Shanghai Photos

I didn't realise quite how many photos I took whilst I was in Shanghai - there's loads!

I've added them all online and added the links to the right hand side.

I think this will be my last post on this blog - I've had an amazing time, it's been a great experience and met some really fantastic people along the way. I just need to start planning my next trip now ;-)

Back home..

I'm back home now after an extremely long day! I flew from Shanghai to Beijing, had to wait 8hrs for my next flight in Beijing airport and then went from Beijing to Newcastle connecting in Dubai - I feel like I could sleep for a week...

When I get chance I'll add all the photos on here from Shanghai. I'm back at work tomorrow, over in Padiham so I have an early start so best get an early night!

Why it pays to be friendly with a beautiful woman... ;-)

I'll start off telling you all what I did yesterday before explaining the title of my post. ;-)

Yesterday I had a pretty quiet day, I went on the Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) train that connects Shanghai centre wit Pudong airport - the train is super fast and reaches speeds of 340km/hr - which in English is 211 miles an hour! It does the 18.64 miles in less than 8 minutes.

Other than that I didn't do a great deal - I did a little bit of shopping and then came back to the hostel and sat in the bar in the evening. I was sat drinking and watching the film they had put up on the projector and an american woman came and sat with me and we got chatting - she was a teacher in america, in her early 30's and extremely good looking.

Why it pays to be friendly? Well, the bar manager obviously fancied her - and as I'd been sat talking to her for an hour and a bit whenever she got free drinks so did I.. :-)

I've just checked in online for my flights home and I'm about to get a taxi to the airport. I'll see you all when I get home!

Pandas (and a few other animals..)

I was even braver today and attempted the bus - the hardest thing is that all the timetables are written in Chinese so not only do you not know which stop to wait at, you don't know what time the bus is coming, or whether or not it is even heading in the right direction! Luckily one of the members of staff here at the youth hostel was really helpful - she marked on my map which bus stop I needed to go to, which bus I needed at catch and from there it was pretty easy (I only got on one wrong bus - theres not much difference between 925 and 925b!) :-).

I caught the bus to the zoo - it would have been a shame not to see the Pandas one last time before I went so that was this mornings trip. The zoo is just outside the main city centre and has all the usual animals a zoo has - when I get home I'll put the photos up online.

This afternoon I went to Jingan temple and had a wander around some shops. Tonight I walked down the riverside to Yuyuan garden and then took a cruise along the river to see the city at night.

I have absolutely no idea what to do tomorrow - I've now been to all the places on the list I wrote out before I came here. I'll probably just have a quiet day and relax before the epic 30-odd hour trip back on Saturday.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all and getting home now. :-)

Water Villages and Chinese Acrobats

I set off early this morning hen my guide came to pick me up - luckily the tour group was pretty small - only 7 including me - all American except one German guy. We drove the one and a half hours to Suzhou and had a look around some of the gardens there - we had a quick trip around a silk factory, found out how silk is harvested and then made into garments, quilts, ties etc and then we had lunch.

This afternoon we went to Zhouzhuang and wandered around the small alleyways and had a trip on a Chinese style gondola around the water streets. It was really picturesque and a great break from the city.

Tonight I have been to the most amazing acrobatics show ever - it was staged by the Shanghai acrobatics school and troupe and the performances were amazing and pretty death defying.

There was everything from magic, to balancing acts, to juggling, acrobatics, dance and even 5 people on motorbikes going around inside a huge hollow metal circle - the way they dodged each other kind of reminded me of the Beijing traffic!

Yuyuan Garden & Pudong

I got taxi this morning to Yuyuan Garden - a famous classical garden right in the centre of Shanghai just off the Bund. It has lots of pavilions, rockeries, halls etc and would have been a nice peaceful place it it wasn't on the top 10 list of places to go for tour groups - it was packed with people and tour guides waving flags and shouting down microphones. Just outside of the garden a lot of the streets were traditional chinese temple architecture - quite possibly reconstructed to make it into a tourist attraction - and you could see where east meets west in that it was traditional alleyways and chinese style buildings yet there was even a Starbucks and a McDonalds nestling inside.

