14 Jan First days at my legal internship
After a couple of days you will have made a few close friends that are all in the same boat as you. We get up around 7 and head to one of our friends room to help cook breakfast and get ready for the day. After sometime eating the local cuisine for lunch and dinner, porridge becomes an exciting break in the routine.
After breakfast we all head down to the closest metro station as a small group. Each depart from the same metro so the mornings are made easier, there is always someone with you that you know. One metro stop later one change then another 4 metro stations and I pop out on another side of the city, near my office. The walk to the office from the metro station is only about 2 minutes, everything is really easy to access and the metro is the easiest I have ever been on! Large arrows for each line are easy to follow and the directions and routes of the trains are easily read in English!
The morning in the office generally starts with checking my emails to make sure I am up to date with any announcements from around the office and wont miss any deadlines. From there it is straight into work. The first couple of days I was set to research a few investment opportunities and the law around them in both Australia and the USA, then I have moved onto reading and drafting contracts, with legal research into the law in the respective jurisdictions. It is amazing how much we learn on a daily basis, especially in regards to the practical nature of the work on hand. My office space is one of about 20 cubicles surrounded by the bosses enclosed offices. The office atmosphere is nice, the full time employees love to have a chat and make people feel welcome.
The lunch break varies each day with the work load and how you are feeling. My office is pretty lenient as to the duration and time you take your lunch break, but generally they allow a generous one and half hours! Usually I will head down to lunch with other interns or others in the office and go to a different local eatery each day. The food around the office ranges from McDonalds to small street food stalls. Once back up to the office, it all starts again, head down into your work and working hard until around 5-6, generally depending on when you want to leave and feel like you have achieved enough for the day. Shanghai is different to other cities, especially little isolated Perth. The night is always bustling with people and there is ALWAYS something to do. The people in the office are hard working and will stay late into the night if required. It is nice to experience and learn from those with such work ethics.
The night activities are where things start to pick up. Either Absolute organizes a place to meet and have dinner and a few drinks or the people you become friends with will organize a place to go after work. Mondays we usually head to a local American expatriate bar to have the happy hour specials and wind down after the days work. Otherwise, the local “dumpling king” as he has become dubbed, is a favorite for a quick cheap bite to eat! A few Tsingtao beers later and its off to bed for most of us, all ready to repeat the exercise the next day.
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