Today was my first day at work. Getting there proved to be difficult, I wasn’t yet ready to try the Eped (electric moped) and the bus route was too complex for me to be sure I would be on time. I decided to take the taxi to work then bus home so I could work out timings. The taxi driver had other plans however and spent the next hour driving round the long way through an entire tour of the outskirts of Suzhou industrial area. They get paid by the kilometre here...

The day after the interview I got an email saying that I had the job and that they would send me the contract so after a day to look over it and show it to Paul I was ready to sign. They asked me to come directly to the school so I could also look at the teaching materials. It wasn’t the best day for me as yesterday was Paul’s birthday so we had walked for miles to find him the perfect foot rest on a street that was made up solely of furniture warehouses, the...

I have been applying for teaching jobs via the internet and today I finally got a Job Interview. It was for a kindergarten school in the new area of town. The first problem was obviously getting there. The interview was at Cheery’s restaurant, Cheery was a teacher at the school, her Mum is the principle, so now she has a cafe not too far away they decided to interview over lunch. I got directions to a big supermarket called ‘Da Ren Fa’ and Kelly schooled m...

We decided to try out Shanghai's public transport system today as the roads are quite busy and the taxis aren't as cheap as Suzhou. There is however, a new and shiny underground. We had to get a taxi to the station as we were staying out of the centre a bit then we got out tickets, much like the London underground, and went to the platform. The difference there was that everything was very clean and there were automatic doors on the platform that would open to le...

New Years Day involved a long lie in. The boys had gone on clubbing after midnight and came home pretty late, Kelly and I were both tired so we watched movies while the boys slept. Today our plan was just to get to Shanghai by bus, have a dinner at a restaurant Paul loved and sleep in our hotel room.Travelling to Shanghai by bus was only a two hour affair and the bus was pretty empty so we sat in a row and chatted all the way there. My first impression of the jou...