Next stop I went over to Pudong and went up the Jin Mao tower - this (my internet source tells me) is the 3rd tallest building in the world and the tallest building in China. There were some spectacular views from the top - what is interesting is that an even taller tower is being built right next to it and you could see it being pieced together. In the Jin Mao tower the lift travels at 9.1 meters per second - that means you get from the bottom to the 88th floor in just 45 seconds.

From there I crossed the road and went up the Oriental Pearl tower, this is 468 meters tall (compared to Blackpool towers 158m). The Oriental Pearl tower is the worlds third tallest TV and Radio tower.

I have the tour planned for tomorrow for the water villages of Suzhou and Zhouzhuang so I'm going to get an earlyish night.

Exploring Shanghai

Yesterday I went exploring Shanghai - I had a fairly quiet day with no set itinerary - just set off walking to see where I ended up.

My first visit was to the Peoples Square and the Shanghai Museum - the museum has loads of Chinese art, pottery and history in - it was well worth a visit (especially as I got in on student rates so it only cost about 30p!) but was a little boring.

I decided I'd be a bit more adventurous and try my luck at using the Shanghai underground - when I'd navigated the maze of tunnels and worked out what line I was supposed to be on I was fine - even the ticket machines were relatively simple to use. I went to Pudong - the other side of the river where the Oriental Pearl tower is that you can see from the Bund.

I was going to go up the tower but it was a bit cloudy and you could do with a clear day/night when you go up so hopefully I may get chance sometime this week. I did a little shopping and then caught the underground to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum - which for some odd reason was closed!

Catching the underground back to the Peoples Square I went back to the hostel for a bit and found out where Xin Tian Di was on my map with an aim to find it last night.

Xin Tian Di is a pedestrian area with buildings in the old Chinese Shikumen style - yet the shops, bars and restaurants are very international and modern. There was a fantastic atmosphere and buzz about the place with people from all over the world eating, drinking and meeting there - there was just one slight snag - it was quite expensive. I don't suppose it was expensive by western standards - but after being in Nanshan it was a bit of a shock. I went into a German style restaurant and had Sausage and Mash and a beer - it was 140 yuan - just less than 10 British pounds - when you consider this to the food market in Nanshan though I could have had tea 70 times over for the same price!!!

I have a tour booked for tomorrow to go to Suzhou and Zhouzhuang - both are water villages just outside of Shanghai.

Anyway, I should really work out what to do with myself today.

See you all later!

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.

Another quiet day...

Today has been quite quiet - the kids are still having exams so we've not had any lessons again.

Besides sleeping and reading Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell I've been quite productive today. I've managed to complete my first Open University assignment of the academic year and submitted it - there were some pretty weird questions such as 'What does the term ‘quantisation’ mean in the context of representing images and sound on a computer' and 'Even where a quantity is fundamentally analogue, it is possible that a measuring device may display it as though it were discrete, for the convenience of the user. Explain in no more than 200 words how this is done, illustrating your answer with two examples.' - help! I think I've managed to answer them OK, will just have to wait for the marks to come back to see.

I went to the market down the road for tea today again - it's a fantastic place - it's like a huge open plan factory building with an indoor market inside with stalls selling fruit, vegetables, noodles, bread, groceries, Chinese dumplings, general food, jewelery and loads more. Outside the market, and right the way up the main street in Nanshan there are snooker/pool tables every 5 meters or so - there aren't any bars around here so I guess playing snooker/pool and possibly cards is about the only thing to do.

I've not got much planned for the weekend so don't be suprised if it all goes quiet on the blog front - I may have a walk up to the Buddha again the the tourism district if the weather is nice - will get me out of the apartment and have some exercise.

Yantai

Yesterday the lessons were cancelled again so Ellie and I decided we'd go into Yantai - it's the nearest city and it's about 2hrs away from the school in Nanshan. We told Franny the teacher here what we were planning on doing and she looked horrified we were going to try and get there and back by ourselves - we managed it. Well, actually I think a lot of credit has to be given to Ellie, her ingenuity and the Chinese characters she had written down.

