My daughter has started going to school, for 3 weeks or so now. The experience has been good so far, though the change for her has been extreme: 2.5 hours a day, 3 days a week in US, to 8 hours a day (with 2 snacks, 1 lunch, and a nap included), 5 days a …
Continue reading International schooling experience in Shanghai
It turned out to be a fun weekend this time. I needed to go to my daughter's school to pay the fees, and since the school happens to be adjacent to our new house, I decided to use public transport so that I would know how to commute from office to home and back (since …
Finally I started my mandarin lessons, 3 days a week, 100 minutes each. First 2 classes were about sounds (called Finals in the book), and how to make simple words using the initials (consonants). I was amazed to know there are 39 finals (English has only 5 vowels and 2 semi-vowels in comparison, hindi has …
Buying medicines was tougher than I thought. We asked in various govt hospitals but couldn't figure out what they were saying! Later we were told that they give medicine only on the prescriptions from their own doctors. When I went to couple of pharmacy, they wouldn't understand English prescriptions. I tried looking up Chinese names …
Shanghai has 2 week-long holidays, one during Chinese New Year (end of Jan) and one during National Day (Oct 1). It is always fun, and somewhat unusual, to get a full week of holiday. It was amazing to see so many people on the road and in the shops in the initial couple days of …
Continue reading Being in Shanghai over week-long holiday (National Day)
Getting a bank account was painless, as some sites mentioned (see one of the shanghaiexpat threads). I spent more time researching the right bank. Basically my parameters were: English website for e-banking and information Easy transfer of fund to US/India Enough branches around the city English-understanding staff Choice came quickly down to Bank of China …
On Sep 6, 2008, after an uneventful 6 hour flight from Delhi, we landed in the Pudong airport of Shanghai, which must be one of the biggest and prettiest airport in the world. It was spanking new, immigration was smooth (with some helping official getting us into the priority lane), and customs was efficient. We …
So finally we are embarking on our journey to Shanghai. However, it looks like the path to a Z visa stamping will continue to be problematic. I got notification that the visa papers I have from Chinese govt have expired now (since their validity has been reduced from 3 months to a month because of …
Diary of an opinionated Indian 