Hello from Shanghai for the last time! I will just cover the last couple of days but firstly I was due to fly home tomorrow morning. I say was because when Joanna tried to check me in online this morning, she found that Virgin had cancelled my flight!! So, I am now due to leave on Tuesday. How difficult this could have been if I had been staying in a hotel, checked out and arrived at the airport to find no flight - or if we had not tried to check in online and just gone to the airport which [View Full Entry]

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Hello again to my readers - I hope you are all receiving my news as I haven't had too much response back. Things here have been very exciting. The weather is 26 deg. and a little too warm for walking around, but I am taking advantage of being here and doing my best, even though my feet are like balloons and quite painful! Yesterday Ian took me to the Pearl Tower (Joanna was at school) and what an amazing feat of engineering that is. We went almost to the top and Ian even persuaded me to venture on to the glass [View Full Entry]

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We were up early on Thursday morning and had left home by 8am in an attempt to be on time for our train to Nanjing. And so began the amazing race. It turns out there are 2 railway stations in Shanghai about 45 mins apart. Luckily we arrived in plenty of time at Shanghai South Railway Station to Nanjing. Strangely when we looked at the board on our arrival at the station, there was no 0930 train to Nanjing. The intrepid Ian (guess who is writing at this point) used his amazing linguistic skills to ask a helpful security lady...there was [View Full Entry]

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Well, it’s only been 5 days since my last blog but we have managed to fit so much in. This is a team blog as we are pooling our blogging talents to make it even better! On Tuesday, Joanna took a personal day so that we could have a girlie day. We went to Suzanne’s apartment to collect her to come with us and we headed off to the infamous Fabric Market. I’ve heard about it from Joanna but to see it was just amazing. Every type of fabric with lovely clothes hanging as examples on every stall......from simple tops to [View Full Entry]

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It is now a week since I arrived and my experiences continue apace! On Friday it poured with rain all day, however I was in school so not a problem. I went to the weekly Assembly in a lovely theatre seated hall with stage. The Assembly was put on by one of the classes and was very good but the highlight for me was Joanna's group of 4 students who gave a presentation (which I had helped them put together) about their rubbish collection programme. Anyone caught dropping litter will be given a card which they have to take to the [View Full Entry]

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Firstly I have to apologise to mum as it appears her first blog was not finished! Unfortunately, she wrote it while I was out at the gym and Ian was having his Chinese lesson, so by the time we came to publish it, it was a bit late and the internet was playing up and so on. It seems you all enjoyed reading about her adventures though, and she will be writing again very soon. I thought I would write a quick message to update you all on the rest of our lives! It has been a week now since mum [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everyone from Shanghai As you know, I have been here now for 4 days and wow what a wealth of experiences I have had already. I have been into school with Joanna; sat in on her classes and helped some Chinese students in their project to reduce litter in the school. I have sat in on Sophie’s English and Maths lessons; I brought a CD of Times Tables with me and Sophie’s teacher was over the moon with it today. All the children were singing along to their tables and they all gave a clap for Sophie’s Grandmother! Then this [View Full Entry]

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Happy Easter to all! Sadly, we are missing our usual Easter Holidays so we nearly missed Easter this year, but thankfully Suzanne found us a fantastic way to celebrate Easter Sunday today at the Renaissance Hotel Zhongshan Park. There was a special Easter Brunch on for only 258RMB per person (about £25!) but children were free and there was free flow Prosecco all the way! We starved ourselves so that we would get value for money and value for money we got! It was totally amazing! We had booked for 11.30am so that we had fresh food on the brunch and [View Full Entry]

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Firstly, we need to begin with an apology for not having written a blog for a few weeks. We didn’t realise how quickly time had flown, until one of you avid readers reminded me that 2 weeks had passed without a blog! It’s nice to know you guys care so much. We have been pretty busy lately, but are enjoying a lazy bank holiday Monday here today for Tomb Sweeping Day. Traditionally, this is the day where you go and sweep out the tombs/graves of your ancestors and these days many people fly kites there too. It is the day to [View Full Entry]

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We had a really lovely weekend last weekend...quite chilling indeed. The best thing was the weather. It is amazing just how much the weather can change things and lift your mood. Towards the end of last week it was still raining but saturday morning came and it was glorious. Ian went off to work and we went for a walk and it was beautiful. We came back to find our new ayi ready for her interview with the english speaking woman from the agency. We decided we need some kind of help so she will be coming on 3 mornings per [View Full Entry]

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