Been here for 3 weeks now and still no serious problems or issues. Loving it in fact. Pretty much got into the groove of teaching, lesson plans, eating spicy food, relaxing in the evenings, heading down to the local street-food market and navigating bus routes and exploring the city. It's not a bad life so far. And Changsha seems to get better and better the more we discover. Last Friday Fiona - one of the Chinese teachers we share our office with - showed us there was in fact a second and superior bar street in Changsha. We found a great bar that offered all you could eat and drink for £5 each and then headed to little live music venue where a 'famous' electro outfit from Beijing were playing. It was a fun night - possibly the best I've had here so far.

Old bar street

Freedom house club

Also last week we took a pretty intrepid step in food exploration. We ate snake. We'd asked a local stall if it was possible to eat it round here and were directed to a nice guy who told us to come back at 8 the next night for some tasty snake. Dunno about the others but I assumed the snake would be all cooked and ready when we got there. Oh no. First we taken to a back alley lock-up full of snakes and other live specimens to chose our snake and play with it. Then it was dragged back to the market, killed, skinned, gutted, spiced and served to us. It was good... tough but good.

Not much other news really - except that Anna, Cassandra and I are all booked to travel to Inner Mongolia for 'Golden week', which in a Chinese national holiday in first week of October. Quite a few people from the TEFL course in Beijing are going too, so should be great to catch up with old friends and see how their placements are going.

Teaching

Here's some photos of my classes:

So I’ve been teaching for a few days now… it really is quite an experience. It’s more exhausting than I’d anticipated, but so much fun. I’ve taught grades 1,2, 5 and 6 so far, but I’ve still got grades 3 and 4 and kindergarten coming up. Grade 1 know barely any English so my first lesson involved jumping around, shouting “Hello”, “Hi” and “Nice to meet you” quite a bit and getting the kids moving and speaking as much as possible. It’s amazing how much they get out of the simplest activities – like getting them to run on the spot or jump up and down while saying “Hello” or whatever. They even appear to love the crappy songs I’ve been making up, but perhaps they’re just humouring me :D The older grades are equally fun to teach, although you really do have to be thoroughly prepared – they can smell inexperience I think. Within each grade the kids’ standard of English differs greatly and generally their English is worse than I expected, particularly in the more suburban East campus school where a lot of the kids are from farming families.

In general too, things are going well. Changsha is growing on me everyday – particularly the people here. And the food! We’ve eaten out in a few great places and every Friday our Chinese collegues - Coco, Shelly, Tracy and Fiona – take us out to a different restaurant in the centre. Last Friday we went to a famous dumplings restaurant which had a strong Chairman Mao theme, complete with Mao specials and ‘The choice of Mao’ (see right). Near our apartment in the suburbs there are also places to eat out and various outdoor markets, although perhaps the less said about the meat market the better. Every night in a nearby square the locals set up street food stalls with tables and chairs and residents all gather to eat and chat - there's a great atmosphere and some amazing smells. With this diverse street food and so little English it can be hard to know what you’re eating at times – judging from the meat market I may well have eaten turtle, snake or pigeon at some point… or dog.

Whenever we eat out, or go pretty much anywhere, the locals are so intrigued by us and often want to chat or take photos. People will come up and get you to hold their babies and pose for photos. And the other night in a local seafood restaurant the manager and serving staff all wanted their picture taken with us before we left. With so few Westerners in Changsha we really are minor celebrities here. It’s bizarre.

'Walking street' in the centre - the place to be in the evening.

Arrival in Changsha

Well after a 16 hour train journey - in a badly hungover state due to post-graduation party the night before - I'm finally here at my teaching placement. I've actually been here nearly a week now so am starting to get a feel for the place. Changsha is an interesting city. It's very different from Beijing here - it's poorer and less westernised, but the people are noticably friendlier and the food is definitely better. To a further extent than Beijing the city is in the middle of rapid development and progression. Cranes line the skyline wherever you are, there's a brand new subway system under construction and vast, shining high rise hotels and offices are sprouting up to replace the urban shacks. The accommadation we've been provided with is pretty plush, with a flatscreen tv, shiny marble and wood flooring and all necessary appliances. I'm living with a 26 year old Danish guy - Soren, and an 19 year old American - Scott. Next door are three girls - two Germans and a Scot - from the same TTC program. Getting to know each other has been fun so far, particularly a session of Danish drinking games last night. None of us start teaching till Monday - this last week has involved seemingly endless introductions and official functions, including a group performance to the teaching staff which was slightly terrifying (we all sang 'With a little help from my friends'... badly). Yesterday we went to the opening ceremony of a brand new school, attended by goverment officials, which was a strange mix of communist rally and primary school performances.

Got my timetable yesterday though. I was pretty intimidated to find that I'm teaching every primary school grade except grade 2... in three different schools. And a kindergarten class on Friday which we yesterday just after naptime - all the kids were just waking up in their tiny little beds... it was funny. How I'm going to give English lessons to these tiny little kindergartners I have no idea, but at the same time I really can't wait to get started. I wonder if any of my lesson plans are actually going to work? :s