Thursday 17 February 2011

Medical day!

Didn't get to sleep until 1 and then all too soon my alarm went off to wake me up at 5.30 to get showered and ready to meet the car at 6.40 taking us to wenzhou for the medical.

Standing outside in the cold we waited until 6.50 then called Jenny to ask why there was no car. She got straight on it and it turned up shortly after with an obviously just women up driver.
We drove the hour to wenzhou and the driver pulled into a big carpark and spoke to a security guard, wrong hospital, the driver carried on around for another few minutes before hopping out when the car was at lights to ask a traffic warden, then another random person, but eventually we found it!

We were rushed in and filled out a form, multiple choice mostly with English questions but Chinese answers, the driver filled out most of it but spoke no English so I have no idea what he chose!

Next we are taken to a window in the wall with a queue of people waiting to give blood, I wait my turn and get done but Chris is less than fond of needles, we leave it for now and year upstairs to a row of 7 small rooms with queues in the door and this for all the tests, I have an ecg, xray, eye test (when I cant read the alphabet), ultrasound, and few other checks all with people waiting and watching you, and near wide open windows, and none of the doctors spoke English so either they or the driver just poked and pushed until you did what was needed.
Went back downstairs and managed to get some blood from Chris and pay for 35pound fee. The problem is that we need to be in Hangzhou for that night yet the results don't come out until 4pm.
We are whisked off to buy a bus ticket for that evening to Hangzhou and manage to speak to a new woman at the agency called Claire who seems to be the best of the bunch and sorts us a hotel room and a pickup from the bus depot for that night.
We get dropped back at the medical centre and have 5 hours to kill so get some pizza in sensuous and sit in a posh comfy coffee shop people watching and reading with some Chinese tea for a couple of hours.

We walked back and got our results and decided to try to walk to the bus station, one interesting and fruitless hour later we give up and just get a taxi, we were still miles away it turns out!

The bus leaves at 6 and gets to Hangzhou for 10 and we are met and taken to our hotel near the company office.

In the hotel we are given our itinery for the next few days.
By this time it is half 11 and we haven't eaten, we also then see we have to catch a bus at 5am to the airport for a 7am flight to hongkong.
We are supposed to travel with 2 other teachers but the agency have messed up and not got a form we need for the visa! They pull one teacher off our flight onto a later one and arrange for him to catch up with us in hk.
The plan is to spend the day handing in the visa tomorrow, to sleep one night, to pick it up in the morning and come straight back to Hangzhou the next day.

We eventually sleep at 1am but set our alarm for 4... another long day!

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