Surfing Cat

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First Day

I slept for ages last night/this morning. Tarik woke me up at 11.30 but i would have slept longer if I could. Am still yawning as i sit and type this...

I visited Tarik's school today. He's done a lovely job with it. Goo sized classrooms andd a glass wall and a welcoming waiting area. He's teaching at a chinese school just now and I was going to go with him but had to go and register at the police station instead. Benny took me and said that the taxi driver asked where i was from and that the policemen were very interested in me as apparently they don't ge a lot of foreigners. I have to admit that I was suprised at how big Tonglu is. The way Tarik and Benny talk about it you'd think it was tiny, but it seems big to me - it's definitely a cityscape rather than town. I think what they mean in the number of people, compared to Hangzhou or Qingdao, and the mentailty of some of the people here. I've taken some pictures and will try to upload them when I can. I like it so far though. We can walk from the school to our house and the streets are clean. I've seen a couple of houses with posters of Mao which is interesting and something I'd like to find out more about, if I can. Tonglu is surrounded by mountains which is pretty awesome, they are not massive, but a beautiful dark green and covered in trees.

Although we can walk a lot here, it is a pretty treacherous thing to do. There are traffic lights and zebra crossings, but they don't really mean anything to car drivers who carry on regardless. You pretty much just have to spot a gap in the traffic, dart through and hope for the best!

This afternoon I'm going to go to the gym and then maybe get a massage (it's a tough life) and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to do a bi of teaching. I'm really glad to be here though, think I will be able to settle into the rhythm of this life quite well.

I just remembered that last night as we drove into Tonglu I saw a cat on top of a big truck. I think the truck was carrying chickens and the cat was srfing on the top of it trying to get in...very bizarre given that the truck was moving at about 50mph.

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