Shanghai and the night bus

Hi all,

I set off yesterday morning at 10am and got into Shanghai at 7am this morning - it had to be the longest (and strangest) journey of my life! The bus was late into the bus station, I kept going up to the desk in the station as nothing at all was in English and I was a little frightened it would come and go without me on it.. Eventually, 20minutes late it turned up and a bloke came and got me, put my bags on and then the driver motioned for me to take my shoes off - first time I've had to do that on a bus journey - then again this was no regular bus journey!

The bus, well - I knew it was an overnight bus, but instead of having seats it had bunk beds - about 36 in total - 1 row down each side of the bus and one row down the middle. I was in the middle on the top and at first I was certain I was going to fall off with each corner we turned. I napped a lot, but only in short stints as its amazing how much noise the drivers and random sleeping chinese people can make! The best bit was, the bus didn't have a loo - so each time you wanted the loo you'd have to go to the front, say toilet in chinese - nobody on the bus spoke any english (luckily I had it written down phonetically) and then the driver would pull over and you'd go at the side of the road - no privacy at all - it was quite funny.

Anyway, 21hrs later we eventually pulled up in Shanghai - I found the youth hostel pretty easily and got some breakfast (full english with knives and forks!! :-) - you may laugh, but it's the first time I've used a knife and fork in nearly 4 weeks!) and then checked in.

I've had a quick wander down Nanjing road, the main shopping road which leads to the Bund and is about 5mins away from the hostel just to get my bearings - there are people trying to sell you shoes, dvd's and watches every 20meters or so - I find it quite funny at the moment but I can see it might bug me after a few days.

I managed to get some great bargains on a set of chopsticks (for less than half price due to my amazing negotiating skills) and a new memory card for my camera (as I've been taking far too many photos and starting to run out of space) - the memory card I got for just over half the marked price and just slightly less than what it would have been if I'd bought it over the internet at home - but then I'd have had to pay shipping.

You can't bargain too much in the big department stores - but anywhere else it's worth screwing your face up, saying it's too much and they'll immediately knock something off - I tend to start at about 20% of what they say and it gets to about 50% of the price in the end. Shops sell a lot of the same thing so its easy just to walk away if its too much and start again in the next shop.

I'm just about to retrace my steps from this afternoon to the Bund where the Oriental pearl TV tower and a lot of the sky scrapers are as apparently it looks much nicer at night.

Talk to you all tomorrow!

More photos!

I've just added a few more photos onto Facebook. Link: 10 - School/Kindergarten 2

These photos are ones that Ellie took on her camera whilst I was teaching in the kindergarten the other day, and a few from when we tried to kidnap a really cute Chinese kid ;-)

Last day in Nanshan

Well, my time at the school in Nanshan has more or less come to an end.

I've met some great people here, taught some fantastic kids (and some not so fantastic ones). I've managed to endure apartments that are freezing cold with no heating and learnt a lot more about the Chinese people and culture (some of it still confuses me, some disgusts me and some just makes me laugh). I've learnt a little bit of Chinese (although not much) and I've been chucked in at the deep end a few times with a sea of 50 odd faces looking at me expecting me to teach them for 40 minutes.

It's all an experience - and that's what I came here for! :-)

I bought my bus ticket for Shanghai yesterday - it sets off tomorrow morning at 9.50am and gets into Shanghai about 5/6am the next day - I have a rough idea of the places I want to visit when I get there so hopefully will get around most of them. I'll add another blog post onto here when I get there...

Lessons...

I've done 3 lessons today - two with 11yr olds teaching past/present tenses and one with 13/14yr olds where I got dragged into a lesson at the last minute with no time to prepare - that seems to be happening quite a lot! We played hangman and a kind of charades all lesson - it's my new backup plan should I have not had chance to do any preparation. The kids seem to enjoy it and time went by fast so seems like a good idea to me!

I've only got 2 more days left at the school now before I go to Shanghai on Saturday - I'm sure they'll fly by now.

Crawling Crabs

Hi All,

Yesterdays early morning lesson was actually the only one I got to do yesterday - I have no idea how the timetable works at this school - I doubt I'm going to end up working it out before I leave so will just do lessons when I'm grabbed by the teachers.

I did a bit of OU work yesterday, finished reading a book then we went out in the evening to a hotpot restaurant. They are really popular over here and quite cheap (6 of us had a meal tonight along with drinks for less than 10 quid - that's for all of us!).

I do have to draw the line at some of the seafood dishes though - especially when it comes to your table alive and you're expected to put it in the pot! Last night Franny had crab which she thought was dead - she unwrapped the string tying it together and it started crawling across the table - enough to put anyone off food! Some of the other stuff was still wriggling around too and it makes me a tad queasy.

I've done 2 lessons today - both with classes of 10yr olds in the primary school. It's the same lesson as I did yesterday but I didn't seem to get as far through it as I did yesterday. The class yesterday picked things up pretty quickly and could answer questions - today they were repeating the phrases really well in groups, yet when you picked on individuals they really struggled pronouncing the words. I spent a bit more time on the basics, pronunciation and meaning of words as I had a feeling explaining the difference between past and present tenses may have got a little bit lost if I'd attempted it. I didn't get as far through the lesson but hopefully they will have a pretty good grounding for next time.

I have three lessons planned in for tomorrow - it's a shame really as a couple are in the morning and I wanted to go back to the Kindergarten - the kids are far more enthusiastic at that age and really are fun to teach.

I've been into town tonight and done a bit of shopping. I'm just getting prepared now for Saturday when I'm catching the bus down to Shanghai to spend a week there - can't wait! :-)

Past/Present Tenses

Morning all,

I sent Franny a message when the kids were marching past the apartment this morning at half 6 making as much noise as possible to see if I had any lessons today as the school timetable has been a bit hit and miss lately. I got a reply back more or less straight away telling me yes, and to be at the school for half 7 - wish I hadn't asked... :-)

I've taught one lesson so far today, 10 year olds in the primary school - I went through past and present tenses and they seemed to be getting the hang of them really well. We did 'eat/ate', 'buy/bought', 'see/saw', 'have/had' etc and I taught them a few new words too.

They were more or less getting them right by the end of the lesson - lets hope all the lessons go as well this week!

Nanshan Tourism Zone

I've walked miles and my legs feel like jelly! I decided I'd set off from the apartment this lunchtime and walk up to the Buddha we visited last weekend. I'd read in one of the tourist guides that there was also a Chinese History and Culture park just behind the Buddha - I didn't quite expect it to be as big as it was!

"The Chinese History and Culture park (now reading from the brochure that I really should have read in more detail earlier..) occupies 6 square kilometers and is a theme park that demonstrates the five thousand years on Chinese culture." I think I walked every single centimeter of the 6 square kilometers!

It was really good actually, there were temples, pavilions, ancient halls, a mini replica of the great wall of China and lots of hills! I've taken lots of photos as it's so difficult to describe the magnificence of the place - luckily it was a nice clear day so there are some pretty good ones and you can see for yourselves.