Today was the National Day in China, which meant that much of the city was much quiter than normal. Although there was more cloud than yesterday, we decided to go and see the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is much like the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. It is a huge building (tower), 350m tall and stands in the heart of Pudong, the Financial downtown area of Shanghai. We definitely chose the right day to visit, as there were no queues at all and (much to mummy's delight) we went straight to the lift, which took us to a viewing area at [View Full Entry]

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Firstly, we have to tell you all that we have finally managed to get onto Skype! Ian, unfortunately, has not been well today so stayed at home this afternoon while me and the children went out. When we got back, Skype was done and we are now awaiting our first call from anyone who fancies it! Our username is 'TBs_in_China' and it is registered to my email address (jothurston@hotmail.co.uk). Anyone who has Skype, please add us to your accounts and we can try and be in contact. Clearly, there are certain times of day which are better...generally we online between about [View Full Entry]

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Well, I have taken some lovely pics at school this week and wanted to share them with you guys. So, our class assembly was brilliant yesterday and I am extremely proud of all of the students. The boys singing group was extra brilliant, and all the girls were swooning while all the younger boys were really looking up to them as they were so cool! Today, we have been to the Urban Planning Museum which was just amazing. Huge models of Shanghai, but also huge amounts of school groups so it was manic! We then went to Xintiandi to the Museum [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone! So we are nearly at the end of another busy week chez TB over here. I am writing tonight while Ian is out at Chinese class and I am chilling as I am exhausted. It has been another hectic week at work, although I feel like I am at least settling into the mayhem a little now! My class has to do assembly tomorrow so we have spent much of this week rehearsing. we were given a virtue to base it around and we got given 'Purposefulness'!! I have to admit I didn't even know it was a word [View Full Entry]

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We have had a busy time this Moon weekend, with an average couple of days, culminating in a great day today. I had a fun time out with work people on Friday night. We went to a Teppanyaki restaurant which did an all you can eat and drink type thing, and then we sang Happy Birthday to 2 of our colleagues who both had birthdays on Friday! We then went to a new bar which was having an opening night. One of our colleagues knew the owner so we go free drinks all night. It was a good chance to chat [View Full Entry]

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Hello everybodies! Just a quick update prior to our big 'Moon Festival' or 'Mid-Autumn Festival' weekend, which means Jo will not have to work on Monday and the kids aren't at school either! This should mean that we have some proper blog worthy material coming up which I have no doubt Jo will capably do. In the meantime I am here ... apologies .... and you are going to get my drivelling update. First the intellectual part: The Moon Festival has been going on for about 3,000 years now, so I see no reason why we should stop it right now, [View Full Entry]

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So, a few days have gone by and we thought we should update you all on our mad life here! On Sunday, we had a very relaxing day and went for an explore to an area downtown called Nanjing Road. We were off in search of the Foreign Languages Bookstore and we eventually found it. After a rather interesting Chinese-style curry that is! It was a great bookshop but makes me want to be able to go to The Works or something similar. To be honest, I was able to find some great books for school in both Chinese and English, [View Full Entry]

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Well, sorry for the delay folks, we have been mega busy in the T-B household! School has been interesting to say the least this week for me and Ian went in on Wednesday for a few hours then came back and isn't needed until Monday. They are trying to sort out the job title/visa issue as he is not a trained teacher but are promising it will work out. We know they are in desperate need of teachers so they definitely want him, but they have to get the visa sorted first. I am totally shattered as I have been working [View Full Entry]

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Well we have had some comings and goings over the last two days. First off we had to change ayi's, I (Ian) had to brutally sack the first one, Sha, because she had another job as well and it made it difficult for her to get all the work done, and with the distinct possibility of one of the children being ill off school who would look after them with us both working? The new one works 40hrs a week, 10 till 6 and is called Tjung. Her hours are flexible so she can come earlier or stay later at no [View Full Entry]

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I can't believe it is Sunday night already and we are back to school tomorrow morning! We have had what can be termed the most normal weekend that we have had in a while this weekend, which has been lovely. I left you Friday evening where Ian had gone out for a haircut...I have to hand over to him to tell the story... Ahem : "Well it was a dark and stormy evening as I stepped out into the drizzling rain. I turned right out of the apartment complex and walked 20 metres to the nearest hairdressers .... a posh, modern [View Full Entry]

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