First Week at Minhang

Weather:  4C
Time: 550pm

Rain
I do not believe I have ever lived in such a rainy place.  We moved to the new campus on the 27th of Feb and it's currently 1 week later.  It has rained everyday since we moved.  It has been very heavy at times and occasionally there has been lightening and thunder.  It is surprising to see the weather be so poor.  I would have thought the weather would blow out towards the ocean.  It seems to be coming from the south east most of the time - which would indicate warm weather.  The warmth is usually in the upper 40s to mid 50s.  The rain does a good job of making it feel very cold.  It has been disappointing to be so waterlogged.  We are all making it through and it is not expecting to let up until mid week.  We have asked out teachers about the weather and they said that April to May is the rainy season.  They said, it is pretty common that it will rain everyday of those two months.  They seem to be indicating light rain, but it is not always easy to translate weather related words as they are all very relative to the region.

The weather will improve next week.

Laundry
On Friday, I spent my day in downtown Shanghai.  We got up and got to the bus station by 9am, unfortunately our guess was wrong.  The bus comes at 8am and 10am.  This bus is operated by the university to take students and faculty between the two locations.  It costs less than a 1usd to take the hour bus ride.  Only a couple of the students can read Chinese - and they were not going on this trip with my friends and me. We got to town and took our laundry to the laundry lady at the other campus.  She will wash, dry, and fold your clothes for you.  We haven't found anyone like this on our own campus, so it has been determined that going back to the other campus is probably worth it.  She does it all for less than 3usd, so I consider it to be a good deal.

Suits
The main reason I was wanting to return to downtown was to pick-up my suits from the tailor.  I think they turned out very well.  The business suit looks really good - black.  The arguably more casual suit is also quite nice - grey.  I have never had the honor of having something tailored, but this is quite a nice feeling to have clothes that truly fit perfectly.  I think we are all getting a little tailor crazy, one of the girls has some jeans tailor made, a dress, suits, shirts, ... etc.  There are plenty of good things happening at the tailor market.  There are also knock-off Polo brand shirts.  They are very tempting because, it is difficult to get a low grade polo in the states for less than 10usd, and here the knock-off is only 4.50usd.  I hope to take some pictures soon and maybe publish them on here.  I am not quite a fashion model so I do not know if I will publish the photos on the internet or not.  Let me know if you're interested in seeing them.

Gym
Now that we have relocated to the new campus location, we are all very interested in filling our time at what is the local co-rec.  I asked some of the graduate students who are suppose to be helping us to point out a few locations on the map.  Last week I went to check it out and I think it is a pretty rough model for what China is like.
The Facility
The gym is located in one of the classroom buildings.  It has many machines and a rack of barbells up to about twenty pounds.  There is no place to work much on legs, no sleds, squats, or anything really leg intensive.  There are three treadmills.  The gym is carpeted.  In the middle of the gym there are twelve chairs back to back facing the equipment.  There are two changing rooms, with lockers that can be rented for free with a student ID.
Oddities
1.  They gym costs 2 yuan / hour.  There is a maximum of 25 people in the gym at one time.  If you exceed your time, you must pay again to get your ID back.  The only way to pay is to go to the front desk of the building (not the gym) and buy a small yellow ticket.  If there are people waiting to use the gym, you will be asked to leave.
2.  If you are a man, you can not use the treadmills.
3.  If you are a woman, you may use the weights.  I asked the attendent this question, because it seemed obvious.  I said, "So if the men can't use the treadmills, can the women use the weights." She replied, "They usually don't."  I said, "But can they?"  --"I guess they could."  What an odd expectation.
4.  All users of the gym must wear a plastic shoe cover.  It looks like a green bag, maybe something that would be worn into a clean-room or into surgery.  All members, except for women on treadmills, must wear these at all times.
5.   The twelve chairs are used for taking a break between the sets.  A man was actually sitting in the chair between his sets.  Most surprisingly there was actually a magazine rack sitting next to the chairs.  The man looked very ridiculous wear green booties, workout clothes, lifting gloves, reading a magazine, reclined in the middle of the gym - and paying 2 yuan to do so.
6.   I consider myself luck for this one, while I was talking to the front desk at the gym a college girl came in and wanted to run on the treadmill.  She was wearing shoes that were like All-Stars, some leggings, a plaid school-girl type skirt, a formal sweater, with a few shirts under it.  She was Chinese if you did not catch on to that yet.  I have been told they do not sweat, but I really don't believe that.
7.  Potentially the best one, the gym is only open from four pm to ten pm.  The reason for this is the same reason the gym is not open during finals week at the university.  The school is helping the students manager their time by not opening the gym until after study hours.  Which are loosely defined as seven am to five pm.  This philosophy is completely different than in the US where the individual is responsible for their own time management.  At Purdue the gym opens at five am and stays open til eleven for midnight most of the time, I believe.

