Blogs from Shandong, China, Asia - page 7

Remarked to Martin on Saturday evening that it felt like it could snow, it just had THAT feel to it. This remarked was scoffed at! The next morning we awoke to SNOW. A very early cold snap and freezing winds had come in from Siberia blanketing the north with snow including Beijing. Martin had never seen snow before and this made the trip even more exciting for him. We stayed holed up in the youth hostel in the morning, rain and 2-3 degrees with already wet clothes, were not the greatest enticement to want to make you go out and about. We played an English game of trivial pursuit which provided a few laughs at our ignorance of things which were obviously important in the UK. And had an excellent breakfast and coffee from Leo’s Youth ... read more

Just go to the little ticket office around the corner from the uni I was told and buy your tickets, no problems. There are websites in English to look at for scheduling, I looked and checked and chose my trains. You can only book 10-11 days ahead, I was within this time, had passport numbers and all details correct. Armed with a note in simple English, written Chinese, my phrasebook, frantic practise of the names of cities with what I hoped were the right tones, and the ability to count, what could go wrong! The little ticket office appears very empty and I have tried to visit there a couple of time with no activity during any of my visits. Today there is a pink sign, I wonder if the sign says “gone to lunch”? Time ... read more

I think I need to be on the payroll for tourism Shandong and Jinan as today I stumbled across some more things to see and do in Jinan. Wednesday is my easy day, teaching from 8-30am to 10-15am, so with the one hour bus to and from it makes for a nice 4.5 hour day. This compares very favourably to my Tuesday which is 8 periods of 45 mins teaching, that day starts at 7am when I catch the bus and 6-30pm when I finally stumble up the stairs to my apartment. So after a quick vacuum and dust of the apartment, lunch and coffee and emails I was off to explore. I’m not that house proud but there is always a fine layer of dust settling on everything here, the air is gritty, your skin ... read more

A Saturday off, so today’s plan is to head toward the Spring City Park which is further south than Spring City Square. It’s called Quan Cheng and is a huge expanse of forest areas, water features and paths. Pine trees featured in the area I was in, reminding me a lot of New Zealand and the South Island’s parks and domains of my childhood. I took the 79 bus up Ji Shan Lu South and stopped off at RTMart and McDonalds for a little treat; latte and muffin! Kinda thought I would walk it off, no harm done! McDonalds was so full, the Chinese have embraced Western food wholeheartedly and despite the big prices compared to street food, they were buying up big. A burger is around Y15-. KFC is hugely popular here too; 24 hour ... read more

Today I had the privilege of visiting 2 kindergartens as part of my work here. Qilu University Shandong China has partnered with Southbank Institute of Technology Queensland Australia to deliver a Diploma of Child Studies to students. Chinese and Australian teachers are training the students to work as kindergarten assistants. As part of this training the students must do work experience at a kindergarten and they do this in blocks of 2 weeks. There they volunteer, and work alongside the paid staff working with the children in the rooms. Each kindergarten caters for children from 3-6years and this is non-compulsory but seen as highly valuable, so many children attend. The two I visited today had enrolments of 500 and the other 600, with 40 children in the junior rooms and 50 in the senior rooms, with ... read more