emilyonearth

Well, not exactly stranded. There is a metro stop about 10 minutes walk from my school which takes me right downtown, so it isn’t all that bad. This is, however, the first time since arriving in China that I haven’t been surrounded by other foreigners and CTLC teachers. It’s interesting, and exciting, and at times quite terrifying.

On Friday representatives from our schools came to meet us all at the hotel for a contract signing ceremony and to take us to our new homes. I met Penny, my contact teacher and the English teacher at my new school, and also Flower, who is a new maths teacher at the school. They’re both really lovely and friendly, and I can go to them with any problems I may have. After dropping my things at the school, Penny, Flower, and I went with the Chinese teacher, whose name I believe is Miao, to lunch. It was really good, some of the nicest Chinese food I have had so far! We had eggplant, a big catfish cooked in hot chillies, broccoli, bitter melon soup, and lamb. It was sooo good. We also had coconut juice which was delicious! After lunch we went to the police station to sort out something to do with my residency, and to set up a bank account with the Bank of China. I then went with Penny so that she could show me where the supermarket is before meeting the principal and coming back to my dorm. The rest of the evening I spent unpacking my things and revelling in the fact that I now had a reliable internet connection :D

Yesterday I slept in until about 8:00am, which was amazing, and then spent the morning thinking of ideas for some first lessons, before heading down to the supermarket to pick up a few things. While I was there Flower called and asked if I could come home so that we could eat lunch. I was just about finished anyways so came home and we ate in the staff cafeteria at the school with Jimmy, one of the admin staff, and Marilyn, another English teacher at the school. Apparently the school has 12 English teachers!! 3 of us are foreign teachers – myself and two Canadians who will be arriving on the 29th. Will be exciting to meet them!  In the evening I went into town with another friend who lives in the same area as me and got dinner at a teppanyaki place before meeting a group of CTLC teachers who were going out. We didn’t stay long as wanted to get the metro back to Longhua before it closed, but it was really nice to see the group again! The teppanyaki was so delicious too… And cheap. The total for the two of us came to about $14! Ñom ñom food…..

Today I might go into town again to meet up with Alicia, my English friend :D Will see what happens though. I’m really just trying to make the most of this week off before I start teaching again and have to stress about lesson plans and controlling classes of about 50 primary aged kids. Which reminds me, my school! I’m teaching at Dandi Experimental school, which is in one of the outer districts of Shenzhen called Longhua, which is part of Bao’an District. It’s a primary school with around about 1000 kids. I’m not sure yet what grades I will be teaching, or what their English is like already, but I guess I will find that out sooner or later. And no, I don’t know why the school is experimental haha..

And so, to finish, a couple of photos, perhaps?