Felt absolutely dog tired when we woke up this morning after only finishing our Christmas party at 10.30pm last night and then not being able to sleep until 3am. When the alarm went off at 7.45am I was close to pretending I hadn’t heard it and just staying under the covers until lunchtime. But my conscience always gets the better of me and so we get ready and make our way to the school for another long day of lessons. It’s not so bad though because as it’s so close to Christmas, it’s a great excuse to do Christmas activities and watch Christmas movies, so it’s one of the easier days that we’ve had. But still, it’s quite depressing when I check my facebook at lunch time and see that pretty much 90% of the people ... read more

The temperature has definitely changed now with Autumn been and gone and winter finally here. We can’t complain though when ‘winter’ means 18 degrees and sunny. It’s still quite nice though to get the pyjamas on at night and the duvet on the bed! And drinking a cup of tea just isn’t the same when you’re sweating in 35 degrees of heat. Apparently the drop in temperature means less mozzies, which is good news for me as hopefully now they’ll stop dining out on my legs every night. I look like I’ve got chicken pox all over my legs which isn’t the most attractive look. Our teaching journey continues on and this week we’ve been doing review tests to check the students’ progress. However, it’s all a bit pointless when our boss has discreetly told us ... read more

Wow, where does the time go? So the good news is our first pay packet is finally in our hands (we get paid on the 10th so its a long 6 week wait) and it is definitely a highlight for us, having spent our last few days eating the remainder of everything in our cupboards (including porridge made with water) so we cherish being able to buy some ‘luxury’ items including cheese (oh sweet cheese how I have missed thee), Weetabix (and not the fake stuff either), pesto (3 quid a jar but worth the spend) and chocolate! It’s funny the things that you miss when you are away as when we are back home, we’d think nothing about it and wouldn’t bother if we didn’t have those items in our fridge (apart from the chocolate ... read more

Can’t believe we have actually managed to make it this far- OK so it’s only a month but hey! Especially since after the first week here I didn’t think we’d make it to the end of our second week! It feels like the time has gone so quickly, but yet it also feels like a lifetime ago since we disembarked from the plane into the extreme humidity…. It’s definitely been a rollercoaster of a ride, but we’re getting there and so many more things to see and do. Things we’ve learned about China so far: - A simple question never receives a simple answer. Reading between the lines is becoming an acquired skill. - Never take said advice as guaranteed to be correct- most of the time it isn’t. - Mosquitos are NOT my friend. - ... read more

So the day of reckoning finally came and we were pretty much flung in at the teaching deep end by having to take a one and a half hour class of twenty one boisterous 5 – 7 year olds and their parents! To say we were nervous is an understatement, especially when we couldn’t even have a conversation with them to build up a bit of a rapport. Sign language only goes so far, and some of them were so nervous a little reassuring pep talk would have helped, but never mind. As it turns out, the kids responded really well to us and the language barrier wasn’t as big an issue as we both thought it would be. We both have a Chinese teaching assistant in the class with us, so that makes it a ... read more