Sunday, July 09, 2006

Rating of SH living as a local: 2/10


Summary of my impression of SH so far: bad (rating 2/10)
Pros:
1) Cheap and good food, and there's no tips or taxes required either.
2) Endless pretty girls, my neck really hurts from turning my head and looking at them. Now I just disregard them since there's just too much.
3) Cheap merchandise, but of course some of the material isn't as good as the things as compared to western countries.
4) Good TVs series, I can stay at home and watch TV all day long. Their martial arts series are done very well with correct documentary information and their production is massive. They also air a wide collection of Korean drama too. Those HK TVB series are just funny compared to them.
Cons:
1) Overpopluated with rude people: everywhere you turn; people are rude, they bud in line (in supermarkets, or when striving for taxis - I've seen a foreign couple standing at the same place for >30mins waiting for a taxi but overtaken by scrambling rude locals), show no class, and no 'excuse-me, sorry' as people bump their way through the crowd. Japan is a very organized and polite country so it's no excuse saying there's too much population.
2) Bad environment: Smog, sudden rainstorms, air and noise pollution 7/24. It's like a virtual smog sauna when exposed to outside just for 5mins so I will have to wash my clothes all the time.
3) No system here: My gosh, I can't believe how unorganized this place is; the banks can't accept bankdrafts, UPS confistigating legal goods, and people changing how much they charge and their work rules in just 10... 8s of time.
4) Have to becareful of pickpocketers: 2 of my friends lost stuff last week.
5) Crazy traffic: green light = safe to go, and red light = halt? No! You'll get bodozed 100 times / day if you cross streets like that. Best way is to walk with a bunch of ppl surrounding when u cross the street (human shield tactic).
6) Inconvenience: Everywhere you go, you have to walk - even the taxi guy says I can walk from point A to B instead of taking them (WTH?). Geez, I miss my car.
7) Building planning sux: I can't believe that there's only 2 lousy entries (side by side) to a huge super market (trust me, it's huge... several stories deep and really big). One will have to circle a high stadium, and a bus station before they can hit the entry (can't they think of something called tunnels or shortcuts?) Kind of makes me think what happens when there's a fire drill.
Anyways, as you can see; the Cons highly outweight the Pros by far, hopefully there will be more Pros and my rating will improve as I continue to live longer in this city.

6 comments:

AJEYA RAO said...

:-)) Cool ....Should be an interesting experience for you. Ain't it?

Edmlee said...

Thanks for dropping by, I guess you are right... and I'm a bit influenced by your optimistic views (after just reading your blog 5mins ago).

I guess seeing new things is pretty cool; there's an old chinese saying that goes by: 'studying a thousand books is nothing compared to walking a thousand kms of road'. And it also gives us a better idea of who we are, I'm somewhat grateful of being able to visit this place despite having much bad experience so far. Hopefully it'll be better.

akaie said...

I hope you would always have people acting as human shield for you. SH sounds like a dangerous place similar to my other friends' description. Never to go out alone especially for a girl (luckily you aren't!). About the transportation, Vancity is so great that the translink can bring you to almost everywhere faster than driving. But I can feel your pain of not having the car. Seriously, cons far outweigh pros in your present opinions. But I do hope you will find more interesting things in SH to make this place more appealing to you (the pretty girls!)

AJEYA RAO said...

Edmund,

Thanks, Great to read that you are influenced by my optimistic views. Yep this is something I have learnt recently as well. If we always try to see the good in anything, everything works exactly the way we want. Well I hope I am not being to Philosophical (To the extent of boring). :-)) Hope u enjoy your stay there.

可可 said...

I hope you will find more interesting things around. (Is there actually quieter place around SH? Like some village areas?) May be plan a out-of-city trip during your weekends.

Edmlee said...

Ha ha ha, thanks everyone for your comments. You don't know how much it means to me as I'm settling down to a totally new environment ;)

This week was a little better as the apartment situation is under control, found more good places to eat, and things at work is smooth... so far :)