Raus aus Shanghai: The Staff Trip of DSS Pudong

Hello everyone

After one and a half months in Shanghai, a lot of work, getting used to everything and so on, we have finally arrived in China. 

We were finally able to move into our new apartment. 125 square meters is now a size that suits our lifestyle. We still live in the same apartment complex and have now signed the lease until December. In the meantime, we will continue to orient ourselves and then decide whether to stay here or move more into the city center. I can tell you one thing: the distances are damn long! Our district Pudong alone is the size of Berlin! 

Two weeks ago, I picked up my electric scooter. Since I don't have classes until 12:15 pm on Thursdays, I thought that would be a good day to pick it up. I arrived in the French Concession at 9:30 am and started off. Well, then it started raining... Without a rain jacket or cape, I drove at a slow speed for over 30 km to school. I finally arrived 5 minutes before the start of class, completely drenched... yes, completely! Then one hour of class in a wet look, then in a taxi, completely changed and back to school. Welcome to China!

A week later, we opened a bank account. You have to experience that! It took nearly 3 hours, but now we are fully equipped. Goodbye cash, because no one in China pays with cash. Everything is paid through WeChat Pay or Alipay on your phone. Sometimes cash is not even accepted, for example in the express taxi. Let life begin ;-)

One thing you quickly learn is that you can only accomplish one thing per day. And that one thing takes at least twice as long as you originally planned.

Last weekend, the school staff trip took place. We went to Suzhou, a small Chinese city (10 million!) 100 km west of Shanghai. I am thrilled with what this school has to offer. All employees of the school had the opportunity to participate in the staff trip with an overnight stay to get to know each other on a personal basis. Team building at its finest. The surroundings of Suzhou are beautiful, we visited an old Chinese village and a Buddhist temple. In addition, there was amazingly good traditional food. Overall, it was very exhausting, but also a great event.

We feel very comfortable overall! Life feels like it's passing us by, the pace of life is definitely faster than in Germany. Why is that? On the one hand, because we work a lot more and the workday goes by very quickly, but on the other hand, because it takes a long time to get anywhere and you can only accomplish a few things.

Here are a few photos from the past two weeks.

Goodbye