Things are Looking Up

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Things are really starting to look up, now that I've had a week to adjust to everything.

I really like the food here - I like that it's locally grown without pesticides, and it tastes good.

The teachers are really nice and I'm starting to make some good friends in my department.

The campus is really, really nice. The facilities here are amazing. There is an indoor, olympic-size swimming pool, a sports facility with basketball and pingpong tables, a meditation park, a track, a soccer field, and overall everything is really well maintained.

Also, another foreign teacher was sent here today from Beijing, so I have some foreign-teacher company and we get TWO rides to Beijing each month.

In honor of the new foreign teachers, we had a lovely dinner in the "private" area of the cafeteria, hosted by our director. The food was really good, and there was so much of it. It was eaten in true chinese fashion - everything was placed on a spinning table and we just ate off the communal plates. Hope nobody we were eating with had a cold! We had porridge, vegetables, and a couple different kinds of meats in sauces. My favorites were the fried soybeans in honey and the twice cooked pork. The pork dish was really savory and tasted like the Chinese food I'm used to from home. The soybeans in honey were really sweet and crunchy; very interesting served as a dinner food. We were also served tomatoes with sugar! I asked if tomatoes were considered a fruit in China, but they said no. So I was a little confused about the sugar.

I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of the delicious foods at dinner, but I didn't want to look totally gauche in front of my new boss by photographing the banquet he had for us.

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Photos

The campus
Here's the campus. There are a lot of trees, open spaces, and the buildings are very new.

Teacher's Apartments
Here is the teacher's apartment building.

My desk
Here's my desk, the other desks are to the right of it. There's also a big fishtank just out of view

The Campus at Night
The campus is all lit up with neon lights at night, it's really beautiful.

Comments

[Marthe]

Hurray!
So glad it is getting better. Love the pics, keep adding more.

[polux]

Comments that I think u did not received yesterday... The regent 5* hotel in beijing, 99 jin bao st.dongcheng district where I spent 3 nights with george cloone . ex:across my room 19-20 floors up, on the wall of the hotel in front was a huge poster of him as I always leave my curtain open I went to sleep and woke up with is face in my face WOW! (he is the spoke person for rolex...........free watches) i had fun at breakfast when I told them about spending the night with george....................I only told them about the poster a hour after. I think I told u but-it is worth going to this hotel to relax in it's beautiful lobby, see the flowers,hear the musique, have a beer or take the afternoon tea while people watching. It cost me about 12.00$us (63 RMB) For the info on the pandas, I have ask my wt travel agent, we visit them on or way to the Great Wall (Yuyong Pass ''Yuyong Verdure) ???? I think, there are many entrances to the Wall. In Beijing their is a restaurant I really enjoyed call :Wang Fujing I had the pecking duck hum.............ck out the district, it is a nightlife one and we were a group so...no problems for us yet I could be OK. Emilie with your personality and determination I was sure that it would get better GOOD for you. till next time

[EmilieWS]

Thanks for the tips!
Thanks for the information! I hope that I will be as lucky as you and have George Clooney staring at me when I wake up every morning :) I think I'm going to the Wang Fujin area this weekend - it's supposed to have all kinds of amazing foods. As for the hotel lobbey, we'll definitely check it out. I've been missing good tea. I have some Chinese tea in my apartment, but I'd love a good black tea.