A new place, new people, new job - a new life. After a few days in Beijing, i fought my way through to the Jinan-bound train (with a full 2 minutes to spare) and 5 1/2 hours later I was being met at the other end by a bloke called Apple (got to love these Chinglish names). And now here I am, in my new flat, which seriously ressembles a palace. I am so not used to this standard of living, I thought I had it better than good in Baoding, but you should see this place! However, this time I don't have it all to myself, but am sharing with two other girls, Rebecca and Anita, an American and an Aussie who both work at the same school as full-time teachers.

From the sound of it, life here for the teachers is *very* different to what I have been used to in Baoding. I will be working at the Aston school, which is an American private English school mainly for primary and middle school students. The school has around 40 (!!!) teachers, who are teaching at 3 different sites around town. And from what Rebecca told me, the foreign teachers tend to spend their time as a group, and not many of them have 'non-Aston friends'. ARGH! Laowai attack! There are also about 20 teachers coming just for the summer intensive program, like me, most of whom are coming straight from the States... So it'll be fun and games in the Laowai wonderland... A good thing is that our flat is outside the main teachers' compound as i'll be teaching at Aston 3, which only has 4 teachers while the majority work at Aston 1. And yeah, we live on the 7th floor (no lift, of course) so it's exercise time.

To be honest, i'm really not looking forward to the next 7 weeks here as it sounds like a fun working holiday for American college kids, but i'll try not to be too negative and get the best out of it. If i'm lucky, it might actually be a good bunch of people. and in any case, it'll be an opportunity to explore another city and province.