TravelBio

The last weekend of November I agreed to be a debate judge at an American style public forum debate. Debating is the rage here in China, particularly among the students who want to study at American universities. Most students who participate go to international divisions of their high schools, and take a portion of their high school curriculum in English. The kids know that extra-curriculars can affect their admissions chances, and it’s all about getting into top colleges. Group of high school debaters; our school has a debate club with about 20 participants. It’s kinda funny how extra-curricular activities work here. At the school where I teach the students basically have to do an extra activity that they will list on their applications. The activity groups meet once a week during school hours, and debate is one of the choices students can pursue. The school also organizes a field trip / academic project to a neighboring province once a year. It’s mandatory, but students ...

I've been working here in Hangzhou, China, for a few months now. Hangzhou is a major city and capital of Zhejiang province, about an hour from Shanghai via high speed rail. Here's a bit more on my neck of the woods: Although the job itself is a step up from my kindergarten ESL days in Seoul, the location is a step down.  The city of Hangzhou has its bright spots, and I might actually enjoy them more if I were living near downtown.  As it is I’m about an hour north of the city center, in an area called Sandun. Ten years ago Sandun was simply countryside.  It isn’t in the sticks now – Hangzhou has grown rapidly – but it isn’t exactly the place to be either.  Sandun is northwest of downtown, and basically due north of the West Lake park area (a huge nature reserve west of the city).  Before urban sprawl reached Sandun, a small eponymous town was here, with a few apartment blocks, small shops, and a market.  Remnants of the old Sandun remain, and withi...

Not to jinx it, but as of now I like the job here in Hangzhou.  It’s not something I’d seriously consider making a career, but for one school year, it beats my old job in Seoul.  I generally prefer high school kids, and the whole college counseling thing is a new direction and a nice change-up. My office on the 5th floor, which I share with three Chinese counselors Day to day and month to month my schedule varies; late October was a busy time with the November 1 st Early Application (EA) and Early Decision (ED) deadlines looming, but things have quieted down here in November.  On the counseling side of things my job is primarily to assist students in writing their personal statements and college application essays.  I’ve also been advising several students on where to apply and which majors to consider, but the majority of my time is spent on essays. And those essays sure need work.  Our high school is considered an international division of a C...

I haven’t done any blogging in the past month ostensibly because of a poor Internet connection.  That might have been a legit excuse three weeks ago when I was off to get a new router, but the truth is more that I’ve been lazy.  My VPN still doesn’t work well or consistently enough for me to put up pictures here – for some reason blogspot is banned in China – but at the very least I’ll try to get up to date with the information. When I last wrote I’d recently gotten back to Hangzhou after a weekend in Beijing.  That was the third week of September, and although October wasn’t exactly a riveting month of excitement, there are lots of details I can fill you in on. Let’s start off with my school.  As you know, I am working in Hangzhou, at a high school as a guidance counselor.  Specifically, I’m employed in the International Division of my high school, in which students pay upwards of 10 grand a year and study with the explicit goal of attending an int...

My new apartment "Well, we opened the door less than 15 minutes ago."  It was my first night in Hangzhou, and, having just dropped off my luggage at my apartment, I introduced myself to two other teachers living in my building.  After a short exchange with Trevor, from Northern Ireland, and Ralph, from the Netherlands, I went back downstairs to my place. Problem was I couldn't get the door open.  After fiddling with the lock a dozen times with no progress, I went upstairs to ask Ralph for help.  Was there some trick to it, or was I just being an idiot (not out of the question)?  Ralph was unaware of any door related problems, but he came down to the third floor to give me a hand.  Unfortunately my lock opening skills were vindicated - Ralph had no more luck with the door than I had. Ralph was able to get in touch with Sarah, the school coordinator, who had picked me up from the airport that evening (along with one of the school's drivers).  S...