We came up against the first snag in the taxi to the bus station 15mins away, he tried taking us to the shopping centre and we definitely didn't know enough Chinese to tell him it was wrong, a quick phone call to Franny later she translated and told the driver where to go. We got to the bus station and tried to buy tickets - that was the next snag as Ellie only had the characters to tell them she wanted a single to Yantai - and not two return tickets. We got there in the end with one of the bus station workers who spoke a little English.

When we got to Yantai we had to try and work out which bus station we were at (as apparently there are two) - so that if we did need to get a taxi back to the bus station we could do) - Ellie pinched a business card from a hotel a couple of doors down so we could show the driver the card so we could get back.

We didn't do much in Yantai, weren't there that long really - we just did a bit of shopping, found a Wall Mart - so I bought some typically Western food (pizza... :-) and then we just had a wander around Yantai exploring - we found a nice park with some Chinese pavilions and temples in, old people doing exercise and riding bikes around (I swear OAP's are 10 times fitter here than they are at home - they are more active than me - although thats not difficult!) then we went to the beach (although there wasn't much beach as the tide was in).

We used the ingenious hotel business card idea and flagged a taxi then caught the bus home. I was a little frightened we weren't going to get back when we were getting the taxi to back to the school in Nanshan after getting off the bus in Huangcheng - the car stalled at least 20 times and it wasn't even when he was in 1st and getting the biting point wrong - we could be going 40/50miles and hour and it would suddenly stall. The amount of times we got stuck in the middle of junctions with him trying to start the car was quite scary! We got back eventually, in one piece - although I think the taxi really did die when he dropped us off as it made a really loud clunk and the driver had to stop completely and go under the bonnet!

Suitably Punished

OK, I think someone has punished me for the jokey 'hard-work' post yesterday. :-)

I was picked up at 8am this morning and driven up to the vocational school - all the kids are aged between 16 and 19yrs old - and the some of the teachers aren't much older. I got shepherded into a classroom as soon as I got there and the woman that picked me up said "There you go, hope it goes well" and then promptly left me for 40mins!!!

It had to be one of the longest 40mins of my life - I taught them about sports (good job I'd done some prep and printed loads of pictures before I came out here) and covered "I like playing....." and just "I like....." - when you're not that confident and you've been chucked in at the deep end it's quite difficult. For some reason they didn't seem to know much more English than some of the kindergarten kids. I found out afterwards they have probably been learning it a similar amount of time and hadn't been taught it right the way through school.

I went straight from that lesson to the next and I resorted to a different lesson plan - parts of the body - this is the lesson the Spanish speaking girl came in and did when we went on the 'Teaching English as a Foreign Language" course in London - only difference was, her lesson was 15mins long with 8 students and I had to find activities to fill 40mins with 50 students in a class! It went better than the first lesson and I had a bit more confidence explaining things.

The funny thing was I was accosted by a group of girls (and teachers!) as soon as I got to the school, swarming round me saying 'hello' and asking where I was from and talking to me. I even got called 'charming' a couple of times - I think I like this place more now. :-)

The next 3 lessons we went down to a school lower down the hill (although still part of the vocational school) and I did the same lesson - I'd worked out exactly what I was doing and could easily fill 40mins and have activities/speaking time for the kids. The staff at this school were fantastic - a lot of them weren't English teachers yet their English was better than some of the English teachers at the Junior and Senior schools down here in Nanshan. They were a really friendly, fun bunch.

There were two Korean teachers - Angel, 22 years old (she didn't have an English name so we made on up for her - she was far from an Angel!), Deerwin, 23yrs old, who very helpfully showed me how to write and pronounce my name in Chinese - now I know why they keep calling me Ree-shard-a! A Chinese teacher - Pei-jingchun, 26yrs old, who was trying to learn English and said he had a love for English music - I listened to his MP3 player and I think a lot went out date along with Vinyl! Still, we had a good old sing-a-long in the English office! And then there was John Steven, 23yrs old, a politics/economics teacher whose English was the best.

We had lunch and then sat in the office chatting, singing, learning English and Chinese - it was good fun.

