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!