Living in Jilin City, China Part 1

Due to the fact that my travel blog was born after I had departed China (when my teaching contract was finished) I didn't have nearly as many posts as some would expect from someone who was abroad for so long.

This particular post was inspired by another travel blog that I have recently started reading. The Art of Backpacking which had a post about teaching English in China. Thinking to myself "Hey I did that, why haven't I written a post about it?" So here it is! This is will be a pretty lengthy piece  that will be broken down into parts since it does cover a year's worth of life experiences, I hope that you enjoy the read. This post might even give someone going to China to teach especially in the north-east (Dōngběi東北) area a bit of an idea of what they should expect in Jilin.

I don't have much for an introduction so I will recall the most memorable thing that happened whilst in Jilin city. For the very first time I lived through a flood, now I say this in a way where I personally didn't suffer any of the harmful effects of mother nature. Don't worry thought this happened July 28 2010. Even though my 'medical students' shared their horror stories with me about how many were left homeless, they still tried to keep me in the best spirits.


What happened here was I believe there was a huge down pour of water upstream of the Songhua River
that eventually took out a chemical factory where thousands of barrels came barreling down the river. These barrels eventually picked up up a pig farm, now there is pigs and barrels rushing to towards a bridge. It dismantles this bridge adding debris to the mess. I have taken some picture from my students from QQ (the Chinese version of MSN) so you can have a visual.

My roommate Randall and I did buy an abundance of water due to the possibility of a chemical scare. In the end we didn't need it, but it is always good to be prepared.

This is No.1 High school. This is where I taught my grade 10 art class.

From the Bei Shan Mountain or was it Long Tan Shan....Oops I forgot.

 

Good Ol' City Scape.

It isn't unusual to see construction at every turn and a man riding a donkey pulling a huge pile of 'recyclable' goods talking on his cell phone. At night it is all about neon signs questionable massage parlors and drunk middle aged men puking on the street. 

Motion Notion - Sunday & Monday

Sunday seemed like an early start but there was some serious napping that took place in the evening. I think I woke up at about 11pm. Which was fine since I made it down to the main stage for Shpongle he played a 2 hour set. I danced and danced it was what the doctor ordered, when his set was finished we meandered to the other stages. The smaller chill space was playing ambient to dubstep for most of the evening from what I could tell. Out in the woods was more of a funk set....but all I could hear is bass rattling my many organs.

The butterfly that Danny and I painted.

In action in black light,

Shpongle!

One of the many mind blowing pieces of art displayed at the main stage.

Time to eat some delicious ginger snaps (they were the tastiest ginger snaps I think I have ever had! Oh the sugary chewy goodness --YUM)

From there I headed back to my friend Chris's camping site where a handful of my friends were all camping together. On our way back to the main stage the sky started to light up, at first I thought that it was a strobe light; it was not. A storm was a brewing, from there I ran back to camp to figure what to do with our tent (fyi: our tent didn't have a tarp) So after trying to decide what to do, I had to move over to the camp next to us and untie and move the tarp over our tent in the middle of the night. Now I believe this was about 5:30am in the morning, had a bite of pasta before crawling into bed.

The Woods.

I was woken up at about 9am to pack up the tent so we would be ready to leave. Danny was sun burnt (probably obtained some sun stroke on top of that) and wasn't in the most pleasant of moods due to his many inflicting illnesses. The girls were no where to be found....

Needing a lot more sleep I arose to pack up our entire campsite by myself with little to no assistance. After tetris'in all our things in the car I was irritated by the lack of help. Who was I to judge, I could have very well just ran off. Now that I think about it I totally should have...teehee.

Finally, the girls were located on the beach now back to the vehicle. I think we departed about 12:30pm. We decided to follow my friend to Entwistle for some breakfast before driving back into Edmonton. This town has about 500 people and only three restaurants! Before we could do that we had to fix a metal piece that had semi-detached itself from the bottom of the car due to the huge pot holes on the way in. We tried our best to duck tape it to the car, 5-10 minutes into the drive out the piece just fell off. At least that saved us from listening to the rickety sound that would have eventually drove us to the edge of insanity.

Breakfast was what I needed I didn't think that I was that hungry but I mowed down all my food, now back to the city.