I was then taken to another school, again still part of the same vocational school, but further down the road where I did parts of the body (again!) and was getting pretty bored with it, I think it showed - either that or kids were just rowdier as it didn't go as well. It didn't help that half had to be taken out for 15mins half way through as the lesson kind of lost it's momentum by that stage and I just wanted to go home!

The final lesson I'd had a chat with the English teacher in the school, who surprisingly spoke very little English (god help these kids!) and asked her for ideas - I introduced myself to the class and spoke a little about myself, my hobbies and where I am from - they looked a little lost and you could tell they really weren't following what I was saying. I split the sentences down so they could fill in the blanks and then got a few to come up one at a time and tell me about themselves - I was quite mean as I picked the ones that looked like they really weren't listening to a word, or were hiding when I was walking around trying to pick someone. There were a few good English speakers, and a few terrible ones but they muddled through it.

We then did a word game called JAWS -its a bit like hangman, but instead of hanging someone - which for some reason is deemed a bit un-politically correct for some odd reason (although it probably wouldn't have mattered out here) - you have a man that goes down the steps every wrong answer until he reaches the sea where a shark eats him. I based it on sports (as I knew from the first lesson in the morning which sports they really don't know over here!) and we muddled through it - they got the hang of it in the end!

Anyway - 7 forty minute lessons in the one day with next to no preparation is enough for me! I'm off to the food market in a minute to get some tea - then I might go buy some more lager!

Hard days work

I'm sat here with a beer, chocolate & crisps after having a hard day at work - Well, 25mins teaching anyway :-D

I did a lesson on animals today with the younger kids in the Kindergarten - I'd printed a load of animal pictures before I came and picked a few today to teach them. We had Zebras, Sheep, Cows, Elephants, Pandas and a few others with them eagerly shouting the answers back and trying their hardest to pronounce the words after I said them - they were extra enthusiastic when they found out they got smiley face stickers when they got the answers right.

Ellie did the next lesson and did colours - for some unknown reason one of the boys just got up and hugged me in the middle of the lesson - the kids are so cute sometimes.

I'm off to the vocational school tomorrow morning at 7.30 - I don't know much about it - just that I'm getting picked up and driven somewhere new. I think these are older ones that are in work and learn English part time.

Yantai

Yesterday Daniel drove us into Yantai - he had a business lunch which for some reason we were all invited to - it was the same people that we went out with the other night - we must have made a good impression! We went to a hotpot/BBQ restaurant where you cook your own food either by boiling in the large hotpot in the centre of the table - or by BBQ'ing the food on the top.

In the afternoon we did a little bit of shopping and then Ellie and I got a taxi to Crescent moon bay in Yantai and walked along the sea front back into town. We went to Jackies western bar for some good old western food for dinner where I had Spaghetti - it was Daniels first taste of western food and he didn't quite know what to do with a knife and fork - he did pretty well though and said he enjoyed it.

I've got no lessons today again so am going into Huangcheng this afternoon to try and book my coach ticket to Shanghai for the 17th November - I booked the flight back to Beijing from Shanghai this morning.

Nanshan Grand Buddha Statue & Temples

Today Ellie, Franny and I went on a bit of a sightseeing tour to the Grand Buddha statue and the temples in the Nanshan tourism zone. The Buddha statue is 38.66 meters tall, weighs in at 380 tons and is made of copper and tin. Right underneath the Buddha is the temple of ten thousand Buddhists - it has 9,999 small gold painted Buddha statues - with the grand Buddha on top being the 10,000th Buddha - it was pretty amazing and the temples were full of statues and paintings.

We went for some lunch and then went ten pin bowling in the tourism complex - I guess they don't get many tourists in Nanshan in November as they had to open the bowling alleys and switch on the lights just for us! :-)

This afternoon we went into Huangcheng, the place where I seem to spend most of my life at the moment and did some more shopping (although didn't buy anything..).

I've been contemplating finishing at the school a few days earlier than I had planned and catching an overnight bus down to Shanghai to do some sightseeing - the volunteer coordinator here seems happy for me to do that so I'm going to try and get it sorted this next week - and will probably fly directly back to Beijing to catch my flight home on the 24th. It will be another city to explore so can't wait.. Ellie thinks I'm a bit of a cop out now as that means I only have one more weekend left here - she wants to do some traveling and sightseeing too at some point so hopefully she'll come down to Shanghai too then catch the bus back up.