Luckily I had a friend to stay with in NYC--Justin, who I met at Ohio State (pictured traveling together in Taiwan) Last time I updated the blog I was in New York, having just applied for my visa.  Today I’m writing from my apartment in Hangzhou – quite a big change!  I’ll fill you in on my new life here in China shortly, but before I do so I need to finish up covering my last few days stateside. I applied for the visa on Wednesday afternoon and had been hopeful that I could get my application processed by Friday.  The expedited visa service takes 2-3 business days, and in cases of emergency a rush order can be processed in only one day.  Although pressing, my case wouldn’t have qualified for a rush order, but I did manage to get it expedited.  The employee at the consulate, however, told me it wouldn’t be ready until Monday. In the meantime I heard from the school in China that there was a conference in Beijing the weekend of the 19 th , and that...

I hope to continue blogging about my experiences in Italy and the rest of Europe soon, but for now I'll have to put that on the backburner.  In a previous post I mentioned teaching in China, which is now quickly coming to fruition. After finishing the summer camp in Italy and traveling with my parents in Germany, among other countries, I flew back to Ohio at the end of July.  My combined trip to Asia and Europe had lasted nearly six months - not a bad holiday if I do say so myself.  I managed to make it back two days before my birthday and surprise my dad and sisters, who thought I was arriving later that week.  My mom was in on it and managed not to spill the beans (thanks mom!). With my family at the Ohio State Fair; it was good to be  back home for a change. Once back in Ohio I got more serious about the job search.  My travel money had nearly run out and I definitely didn't want to stay in Columbus - no dig on my hometown, which I've grown to ...

It wasn't long before Andrew left that I was forced to get down to business planning out...well, planning out my life.  As in, when would I leave Japan (and to where), would I be visiting my family in Ohio this summer, what would my next job be, and, more pressing, where would I sleep in Tokyo? Thursday, the day after Andrew left, I spent the night at Japanese guys apartment, which I had arranged via Airbnb.  This time, in the spirit of saving a bit of money, I wasn't looking for a private place.  I slept on a futon in Jun's living room, which worked out fine.  The only problem was he left early in the morning and didn't leave a key for me.  That meant I had to be out of the apartment by 7:30, and couldn't get back in until he got home in the afternoon.  Jun was extremely nice, and that night we went out for sushi and yakitori in his neighborhood (near Ikebukuro in northwest Tokyo). Ikebukuro, close to Jun's apartment; yet another busy area of Tokyo!...

Andrew and I were off to Tokyo, the world's largest metropolis and capital of Japan.  In terms of size, it's not even close: Tokyo has 10 million more people than the second largest metro (which happens to be Seoul, according to Wikipedia ) and comes in at over 36 million total inhabitants.  That's nearly the population of the entire state of California, or to put it another way, the whole New York City, Chicago, and Atlanta metro areas combined. View of the sprawling city from the Skytree Tower in northeast Tokyo What I am getting at, if the point isn't already obvious, is that Tokyo is huge.  I ended up spending two weeks there and only saw a fraction of the city.  And believe me, I got around.  I'll try and introduce several of the more memorable neighborhoods and districts that I saw. First off I'll touch on Shinjuku, which is where many tourists start their journey.  Tokyo doesn't exactly have a downtown - it's too big for just one - bu...

I've covered some of the great food Andrew and I had in Japan, so now let me move on to whatever else it was that we were doing between meals.  Two posts ago I touched on Osaka, the second largest city in Japan and our fist stop in the country. Osaka is in the Kansai region of Japan, which also includes Kobe and Kyoto Osaka city proper has about 2.7 million people, but that is only a fraction of the true number.  Citing population based on city limits can be quite misleading.  Take my hometown of Columbus, and Cleveland, another city in Ohio, as examples.  The population of the city of Columbus is over 800,000, while Cleveland's is less than half that.  Take a look at the metro area, or the urban core plus surrounding suburbs and commuter towns, and the comparison is flipped: Cleveland is substantially larger than Columbus. Back to Osaka - while the city itself only has a couple million inhabitants, add in the urban sprawl and surrounding ...