You all speak English?!
I have had the best week since arriving in China ,
especially this weekend. I started my teaching to the freshers who were so much
keener than I was when I went to uni. I have 8am
lessons four days a week and so on my first morning I arrived at about 7.45am . There were at least 80% of the students
already there waiting! I just hope this level of keenness continues. The
lessons themselves are straightforward. I am teaching English listening (but
I’ve deduced that this must also involve speaking) and so I teach the same
lesson 8 times a week. Lesson planning time = 1 hour A WEEK!
Had a very proud moment this week learning how to catch the
campus bus. I live a 40-minute walk from my teaching building, which isn’t too
bad in nice weather. However, being a girl and therefore highly impractical, I
have brought very little suitable footwear. Catching the bus home means only a 15-minute
walk, which is much more appealing, especially if I have a split day and go
home in-between classes. Another bonus...the bus costs 10p a journey.
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| The faculty where I work |
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| Oh hey chalkboard |
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| My teaching building with all the classrooms in |
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| The campus bus! |
With classes out of the way, it meant that I had a whole
weekend off to enjoy. I haven’t had a weekend off work in about 7 years so by 11am on Saturday morning I was horrendously
bored. I decided to go exploring and firstly ventured to a nearby hotel to see
if it was any good for when my mum, dad and sister come to stay. It turned out
to be lovely and the beds seem much comfier than mine! On the way back I
decided to pop into a coffee shop called Mr Mai’s. I’d read about the place on
the internet, and knew that the owners were American, so I was very excited to
go and get a proper coffee.
It was the best decision I’ve made since coming to Wuhan .
Within seconds of entering I was greeted by everyone in the café and had
ordered a tea with milk (hurrah) and brownie with ice-cream!! The owners (Faith
and David) introduced themselves and it was so refreshing to speak English and
also have people so genuinely nice have a proper conversation with me. Anyway, I
ended up talking to David and he explained that Chinese people come to the café
for a language club where native English speakers volunteer to talk English
with them and play games. Before I knew it, I had volunteered myself and was
talking to a group of Chinese people! I am going to volunteer here on Friday
evenings and occasional Saturdays so I’m really looking forward to it.
Craig, who is in charge of the volunteers invited me for
dinner with his wife, two adopted Chinese daughters and his niece, who is
visiting from America .
We ate some amazing food and I even got homemade banana bread for dessert. I
went to the coffee shop at 2pm that
day and didn’t leave until 9pm !
Yesterday (Sunday) I decided to tackle the subway. The Wuhan
metro was surprisingly easy to use, mainly because of everything also being in
English. I bought a city card, which I can use on buses and the subway around
Wuhan so that I’m not worrying about change and got off at Baotong temple to
visit the Buddhist monument. It was incredible. There were many different
buildings for people to go and pray in, although I had to lots of walking up
steps! There was a huge queue for some free food offered by the monks and
people were queuing up with bowls and tubs that they had brought with them! It
was a beautiful day so I got some amazing pictures. I spent a couple of hours
there and then went home to have a lazy film afternoon...perfect.
Today = back to teaching but I do get Monday mornings off!
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| One of the Buddhas |
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| Baotong Temple |
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| So so beautiful |
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| You buy a ribbon and tie it somewhere in the temple to bring you good luck |