I've added a few more photos onto Facebook from today - we have an early start as we are visiting Yantai city tomorrow.

Fireworks

There I was thinking it's coming up to bonfire night and I'd miss the fireworks this year - definitely not the case. The Chinese like to use fireworks to celebrate occasions, and there are lots of birthdays and weddings in China!

I was woken up this morning by a load of fireworks going off - I wouldn't have minded if it was dark (well, actually I probably would as I was still sleeping) - but it was light outside. It's not the first time I've heard fireworks during the day - they seem to let them off at some pretty strange times.

The past couple of days have been quite quiet - all the English lessons have been cancelled as the kids have been doing some sort of tests - it's left us with not much to do apart from freeze. My apartment is currently 10 degrees inside and with the Chinese not turning on the heating until 15th November I can see it getting colder. I've been told it's warmer outside in the UK than it is in my apartment!!

We've taken to walking around shops a lot as they are warmer than here and we've had Chinese hotpot a couple of times to keep us warm. Last night Ellie and I were invited out by Daniel, Frannys bloke and a few of Daniels business colleagues - one lived in Australia for 4 and a half years and his English was pretty good - the older one had heard I was quite good at drinking and I'm sure wanted a drinking competition - we had quite a few toasts! I definitely wasn't going to get as drunk as I did at the school lunch - I've only just recovered so I took it a lot slower this time!

We're off doing some sightseeing today so will let you all know where I've been and what I've been up to later!

My head hurts!

I have an alcohol induced hangover and for once it's not my fault.. ;-)

Yesterday morning I went to the kindergarten with Ellie again and did a lesson on colours - the Chinese English teacher in the school didn't come in with us to translate when the kids don't understand and keep them under control so it was certainly a challenge - I kept the lesson to the very basics only using the colours blue, pink, white, red & yellow - keeping a 4/5yr olds attention for 20minutes based on teaching them just those colours so they remember them is quite hard work.

In the 'noon-time' as they like to call it over here (i.e. lunch) we were invited to have lunch with the heads of the schools - junior school, senior school, Franny, Ellie, me, and a couple of other blokes - they certainly like their toasts, and we were drinking something which they called white wine - it was actually 38% proof firewater! They welcomed me to the school, thanked me for coming to teach and toasted just for the sake of toasting I think - "Gambei!" - that's Chinese for "Cheers!" and then had me down the glass.

I was sat in between the heads of the Junior and Senior school and they kept on topping up my glass and proposing a new toast. I think we polished off the bottle of "white wine", finished off a pint and a half of lager and then another bottle of the "white wine" - I was drunk, but I don't think I was as bad as the head of the junior school - Franny translated what he said and it came out that when he comes to England he is coming to see me to be his drinking partner as nobody else can usually keep up with him...! :-)

At least I had no lessons yesterday afternoon - I slept the alcohol off and slept through until this morning and just taken paracetamol to try get rid of the headache. I'd love to know how much work the head of the junior school got done yesterday!

I've got a meeting this morning at 9.30am with the English teachers on the subject of Chinese diet and nutrition - I think they pick a subject every now and again and discuss between themselves to improve their own conversational skills and ability of English. Franny seems to be the only one that can speak fluently so it will do them all good. I know next to nothing about Chinese diet and nutrition though so it could be fun.

Kindergarten Kids

Hey All,

I did my first lessons today, well - they weren't really my lessons but still! I went to the English office this morning in plenty of time for my class - the teacher is supposed to come collect you and take you to the class. The time came.. and went - I asked Franny if I should be teaching and she said "oh no, it is cancelled, - all this week cancelled - you start next week!" So, that leaves me with nothing to do all week then!

