West Lake Youth Hostel is on Nanshan Road and right beside the lake, just out of the main city area. It’s a fantastic little place, with such a nice ambience, friendly helpful staff who speak some English and within easy distance of restaurants, temples, museums, bus and of course the lake and the magnificent walk and paths and gardens. We booked a private room, with its own shower and toilet with towels and linen supplied; just bring your toilet paper. Tea and coffee facilities are provided in each room, with plasma TV and reverse cycle air con, a neat little home away from home. The hostel has no self-help kitchen, but instead has a cook and a little restaurant with both Eastern and Western menus, at quite reasonable prices. 16 -26Y for a bowl of noodles ... read more

On Tuesday, a week ago, we headed off in the afternoon to what is referred to in the guidebooks as “Old Town”. This was Karl’s last day in Shanghai and we had not managed to fit this “must see” sight in the itinerary as yet. Old Town or Nan Shi as the locals refer to this area is in Puxi, so we headed off on the 993 to the ferry terminal and the end of the bus line. You take the left hand ferry of the 2 and you line up with the bikes and bicycles and rush on; it’s sort of like the start of any car race with a revving of engines and eager anticipation of getting the best position. For the princely sum of .5Yuan you get across the river into quite a ... read more

The Chinese language is rich and full with descriptive terms and phrases. When they translate into English they try to move this same type of language across and the use of superlatives and platitudes abound. Here are some excellent examples of cross cultural confusion, mistranslation and general confusion... read more

This blog is as much for me to remember what I have been doing as anyone that reads it, hence my need to be quite chronological at times. Because we were expecting rain on Sunday we decided to venture into the French Concession in the Puxi area on Saturday. The locals don’t call it this, only the westerners, and apparently very few French ever lived here. This area is an old established part of Shanghai that housed the elite from many nations prior to the Second World War and the invasion of the Japanese into China in 1937. The architecture in this area would not look out of place in Europe with tree lined streets, magnificent villas, and park like gardens surrounding mansions and hotels. The major reason to come to this area is to go ... read more

Its business as usual on Christmas Day in China, so our classes went ahead as per normal. SSPU did allow us to rearrange and make up classes so we could have the afternoon off, but I still had 2 x 80 minutes classes to teach on Christmas morning. Kim one of the other ESL teachers and I decided to combine classes and we organized a big room plus enlisted the aide of our 2 partners, Karl and Roly, as assistants for the morning. ESL in China needs to focus on speaking and listening. On the whole the students reading and writing ability is very good, but they lack the confidence and bravado to speak up, so you can turn anything into a good ESL lesson as far as I’m concerned, from reading the junk mail to ... read more