Today was the day before Children’s day so it was the day for all the schools and kindergartens to celebrate. In our school the normal timetable was off replaced by a day of games. Every classroom had a different activity on and the kids went round with cards and crossed off each game as they played it. If they won, they got tickets which they ( Read more... )

I agreed last week to go to a kindergarten with 3 of the teachers from the school. It is part of their recruitment drive to enrol more students for next year’s grade one. As far as I knew at that time this was a one off visit to a kindergarten round the corner that they happened to have links with. Their kids use our playground at the weekends and ( Read more... )

I'm usually woken just before my alarm by the temperature in my room. My flat faces north west but still when the sun comes up it warms up quickly here. Today I was woken by my alarm and it didn't seem to be light out. My first guess was I'd set the alarm wrong but that wasn't it. I could hear rain but until I opened my curtains it hadn't occurred ( Read more... )

I just made a phone call all by myself. It was only short and only two questions needed to be asked in the end, but I resisted the temptation to wait until Jojo was here to call in case it went off on an unpredicted tangent and I'm glad I did because the sense of accomplishment left me bouncing up and down when I got off the phone. I should clarify ( Read more... )

I got my swimming card sorted this week, good for 30 visits to the pool in the complex next door to mine. So on Friday when school finishes early and aerobics was cancelled for this week, I thought I'd make use of the early finish to go test out the pool. It turns out that 4pm is a lovely time of day to go for a swim. The shadow of the closest ( Read more... )

I have been quite strung out this week I've felt that I'm barely keeping on top of my lesson planning and then there was all the faf with trying to get a bank account (which isn't quite sorted yet I need to go back) and feeling I wasn't making any progress with learning Chinese. Now in the last two days it seems to have just come together by magic ( Read more... )

Labour Day itself. My plan for the last day of the holiday was to go to gongbei get a frying pan, chopping board and knife, come back buy some vegetables, have some eggy bread for lunch and do my first bit of proper cooking in my nice clean kitchen tonight ( Read more... )

We English people like to think we have changeable weather and that this is something that defines our island, but the English unpredictability is nothing to the south China coast. I left home this morning about 11 squinting against the bright sunshine trying to see the bus numbers and cursing my lack of foresight at not bringing my sunglasses. At ( Read more... )

I've been exploring Zhuhai's western haunts. There are apparently 3 shopping centres where the expats tend to go so I went to one called Jusco to see what was on offer. On the way I passed a Papa Johns and thought, ah Pete will be pleased. Then in Jusco I found they have Quaker Oats and thought, ah Pete will be pleased. Also in the supermarket I ( Read more... )

I have wifi in my flat. It was a bit of a trial to get it. First Molly and Mr Dong in the school kept telling me no your don't want the internet because you have to sign up for 6 months and pay up front. I insisted I would pay double that to be able to skype. Then Molly and Mr Dong had to persuade one of the telecoms companies to supply me. As a ( Read more... )