Laura: "Well, look at it this way: If anyone back home asks, they won't believe what you did for National Day." Amy: "It's certainly priceless." Chris: "Definitely 'without price'..." October the 1st is China's National Day. This year the Powers that Be are making a thing of it being the last National Day before the Olympics starts. All us Foreigners were invited by the University to go on an all-expenses-paid trip up to the top of Mount Tai by bus and cable-car, see some official show thing, and have a free lunch at the Ramada afterwards. Now, as we're now officially [View Full Entry]

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An update! Finally. Mummy and Daddy: your card has today reached us through the post! It's lovely, thank you. Have you got our postcard yet? To everyone else: these were posted about 10 days ago. This is apparently the standard time-lag. Chris now knows what he is teaching! An English teacher at Tai'shan College down the road was involved in a car accident just before term, so Chris is taking over his lessons. He'll be teaching oral English to first and second year students, and isn't confined by a coursebook, though they've given him one for ideas. I envy him a [View Full Entry]

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Oh my God, have we been here two weeks already? I have reached the end of my first teaching week. It has gone really pretty well, but I still feel like my brain has melted. Luckily the department has (randomly) decided to be very kind to me: I am teaching only oral English (i.e., speaking practice); the times at which I am supposed to be doing this are very sensible (only one 8am-10am lesson in the week), and two of the double-hour lessons are even on the old campus, 2 minutes' walk from my door. I will write more about the [View Full Entry]

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Beijing train station is massive and confusing and we arrived in very good time so as to figure out where we were supposed to be. For a no doubt self-evident reason, one is only allowed onto the platform a couple of minutes before one's train is due to depart. Obviously this causes an almighty scrum, and what with our luggage and residual queuing instinct we found ourselves at the back of the herd. We managed to get onto the train (excellent) with all our bags (valuable bonus) but lodged in the vestibule of a carriage four carriages down from the one [View Full Entry]

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We've got to Tai'an and are starting to get our heads round mid-term survival here. Everything's pretty good and I'm sure we'll enjoy it all. But just for now I want to rewind and write about what we did while we were still in Beijing. On Friday we saw the Forbidden City, and Chris has been working on a post about this. He fell asleep before he could finish it on the night, though, and hasn't had a chance since, so you'll have to wait a bit longer to hear about it. On Saturday Chris was very unslept and rather queasy. [View Full Entry]

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Hidakai has finally submitted to the tummy bug that has been plaguing him since arrival and decided to stay in the hotel room so he is providing today’s update The first task of the day was to get the train station to buy our tickets this involved a much more sedate drive to the station in a cab, I believe the hotel must have a line to a special company of slow taxi drivers so as not to worry silly foreigners. We then had to cross a four lane highway to get to the station as the bridge was being rebuilt. [View Full Entry]

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First of all, a big thank you to everyone who's subscribed, messaged or looked in so far. It's really good just to know you're all there! Nic- thanks for the update, and Kate- you don't have to get a fry-eating fish if you like, and if you sell the oldest ones now then it'll be a while before any more of them reproduce, but watch out for those baby fish; the last time I thought there was just one left there turned out to be 10! Back to Beijing for a bit: Today was slightly less disasterous when it came to [View Full Entry]

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The flights were long and arduous. But Qatar airways ran flawlessly, there were no screaming children, very few snorers, and we arrived at our desination on time and with all our luggage. Transferring at Doha was like walking into a tropical greenhouse, and this was at 11pm local time. The air condensated outside the air-conditioned bus! Doha is a main city in the endearingly tiny state of Qatar, which has a population one third that of Belgium. Everything in the airport was very swish and modern. Unless you tried to buy some food or go to the toilet, where the taps [View Full Entry]

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