Sri Lanka and Shanghai May 2015
Blog 5
Sri Lanka and Shanghai May 2015
In March I visited Shanghai, and loved it, I decided I definitely wanted to go back someday. I didn’t think that someday would 6 weeks later. Due to a problem with another member of staff applying for a Visa to enter China, I was asked to take their place at two weeks notice, (I had been astute enough to apply for a multiple entry two year Visa for this very reason). When this became clear I received a frantic email from the Deputy Dean of the faculty saying she desperately needed a member of staff to visit Sri Lanka to carry out some staff training, this happened to be a few days before my teaching in Shanghai. Good news for me!!
The only problem was that my flight to Sri Lanka, connecting through Qatar, was redirected to a longer route and I missed the connection. This filled me with panic, but, before I was off the plane I was presented with an envelope, in it was a Visa for a one night stay in the country, a voucher for dinner at the hotel which I was booked into, along with a taxi voucher and the boarding pass for my flight the next day. This was real service. All I thought was, that’s fine I’ll go to the hotel, get some dinner, have a beer and get my head down ready for tomorrow. Again my cultural naivety was showing, it hadn’t occurred to me that Qatar was a non-alcoholic state. Which I knew, but my initial thought was of a relaxing cold beer, hey ho shelf that one.
I arrived in Sri Lanka late the next evening and finally got that elusive cold beer I craved, Lion lager, hit the spot.
The days training with our partner in Sri Lanka was centred around the use of our online text checking software to help prevent plagiarism, the day was enjoyable and the company was great. The site was in the shadow of the famous Premadasa cricket stadium which allowed me to indulge on my great love of cricket with some of the staff.
I arrived back in Shanghai to much better weather this time. I had been booked into the hotel which is at the Olympic stadium in Shanghai, I was confused that Shanghai has never had the Olympics, but it was explained to me that this is where they played soccer during the Beijing Olympics. The first port of call was to attempt the failed trip to the top of the second tallest building in the world, although 7 weeks later it wasn’t second, it was third, the second biggest had been built next door, how rude!!! This time it was a success and the views from the top of this where spectacular.
On the return to my hotel I discovered what the stadium was now used for, it was where the new Shanghai SIPG soccer team played, and I met their manager in the lobby of the hotel, a certain Mr Sven Goran Eriksson. I also found out that the next night was the quarter final of the Asian champions league between Shanghai and Osaka of Japan.
After teaching the next day I was returned to the stadium to retreat to my room only to be bombarded by people offering me tickets for the big match, VIP as well no less. The cost was around £5, I thought it would rude not to investigate. I watched the match from behind the director box. As a spectacle it was something to behold, as a match it was awful. While the Chinese league can throw money at players, the premier league doesn’t have anything to worry about.
Sri Lanka was a very engaging experience and yet again Shanghai impressed
