Travel Blog Posts
May 22nd 2007
I've got a lot of photos I need to upload so I shall do them in this entry. The first set of photos are from about a month ago when I went to the Pagoda on West Lake. I think I've mentioned this in a previous post so I won't talk too much about it. It wasn't that interesting but it was quite pretty. The next set of photos are from last week when I went to the beach. I don't know the name of this beach but it's about an hour and a half drive from where I am now. There were 12 of us that went and we left as soon as we finished teaching on Sunday night. We camped out on the beach and kept on going to a nice seafood restaurant ... read more
May 6th 2007
Every so often I look back at my previous blog posts and I feel like I'm reading something from someone else, that is the rate at which my mind changes. Last update I was talking about how I love teaching and I want an easy life. To an extent this is true but I'm seeing why I love teaching, because it's a nice job and because it involves not doing a whole lot. It's piss easy and that's pretty cool. However now I'm feeling like I want a bit more. Maybe I would be ready for a proper job. For I have realised that I love this country and I love learning Mandarin, and these are things I can't really deny in the future because they have been true for a long time. I have been ... read more
April 1st 2007
I don't really have too much to write about today, but instead I have lots of pretty photos so I thought I'd upload those. But a few things I can mention, I am still really enjoying my job and life in general here in Huizhou. My job, the school, the people, the city and my lifestyle are just pretty much perfect, the only thing that's missing are the friends and family I love back home. My MP4 player is beyond repair, as mentioned in the previous post so I went about bought a new one yesterday. It cost me about £20 for the MP4 player plus another £10 for a Mini SD card, in total I have 2GB of space on it which seems to just about do the job. It's quite mini and convenient, ... read more
March 30th 2007
I am feeling in a rather strange mood tonight. I feel kinda happy but in a very pissed off way because I realised that through being pissed off with the politics involved in my job that I actually care about this job a great deal. Teaching is a great experience, it's like an acquired skill that improves over time and it really is nice noticing the improvements in your teaching. It's great getting to know the students and amazing seeing the improvements they make. And as sad as it is, it is kinda nice to get into the job and think of yourself as a tool for them to use to learn English and see how I can apply myself. Tonight I am in one of those pissed off with the world kinda moods. I have ... read more
February 23rd 2007
Well I went to Nanjing 2 days ago, and I came back to Zhangjiagang the following day. I wasn't the slightest bit impressed by what I saw, nor could I be bothered to do all the touristy things, nor did I want to spend much more money and I also felt ill and just wanted to go back home to rest. Upon arrival in Nanjing I had some difficulties finding myself a place to stay, but after phoning Paul who was in Nanjing and knew the number of the cheap hostel, and a few phone calls and a helpful taxi driver later I finally managed to find my way to the cheap hostel in Fuzi Miao (or however you spell it). The hostel was nice, although there were no lockers in the dorm rooms so I ... read more
February 20th 2007
Well I got back yesterday from a really nice 3 day long holiday in Shanghai with Sam and Nicole, Steve and Paul. I was intending to stay a little longer and then head straight off to Nanjing, but I felt satisfied with the time I'd had in Shanghai and decided to come back to Zhangjiagang and offload some of my stuff and sort out somethings and I will head off to Nanjing tomorrow. I still love Shanghai, it's a beautiful city. I stayed in a hostel called the Captains Hostel on Fuzhou Lu right near the bund. It was 70RMB a night for a bed and it was a really good place. The so called English breakfast really wasn't worth the 25RMB I paid for it though. There's a really nice bar on the top of ... read more
February 13th 2007
Sorry for the long delay in blog entries! I haven't really had much to write about lately, plus I've been busy at work so not really anytime to do anything exciting. It's currently winter school which means I get hardly any time off, I'm currently on day 7 of a 10 day stretch with no breaks. It doesn't suck as much as it sounds because the hours are very regular, I only teach 2 classes a day and I'm finished by 3:15 in the afternoon, which suits me really nicely. Sometimes I get the mornings off because I've finished 2 courses lately. And this morning was the second morning I've just watched a film with my class, so it's not all that bad. The week before last I took full advantage of the huge amounts of ... read more
January 11th 2007
Due to an earthquake in Taiwan or something like that, the internet in China has been rather dead, leaving me with no opportunity to update my blog. Finally the internet seems to work well enough to update it now, although there is still a lot of slowness and pages not loading. In a few weeks it should all be fine again. Note the title of this post, it means I love Shanghai! The christmas and new years eve week was spent with some time in Shanghai. Christmas day was rather dull and boring and I was glad when it was over. I did however go out for a very, very nice meal with the other teachers from my school. I took the opportunity to go to Shanghai the day after boxing day to visit my friend ... read more
December 20th 2006
I finally went to Suzou last week! Although I have actually been to Suzou before I didn't really get to see any of the city due to us going to the theme park instead. This time I got to see the city. I think Suzou is a very nice city, I could tell it has a lot of character and a lot of history. The city itself is a few thousand years old I think and is the silk capital of China or something like that. It's very obvious it has a lot to do with silk as there were so many clothes shops selling stupidly cheap silky items of clothing! We were intending to go and see the gardens in Suzou and thought we'd try our luck at finding them. We also thought we'd try ... read more
December 13th 2006
I may aswell write a little bit about how my life is going in Zhangjiagang right now. It's going very nicely to be honest! I'm about as busy as I'm going to be in my job and it is busy, but it's all very enjoyable. Teaching gets better and better and it's such a nice feeling to hear kids screaming your name when they come running up to you. Although sometimes that is a rather scary experience! Sometimes waiting for my Friday afternoon classes can be intimidating as the kids haven't arrived yet and the class should have started 5 minutes ago...Then you hear one voice screaming from downstairs...Then a few more...Then a lot more...Then you hear footsteps coming up the stairs...Then more footsteps...Then the screams get louder and louder and louder and LOUDER and then ... read more
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