Home Sweet Home

Wednesday August 26th

Our first impression of Shantou, our new city, was the airport. The landing was out of the ordinary, another adventure. We came in fast and the plane bounced off the runway, was buffeted by the wind and the pilot braked hard to stop. I don’t think we were in any danger since nobody panicked. It just felt rough to us. Maybe it had something to do with the age of the airport. As we taxied to the terminal, we noticed scarecrows (or were they crosses?) in the field and fences made of pinwheels. The terminal was the smallest and oldest one we’ve been in. A great start?

The first people we saw after we got our luggage were Jenny and Lily from the new school. They were waiting at the exit and greeted us warmly. We were whisked into the awaiting van (the school president’s ride with his driver, leather seats and comfy) right outside and off we went.

Our first glimpses of Shantou brought back warm memories of Mexico for us. It is green with lots of vegetation and the air is hot and humid. Despite our worries of constant rain here, it was a bright sunny afternoon. We found our new colleagues warm and friendly and during pauses in our conversation I snuck peeps at Shantou while Don rode in the front of the van with the driver. A great first impression.

We arrived at the university, Shantou Polytechnic, after about 40 minutes. It’s located across an inlet from the city proper and is in a rural area right by the ocean. As we approached our apartment building, the guy from the phone company was already waiting for us. The school had arranged to get our phone and Internet hooked up that day.

We have been assigned to a flat on the second floor of the second teacher’s dormitory building. We are the only foreigners in this building. Another Canadian couple, Jackie and Gord, live in the other building. You can easily spot the foreign teachers’ apartments because ours are the ONLY ones with white security bars over ALL of our windows and doors. Talk about sticking out.

Our apartment is very well equipped. It’s furnished with almost completely new furniture and appliances. We spent some time unpacking things from their boxes. It felt like Christmas. We have all of the necessities: a 29” flat screen tv (it’s heaven because we were watching a 15” computer monitor before), DVD player (with USB so we can watch downloaded movies and tv), a wooden living room set (a bit uncomfortable for now but I’m sure we’ll get used to), a couple of desks, a storage unit, dishes, a cleaver, a cutting board, chopsticks, a gas stove top, a microwave, a refrigerator, a dish sanitizer (don’t know how to use this yet but Mom says everyone has one in Guandong), and an instant gas hot water heater in the shower. They even installed a new toilet and sink. The bedroom has a couple of older wardrobes but a brand new bed with a bedside table. We even got 2 brand new mountain bikes that we get to use while we are here. Even though it’s only one bedroom, the apartment is nicely laid out and comfortable. We’ve spent the weekend organizing and cleaning it and now it feels quite homey.