I made myself useful by marking loads of sheets where the kids had written out alphabets and then decided that if I can't teach this week I might as well try see what the lessons are like. This afternoon I went down to the kindergarten with Ellie, the other English volunteer - she did a lesson on colours and then we sang some nursery rhymes pretty badly.. :-)

The next lesson with a different class Ellie kindly handed over to me - I did animal names, and "my name is..." and "I'm a boy/I'm a girl" sentences - Ellie helped out lots saving me when the kids were losing attention. We sang happy birthday as it was one of the kids birthday today - he was 5 yrs old. Cake is a big thing in China - people get huge cakes as presents and this boy wasn't an exception! The cake got cut up and we got given a huge slice of cake each to eat and then finished off the lesson.

The final lesson we did the same as the second - these kids were a lot louder and a bit harder to control - it was all good fun though and good to get into the swing of it for when I teach the older ones next week. I don't have any younger ones to teach - but it's good to see how different people approach the lessons and control the class!

Tonight Ellie, Franny, Daniel and I went out - we went to a Chinese bakery and I bought some bread things with jam inside - they will do for breakfast as I doubt I'll make it over to the canteen for 6.30am... We then went to have Chinese hotpot.

Chinese hotpot is amazing - you have a boiling pot with small gas heater each on your table. The pot is full of boiling water and a few herbs - you pick vegetables, thin slices of meat, seafood, noodles etc and they bring big plates of the raw food to your table - you then cook it yourself and dip it in sauce to eat on your plate - it's amazing how quick some of the slices of meat cook and a whole different way of eating. The funny thing was - on the table next to us they had ordered some seafood creature type thing - these were alive and crawling about in the bowl they came in. The guys just picked them up with chopsticks and dropped them in the boiling water - I suppose at least you know your food is fresh!

We went and played pool, did some shopping (where I have now bought a hot water bottle so I don't have to freeze all night!) and then came back. Ellie and I are in the kindergarten again at 8am tomorrow morning so I'm going to get an earlyish night.

Lessons

It's nearing the end of my first full school day here and I haven't been further than the English office, Principal's office and the canteen! I have my schedule for the next week - I'm mainly teaching levels 4, 5 & 6 - looking at the books they have it means they know the basics and are pretty similar level in skill to our 6yr olds and up.

The funny thing is I was awoken at 6.20am this morning by whistles and lots of noise - I looked out of my window and all the kids were getting marched down to the school - right past the apartment block I'm stopping in - breakfast is at 6.30am, lunch at 11.10am and then dinner at 4.40pm. You have to be dead on time as they don't hang about. The kids are getting marched back up to where they live during the week at the moment - you can hear the noise, chanting and whistles outside.

The food is pretty good, I had what we would call egg foo yung and some bread thing for lunch - and some beef dish for dinner. You just have to point and use lots of mime to order what you want. The amazing thing is that it is so cheap here - after Beijing it is a relief. The meal tonight in the canteen cost 3.5 yuan - i.e. about 25p!

Hopefully I can get into a classroom tomorrow and do some teaching!

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...

The great wall..

I've just got back from trekking on the Great Wall of China and my legs ache! We set off at some ridiculously early time this morning to travel the 3 hours by mini-bus to the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China.

I was pleased to find out that I wasn't the only person on the tour today and there were two others, a couple originally from Holland, now living on an island just off Venezuela - their English was spot on perfect and the man looked, acted like, and spoke exactly like a slightly younger version of John Cleese! It gave me someone that I could have a full conversation in English with at long last!

The wall was fantastic, extremely steep in places and crumbling in spots - the weather has been a bit misty again but I think I've managed to get a few good photos.

One of the things you will find in Beijing is locals trying to sell you things stood loitering outside any main tourist area/monument. They are pretty hard to shake off and even by saying "bù ya" - i.e. No! or shaking your head they just follow and follow asking you to buy and look at whatever they are selling. I'm getting used to it by now and getting quite good at telling them to go away (or haggling and getting goods for less than half price ;-)) but the other couple that were on the tour only flew in yesterday. I warned them of this when we were in the mini-bus on the way up as they were planning on doing some sight-seeing over the next few days and didn't for one minute think there would be anybody harassing us in a such a remote place as Simatai - I was wrong!

