Yantai - Nanshan Bilingual School

I'm here in Yantai now - what I didn't realise is Yantai is actually an area - there is the city of Yantai and then many towns within the Yantai municipality. I am actually about 1hr out of Yantai in the Nanshan area close to Longkou.

Jack picked me up at the airport and took me to his office where he gave me some details on the area and the school. He then took me to a hotel where I met Ellie (the other English volunteer here) and Franny (one of the Chinese English teachers). We drove to Nanshan and dropped the bags off at the apartment late yesterday afternoon and went into the nearest built up area (I have no idea what it was called!) to do some shopping.

Later on we met up with Daniel (Frannys bloke - who doesn't speak any English) and went for something to eat in one of the local restaurants. With Yantai being on the coast it is famous for it's seafood - we had some fantastic fish, some Chinese hamburger looking things and some sweet potato that tasted and looked like it had been coated in a toffee apple sauce - I'm going to have to get our local Chinese to start making that!

In case you are wondering - all Chinese have English names as well as their Chinese ones - ones that can be pronounced by us foreigners.. ;-)

The apartment is quite modern; I have a computer with broadband, a small kitchen, bed, bathroom, TV and cable TV - the only thing that's not so great is that there is no hot water and the Chinese don't believe in turning on any heating until mid November at the very earliest - it is absolutely freezing here! The weather is similar to that back at home - just without any heating!

I've just got into the school now- figured it has to be warmer than the apartment so Franny met me at the school gate to take me in - I think it has over 2000 students and is huge, lots of potential for forgetting names and getting lost!

You get stared at quite a lot being one of the only English people in the area and a little sea of faces turned, stared and were pointing when I walked through the school yard. I got a few "Hello!"'s when walking through the school. Ellie had warned me of the staring and pointing yesterday- she has been here 2 months and says it still happens to her every day. It's quite funny - it must be strange for them to see foreigners.

I'm sat in the English office at the moment, having met a few of the English teachers and I should be meeting the school principal soon...