We made it home roughly after 3pm, since I drove home with out putting up a fuss I delegated the work of unloading the car to the rest of the crew. I felt better that I didn't have to do anymore work. It was all worth it in the end!

Motion Notion was sure hard on the body I am exhausted beyond belief. I think I need to rest for a week to catch up. I would love to come back to Motion Notion in the future it was a blast to see so many good people in one place celebrating music and nature.

Motion Notion - Saturday

We decided to do the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) adventure out at Motion Notion. I personally haven't been out to Motion Notion since 2006 so it was really nice to do a smaller scale of a 'rave' music festival. The sheer size of Shambhala sometimes can be a bit overwhelming. Especially the line up.

After staying up all night after hitting up Corey's birthday party we watched Karas (my favourite movie, with my favourite boy) we started to pack the car. By about 9-10am we were ready to find some breakfast. Finally hitting up a Tim Hortons we met up with Celeste, Tyler and Charles to collaborate a mini convoy. When I awoke from my short in car nap we had lost them, so it was time for good ol' GPS to lead the way. After making onto the highway we did a driver swap, Justyna isn't a huge fan of driving plus she just looked more uncomfortable in front of the wheel. I did my job to relieve her from her duties, lets accelerate!

I don't know how long we were driving but by around 2pm we had arrived at the line up. We had glass bottles of alcohol so that needed to be transferred to another container. In addition to our entrance fee we had to pay $10 per person for the environmental impact...this was new. (also a $20 for re-entry fee) $600 later all four of us were in and looking for our fellow friends to start setting up camp.

Main Stage.

Empty 'The Woods' stage (this was during the day on Saturday.

Beach stage even though the DJ was playing in a jail cell in front of an alligator.

It was time to hit up the stages and check out the venue, we finally decided we needed some well deserved sleep. Off to the beach (next to the Pembina) with our sleeping bag in had for a nice afternoon siesta. From there we headed back to camp for some smokies, yum camping food. I indulged in a freezes, to be honest with you I don't remember the last time I ate one.

This moon was red.

Vendors in the night.

The only picture of Infected Mushroom.

Now we were ready to gear up and see the Infected Mushroom live show followed by their DJ set. Before they came on we watched a variety of very talented and unique fire spinners, poi, staff, short poi, double staff and hoops galore.

Visa Process

This is in regards to the UK Visa, so after meeting up with the WorldBridge Personel downtown hidden away in a building (which use to be my high school). They took visa pictures for me since mine were to small making me look like a serious terrorist.

I hate photos on the spot :(

There is an upside to future applicatants that I didn't know about that I will share with you. That this particular company will do your biometrics for you, instead of doing what I did. (I went down to the RCMP of Alberta and got biometrics done for $90 when I didn't have to, also wasting an entire day doing this and having to take time off work when I should have been working.)

Dear Applicant,
Please be advised that an Entry Clearance Officer has reviewed your application.  The Entry Clearance Officer has assessed that your application must be referred to the Home Office in the UK in order to make further checks.
This process can take up to 15 workings days for most non-settlement applications.  Settlement applications may take longer.
Please note a decision will be taken based on the documents you have submitted.
Sincerely,
BG
VISA SERVICES - OTTAWA
UK BORDER AGENCY

 I'm pretty sure it was terrorist photos that are hindering my application process. : / It says on the website that it might take up to 50 days! *tear*

Boonstock - Canada Day & Saturday

We caught The Crystal kid in the early afternoon, from there we waited for Seether and Three Days Grace. There was a lot to see today since the main stage was open but in the end I went to bed shortly after the fire works since tomorrow is the day that convinced me that Boonstock was the place to be.

The fire works weren't as amazing as I thought they were going to be but then again I got spoiled by the Chinese during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year).

Saturday- EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

Today is the day to be alive, I got to see Sublime with Rome play all my favourite songs (Date Rape, What I got and a grand finish with Santeria)

After they were finished we waited for A Perfect Circle to set up. OMG! Seriously I have never been more excited and happy to see a band before. I was just in bliss. Happiest I have been all year! I literally jumped up and down stating my outright happiness. (The Outsider, Blue, Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War drums, Imagine, Magdalena, Passive <3, The Noose, Annihilation and so many more....they however didn't play me Orestes. That is alright until next time Manyard.)