Priceless
- THE DIARY OF TRISH
First time in China, first time as a teacher of English as a 2nd Language.
A mature Australian lady from Central Queensland, her experiences and thoughts. Out and about Saturday 25th March, 2006
The gremlins have been hard at work over here! Apparently I can have either a mobile phone or a laptop working, but not both at once! I'd just sent Don an
e-mail on Friday night telling him I had a mobile (which can send texts to Oz but can't receive them!) when my laptop died. It was frozen, made a popping
sound( like an electrical short) in one of the now-broken catches, and alarmed continually. Very frustrating to say the least! Managed to text Don who got a
phone card and we were able to have some lovely talks for an affordable price! Much cheaper from the Australian end!
Exchanged quite a lot of texts with a few of the locals last night and have arranged to go to Suzhou next weekend to stay with an Aussie fellow, Brian, his Chinese wife, Susan, and their
baby. They teach at a middle school and live in an old hotel with spare rooms – hard Chinese beds though
apparently! Got woken at close to midnight by a text telling me I had no credit on my mobile! Great timing! So,
feeling miserable again this morning about being off air till I can top it up, I turned this beast on, with little hope that
it would have improved on the umpteen times I'd turned it on yesterday, and hey presto it works! Thank you Lord!
Spent most of yesterday morning doing lesson plans and planning board work for the week. Topic for discussion for the first class is "the effects of divorce on
children" – bit difficult in a culture where they have very little divorce! After lunch, I decided to take bus No. 13 on the long trip out to Wolf Mountain to
make sure I could get there with Don. Found the Catholic church was quite near it on the map so got off there and went to have a look. The gate was
locked, but an elderly priest saw me and came down – no English – I gave him a postcard with koalas and kangaroos on it and pointed up the driveway to the
church. He let me in and it's a beautiful old-style church with the altar, western
statues of Our Lady, Joseph and some saint. The only strange thing was what looked like a big flag-draped coffin
(forgotten the name!) at the entrance – guess it's some significant person from the past. As I was leaving, a young
priest arrived – just a few words of English – he escorted me out to the bus stop and I headed home. I'll go back
after I get my interpreter to write out my contact details in Chinese, with a few questions I can ask him. Strange that I have to come to China to go back into a church!  It's quite a long trip out there – 2Yuan instead of the 1 on the No 12 bus!
There's a huge amount of construction work going on and I was kicking myself for forgetting the camera. I thought of Dee as we passed the Irish Pub. There's
a big park just on the edge of the main shopping centre – jumping castles full of youngsters, lots of kite flyers and people exercising or relaxing. It's used for tai
chi and exercising early in the mornings but seems to be packed on weekends.
The route home seemed different but I figured I'd get back to the starting point
eventually. We detoured at one stage to a bus yard, the driver lifted up a section of the dashboard, got out, came back with a hose about 1.5 inches in
diameter, filled up something under the dash, replaced the hose and cover and off we went! Ended up going through
the wharf area which was more decrepit than most of the area, then over a couple of the smaller "rivers" where there
were several battered looking boats – bit small for "ships", but bigger than most of our trawlers. Thought of Don of
course! We kept going in what I figured wasn't the direction I wanted, and when everybody else got off in front of an
official looking building which seemed to be being used as a roundabout, I figured I'd come to the end of the route! I
wish I'd been following the map on the way back like I had on the way out! Got out with map and asked someone
where I was – pointed at where I wanted to be and gathered I should have stayed on the bus! Cost me another 2Y
to get on another (drama in itself misunderstanding where I was supposed to catch it!). I tried just putting 1Y in the
fare box - which has Perspex on the driver's side so he can see what's going in – but got promptly told "xxxxxxx"
with the 2 finger sign! It's the same fare whether you go 2 blocks or the whole trip! Passed the main hospital on the
way home, so when we got back I checked the map to see what the one just down the road is – Obs and Gynae!
Good thing I didn't front up there!
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