Blogs from Yancheng, Jiangsu, China, Asia

I didn't do much on my last day in Xian, mostly trying to organise stuff on the internet. I did go to the Bird Market which was a few streets away from my hostel. The first sellers I passed mostly had lots of canaries and budgies, a few Bengalese and some Gouldian finches, with just one having wild-caught birds (a cage packed with yellow-bellied tits). As I got deeper into the alleys the wild birds started appearing, with cages crammed full of Mongolian larks, Siberian rubythroats, redstarts, Pekin robins, yellow-bellied tits, white-eyes and, surprisingly, tree sparrows. Those were all in big numbers; in lesser numbers were bluethroats, hill mynahs, hawfinches (including some dyed ones), niltavas, red-tailed minlas, elegant buntings, crested tits, hwameis, Chinese bulbuls, blackbirds, skylarks, a few spot-necked doves,a couple of azure-winged magpies and just ... read more

China celebrated its National Day with a few days holiday, between 1 - 4 October. Our school, for some unknown reason (at that time), told us that they were off for the full week, commencing Monday 29 Sep. As the foreign teachers didn’t want to stay around Yancheng for a full week, we all took off in different directions. We went west, to the centre of China, towards Xian, but stopped at a city called LuoYang, in Henan province. The main attraction of LuoYang is the World Heritage Listed Buddhist Grottoes, just south of the city centre. If you have ever travelled by train in China, you will understand what we went through, as China train travel is certainly unique. Also, during any Chinese holiday period, public transport is at its most crowded and seats on ... read more

Here we are, back in Yancheng for a couple of days, before we are off to Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province. Anhui Province Adjoins Jiangsu province to the southwest, and Hefei, is about 150 km southwest of Nanjing. The holiday was generally good, as far as a holiday can be in china, but it wasn’t until we got back to our school apartment, that our real dramas began. That will be another story. We are sure that one day we will laugh about what happened, but until that day, we are still a bit upset with the widespread Chinese lack of consideration of others. Onto our holiday. We started out going back to Nanjing, only because we wanted to train it to Wuxi, then ferry ride from Wuxi to Suzhou, then bus back to Yancheng. ... read more

The school decided to change our teaching schedule, so we finished off our teaching term on Friday 13 June, instead of 5 July. As we had some unexpected time off, we decided to do a bit of exploring of Jiangsu Province, where we are based. Yancheng is south of the middle of the Province, but closer to the east coast. We had read about some Terracotta Warriors in the city of Xuzhou, which is located up in the far northwest of our Province. It is about a 4 1/2 hour train trip away. Not much is written about these Terracotta Warriors, as they certainly aren’t as famous as the Qin Dynasty Warriors found in Xian, in central China. The Han Dynasty was in power in China between 206 BC and 220 AD. The Chu King, who ... read more

Hello Australia, et al, It only seemed like a few weeks ago when we wrote to say we had been in China for one month, and now we have been here for two months. Wow, time sure flies fast nowadays. At least we can’t say that we are bored. Nothing is normal in our routine. One of the most frustrating parts of working here, is that we are only told what is happening, at the last moment. Even then, we only get a bit of the picture, so have to try to find out for ourselves what is happening. They certainly work on a “need to know” basis, and are used to being told what to do, rather than keeping everyone informed. I guess we are used to the “no surprises rule”, but that isn’t China’s ... read more