen to do some more and they have a race in early September that I should be able to get involved with if I'm about.

I got back to campus at gone 2pm (after my first solo-trip on a Chinese bus: very gripping!) thoroughly satisfied with my morning and raring to go, so I decided to get a trip to the swimming pool together. Got a few other people organised and then went to collect my trunks which I'd left on my balcony to dry. Couldn't find them - at first I suspected a very odd underwear theif. Then I peaked over the balcony...


...


Seven floors down, on the roof of the reception, were my trunks and pool hat. cursed my bad luck and yesterdays storm. We had to cancel the swimming outing :(

Note to readers: Tomorrow I'm going to work with a company on the other side of the river here in Pudong district that manufactures Solar Cells. I'm in a dorm with three other workers thre and probably won't have regular internet access, so I'm afraid updates may be slightly fewer-and-farther-between for the next fortnight. Don't go away tho, I promise to save up all the stories that I'm not able to post for my triumphal return!

Some photos

Some photos from the last few days that entertained me...



Shanghai has always been the backbone of the Chinese economy and it's not hard to see why. Wondering the streets you'll see countless examples of Shanghainese ingenuity, like ths clip above - this enterprising Chinese has struck upon the idea of a book and grocery shop - now THATS synergy!



More diversification here - but don't I recognise this popular Chinese shirt and suit brandname from somewhere else...?



After travelling half way round the World I was more than surprised when I wondered into the canteen to discover that it was in fact Trinity College halls. A later, more through investigation revealed my early mistake.

(This one came out a bit dark alas)


Now swimming is a big hobby of mine (in fact any water sports really), so I was naturally overjoyed when I found out that my campus has a swimming pool on it, 8 RMB (50p!) an hour after a 'health check' ("Are you healthy?" "Yes" "Here's your health card, that's 5 RMB"), so I brought my swimming shorts from home specially.



Perhaps I'm a slightly conservative dresser in the water, but I hadn't forseen this being a problem. However, the old Chinese lady at the desk had different ideas. She laughed her head off when she saw them - "tai da le! tai da le!" - apparently the chinese are much less repressed in the water, and they wouldn't let me in until I bought a pair of trunks 'chinese style' (for another 30 RMB!), and although it thankfully hasn't come out too well in the photo they leave NOTHING to the imagination...