Arrived back safe and sound on Friday afternoon, a cursory check through customs and then it was out of the airport to fight my way through the swarm of taxi drivers to locate my bus into the city.....I'm a veteran of this now so no getting ripped off by taxis!! Much rather pay 20 yuan than 100+ yuan to get into the city!!

Got back to my apartment to be greeted by our friendly ayi ( translated as 'auntie" but really just the lady on the front desk) who can't speak English but was full of smiles and hugs for me. She did manage to say "long time, no see" and was really proud of her English when I agreed with her!! Heavens only knows who has taught her that one!

Returned to find my apartment freshly painted although paint splotches all over the floor. Of course the "clean freak" had to scrub them off stat before re-arranging the furniture to make it like home again. Have finished unpacking and have done the supermarket run so am really getting settled quickly.

Got my teaching schedule for this semester and , once again, I get an extra long weekend every week....gotta love this life!! Basically I start my week at 1830 on Tuesday and finish at 0930 on Friday with Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons free. Will be busy preparing classes for the next few weeks and then after that I'll have lots of free time to try and learn Chinese. I suspect that will take more time than teaching each week!! Start teaching on Thursday (1st Sept) and already have my lessons planned for this week. Waiting to find out when my Chinese classes will commence.

Only thing left to organise is a massage. All that luggage and shopping being dragged about has really done my neck and shoulders in..... nothing a good Chinese massage (read that as a form of torture!) won't fix. Think I'll do that tomorrow if I can get up the energy to walk to the massage place. We are getting VERY humid weather here at the moment and after coming from an Aussie winter I'm feeling it more than most.....just a short adjustment period needed!!!

No more news for now but I'm sure I'll entertain you all no end when I start exploring again!!!

Bye for now. xxx