As soon as we got off the mini-bus and started walking there were people on the roadside with an assortment of souvenirs - even the official Beijing 2008 olympic t-shirts (apparently!). A few followed us all the way up - pretending not to want to sell us anything, just talking to us - I had to laugh as I knew exactly what they were up to - befriend us, tell us how poor they are and then at the end get us to buy whatever souvenirs they have... I was right - although it didn't even take that long! When we got to a resting point on the way back down the books, t-shirts, postcards, pictures came out of nowhere from within their bags and they tried selling us things - funnily enough they bypassed me as they thought I was the son of the couple that went up with us and when straight for them - makes a change not to be the one being harassed! They swore blind on the way up they wouldn't buy anything - yet when the sob stories came out they gave in - I knew it would happen and had to laugh - they will have to get stronger willed than that over the next few days otherwise they will end up spending a fortune in Beijing!

Anyway, today is my last full day here - I have to try and find Beijing City Airport again tomorrow and get the internal flight to Yantai where the school is. Hopefully Jack Liu the volunteer coordinator is picking me up from the airport in Yantai - it could be fun if he doesn't show as I don't have a clue where I'm going! I'll post again when I get there.

zài jiàn! (Bye!)

Sightseeing

Wow, where do I start! The last couple of days have been pretty manic - I'm trying to fit in as much sightseeing over the 3 full days I'm in Beijing as possible. I've been to many tourist areas and feel like I've only just scratched the surface. It's a fantastic place and I'd recommend it to anyone to come visit!

Yesterday, armed with my Beijing city map I started walking from the hotel with an aim not to stray too far and get lost - I ended up walking miles..!

I found I'm actually really close to the Forbidden City. It seems that most people in China use their local park as a community centre - in a stroll around Jingshan park I found people dancing, flying kites, playing cards, chatting, practicing marshall arts, playing music, singing, exercising - the park had such an open community feeling and it was great to see what the Beijing residents spend their time doing. The park had one main tower/pavilion at the very top of the hill, and several either side with some fantastic views of Beijing from the top. Jingshen park was a former Imperial garden and used to be in the grounds of the palace - it was at Jingshen park that one of the Chinese Emperors hanged himself when a peasant uprising army took Beijing in 1644 and the top tower/pavilion is a memorial to the Emperor.

I then walked to Belhai park to the West of Jingshen park and climbed to the top of the island in the middle where a white dagoba stands - inside the white dagoba is Buddhist scriptures. The whole park was amazingly picturesque and there were small pavilions that had musicians in playing along the waterfront, monuments and statues everywhere and plenty of traditional style chinese buildings - it's really difficult to explain in words however I've taken plenty of pictures so I'll put some photo's online when I get to Yantai and the computers are free to use.

I went to the world famous (not for the right reasons!) Tiananmen square - the square is the largest municipal square in the whole world. The Chinese are preparing for the Olympic games next year and they were starting to prepare the olympic displays for all the visitors from across the world. I've just tried accessing the Wikipedia site for the square however the Chinese have a country level firewall and it restricts what content people can view on chinese internet - it is heavily censored and I'm guessing that the history of the square is a bit of a touchy subject!

In the evening my tour guide Lily picked me up and we went to the Beijing Opera - this is a mix between traditional operas and amazing acrobatics - they kindly provide wireless headphones with subtitles in English so you know what is going on!!

This morning Lily picked me up bright and early and I went on another mad dash around Beijing - we went to the zoo to see the Pandas, followed by a trip to the silk market, the Beijing Bell and Drum tower, a rickshaw ride around the hutongs, I had lunch at Mr Lees, a friend of Lilys in his house in the hutong area, a trip to the chinese doctors for a doctor to explain to me how chinese medicine works, a walk around a temple with the largest Buddha carved out of a single piece of wood in the world (It was over 60feet tall!) and then finished off at at the china tea company where they taught me how to drink chinese tea and then tried many of the different varieties!

I've just eaten dinner and I'm about to go to Qianjai - a lake where Lily has told me there is live music on an evening. I've got trekking on the great wall of China tomorrow - so no doubt will have more to say when I get back...

Here in one piece (just..)

It's over a day and a half later but I am finally here. We had a 3 and a half hour transfer in Dubai and the contrast between the UK, Dubai and China is immense. Dubai was full of rich Arab businessmen and their 10 wives following behind - the airport was packed with people sleeping on the floor strewn about everywhere, and people pushing into queues left right and centre!