Sherpa
This campus is located far away from a lot of stuff.  It is comparable to going to Purdue, a large university is a place without much to do.  I would say that our old campus would have been like going to school in downtown Chicago or New York, so it is very different to not have as much to do.  There are also a lot fewer Chinese food alternatives.  In the city there is a delivery service called Sherpa's.  They are delivery people that will take your order online or over the phone in English - then call participating restaurants and place your order.  Then a delivery man (not woman) will go and get your food and bring it to you for a small fee, depending on the distance.  We have Sherpa'd some tacos in the past.  The business was very successful so both McDonald's and KFC have their own delivery service.  We have grown to enjoy the cheapness of McD's and we were sad when there was not one within walking distance.  We spotted a McD's delivery man on campus the other day and last night one of the students ordered up a value meal.  The delivery fee was only 1$, which is a small price to pay to get a small taste of American food.  The milkshakes are amazing.


Class
This week marked the end of the courses for the first half of the program.  I'm glad to be done with nine credit hours this early in the semester.  I can now really focus on the last few credits.  I have an exam this week in my Purdue distance learning course.  I really need to focus in on that exam because it is the only class where I am actually getting a GPA grade.  Aside from that Purdue course, I have only one other course.  We were informed this week that the other course I am enrolled in will not have Chinese students because the syllabus will follow the Purdue course in a condensed fashion.  It will essentially be the exact same course as it would be taught at Purdue, same book, same homework, same everything.  The obvious difference is that it will be taught by a local professor from SJTU.  There will also be another course happening, however I have already completed this course.  That third course will have Chinese students in with the Purdue students.  I will rely more heavily on my friends to meet Chinese students because of this.  I also think I will manage to meet some on my own because of my open personality.  I am not disappointed with my class schedule though, I have class for four hours on Monday afternoon and two hours on Wednesday morning.  Other than that scheduled course, I work my Purdue distance course on my own time.

Milk
Fun fact, other than the two milkshakes I have had at McDonald's - I have not had milk in China.  They are, as a people, lactose intolerant.  Much of their society, as I have mentioned, uses "Milk product" which is not milk.  I was talked into getting a carton this morning from a slightly chilled beverage case.  It was decent.

Large Super Store
Today, I spent a few hours strolling through what is roughly the same as a Wal-Mart back home.  I went with a few things in mind and I found most of them.  The showers are not particularly desirable so some of the other students bought foam puzzle pieces often used to coat a child's playroom.  I like this idea, but I will let them test it before I jump on that train.  I was able to pick-up a clean, new, plastic, soap holder for the shower.  This was exciting because the existing soap holder is disgustingly old and even made the soap feel dirty.  I also was able to buy a couple of hangers for my suits so they do not get destroyed hanging in my closest on a wire hanger.  The item I was unable to find was popcorn.  We have a microwave down the hall and I think popcorn would be nice to have around.  A lot of popcorn is sold on the street but it is mostly kettle corn, which is okay - but not what I really was looking for.

World Expo
Today marks 57 days until the World Expo.  There is quite a bit of decorating that has been done for this.  I believe I have seen quite a bit of construction and painting that would not have been done without the expo coming to town.  I have not recently been towards the expo site since the day we landed at the airport.  I look forward to making it over that way in the coming weeks to see how construction is going.  The World Expo is being taken very seriously.  It is being prepared for much like the Olympics in Beijing.  China seems to feel this is their chance to show off their most economically advanced and most western city.

These are my thoughts and observations,
Biber