I got something to eat whilst I was in Dubai - had a choice of over 30 restaurants and what did I pick... McDonalds - the McArabian burger sounded too unique to miss! :-) I had to chuckle when they had McArabian burgers, date pies (instead of apple pies) and they even sold spring rolls! I thought the menu of McDonalds was universal!

I got to Beijing at 3pm this afternoon - the airport is strictly governed by some rather scary looking blokes in uniform - they look like they wouldn't hesitate to lock you up if you put so much as a hair out of place! Everyone handed in the million forms you have to fill in to get through and not a word was said! It was all quite eerie.

I then had the joys of getting to my hotel - with a taxi driver that couldn't understand me, and me not being able to understand him - a game of charades and lots of pointing later (and a couple of wrong turn offs and car journeys around Beijing) we finally got here - only to find they'd double booked my room!!! They've upgraded me for tonight and I have to move to the room I should have been in tomorrow.

I went for a wander earlier and got harassed by an 80ish year old chinese bloke, ended up with him cycling around with me on the back of the bike in like a rickshaw thing showing me the 'hutong's (the lanes and alleys where a lot of the chinese people live) - you have all the main roads with the big businesses and hotels on and lurking behind is an absolute maze of alleyways with hundreds, if not thousands of houses squashed in there - all tiny, falling in bits, patched up, with a very communist/poor feeling about the place.

There were public noticeboards with pictures of the chinese president on, police around all the time and what amazed me was that each block had their own communal loos and washing facilities - none of the houses had their own bathroom! The only buildings that looked good were the government buildings and the schools.

I may have only been in Beijing a matter of hours, but one of the most distinguishing things I have noticed so far is the vast array of smells my nose if having to decipher - you turn a corner, walk past a different building and you get something unique every time - the whole place has a different smell to it and I'm not sure whether I like it or not - it reminds me of old chip fat oil at the moment!

Anyways, I think I've rambled on a bit too much - I've got a pretty lazy day tomorrow to catch up on not having any sleep for 36hrs, going out at night - then I've got a tour of Beijing planned in for Friday and trekking on the great wall of China on Sunday.

I'll post on here again when I get chance to get to a computer again!

2 days to go...

It's been a hectic weekend trying to get everything sorted but I think I'm finally there..!

I eventually received my visa (along with my passport that I had to send off to them) through the post on Friday and got my money converted to Chinese Yuan. I've bought a load of stickers (well done stickers, smiley faces etc) for the kids and planned a load of lessons on clothes, food, sports, body parts, music, weather, the alphabet and more! At least it will mean I'm not really stressed if I get chucked in at the deep end on the Monday morning in class with 40-50 eager eyes staring at me waiting for me to speak!

I fly out from Newcastle to Beijing Tuesday afternoon, connecting in Dubai - I should arrive in Beijing about 15.10 China time (8.10am UK time on Wednesday). The plan at the moment is to chill out for a few days when I get there, go trekking on the great wall of china, do some sightseeing in Beijing and then fly up to Yantai to go to the school at the weekend.

I best get packing....!

5 days to go...

Hey,

Well, this is my first post on blogger. I did start writing a blog through Facebook but it kind of disappeared - not good!

For all those of you that don't know (where have you been hiding for the past couple of months?!!) :-) I'm off to China soon. 5 days soon - starting to get quite nervous now!

I'm more or less organised - I've got everything except my visa - hopefully will get that tomorrow.

My mobile number whilst I'm in China if you want to text is 00 86 1364 1183 454. If you want to call dial 0844 972 0044 from the UK then type in my china mobile number. 2p a minute from the UK, can't go wrong..!

I've found out today that the school I'm going to be stopping in is called the Nanshan Bilingual School in Yantai. The kids stop there from Monday to Friday and go home at weekends. It is a boarding school with about 2000 kids at kindergarten and primary school age - so it should be loads of fun!! :-D

I best start practicing my nursery rhymes!!

I should have internet access when I get there so I'm hoping to keep everyone updated with where I am, what I've been doing and put some photos up here for you all to see.

Richard