A week left and counting..

We came back home to Jerusalem for a month over the semester break and it has been rather weird. Firstly of course it was great to see all our friends and family again,to eat our faviourite Israeli foods that are not available in China, and to sleep in our own (extremely soft) bed. It was great to go to Pilates classes again and tell people we are just here for a break and are living in China.But it was also odd that we very quickly found ourselves missing China, Xiamen and our life there. I miss the students, I miss getting up every day in Xiamen and not knowing who we are going to meet or what is going to happen.I miss the challenge of trying to make myself understood in Chinese.And I miss the surprises every time we order in a restaurant and have no clue what is going to appear on the table.

It was great to be met at the airport by our younger son,to hear what he has been up to,and to spend time with my Dad,and my brothers and see all the family together for my brother’s birthday.But now we feel that we are in the way.The boys have their own lives to lead,and really don’t need us around.My dad is doing fine and is okay with us going back.

Today is Chinese New Year, and although we planned not to be there during that festival I am a little disappointed now I see it all on the TV that we will be missing the festivities.So maybe we will stay put next year and see them for ourselves,wherever we are.

We did have some fun here.We went to see a couple of movies and we are gong to a concert this week. But we kept checking the prices in the restaurants and shops and comparing to Chinese prices. We spent some time with friends of ours from Xiamen who came to visit, Steve and Viny, who are of the Bahai faith and came to Israel to go on a pilgimage to their temple in Haifa. We showed them around Jerusalem a bit,went with them to Yad Vashem,to Ein Karem,Abu Gosh and the Tayelet to see the views of the Old City.

We also had a coffee with Aliza and Shimon who will be joining us at XMUT next semester.So that was fun too.So roll on next Monday when we get on the plane and go back to Xiamen via Hong Kong,Macau and Shenzhen.

Steve and Viny visit Abu Gosh

Some reflections on Chinese students and EFL (for teachers,probably)

We are nearing the end of the first semester here in Xiamen and our 3rd semester in China so time for a bit of reflection.I have spent the last 2 weeks testing my students orally for their Final Exam,and I have a few observations. It seems that there is a great deal of difference between teaching English majors and Non English majors,but there are some things which seem to jump out at me as “weird” or “different” when I compare the Chinese universities to the Western ones. Firstly,the students here seem to have a lot less choice in their lives than our children do,and than we did as students. Most students here,when asked why they chose this university or why they chose their major reply that “My parents picked it” or “My Gao Kao (high school university entrance exam) score was too low to go to another place. They don’t seem to express any opinion about what to study or where to spend four years. Another thing that sticks out is that they mostly plan to return home to their “hometown” when they graduate to help their parents,or because getting a job there is easier than in another city.They often plan to follow a career choice chosen by their parents,again in many cases not something they are crazy about. I find this rather sad,looking back on my University l ife and how much I loved it.

Students,by and large, try to answer our questions with what they think we want to hear,and not their “real opinion” as far as we can fathom,and it is impossible to get them to be honest and really tell us what they think.And by the way there are some other rather confusing things. Frequently a student will refer to his “hometown” which is his ancestral family home,but not necessarily where his family now live,which can be thousands of miles away. And they will also refer to “my sister” or “my brother” when referring to a cousin,but it can also mean a true sibling. Many of them ,despite what we know about China,do have a sister or a brother,sometimes two!

 

Students here seem to be perpetually busy doing pointless tasks for the university,and when they are free they just watch movies online,or sleep,or play computer games.They rarely go into the city which is only 30 minutes away as they seem to think it is too far or too crowded.They are lacking in ambition and independence,and on weekends go home to their families if they live near to Xiamen.There is very little of the typical University life we know in the UK- certainly no pubs,no parties,very little mingling of the sexes at all.In class the boys and girls sit separately as we did when we were very young in elementary school.They are pretty immature,look much younger than British or American students and have very little social life.Classes have a class monitor much as we did in high school,who has to do various things for the teachers. I asked some students about hobbies,or what they do in their free time and the predictable answers were “play computer games”,”sleep” “go to the library” and for some girls “go shopping”.

Of course the students are delightful people on the whole,very polite and respectful,curious about us and where we come from,why we are in China and what we think about it.They find it hard to imagine why we would have left a place which they consider to be alluring,magical,and highly desirable to come to China and they mostly have very little idea of travelling even as far as Shanghai,let alone abroad.IT all seems very unreal to them. I can’t help wondering,however what the future holds for them,and what China will look like when they reach adulthood…

More anon…

 

Return to China -Chapter Two

(warning : Long Catching-Up POST)

So after a break of a couple of months,in which we returned to Jerusalem to be with family and to attend to various bureaucratic things we are back in China.

The situation is a bit weird and I am not going into all the details but suffice it to say that we are now in a lovely seaside location, on the 17^th floor of an 18 storey block,with a view of the mountains from the living room and the mountains and the sea from the bedroom. The apartment has all mod cons,except that the aircon is only in the bedrooms for the time being but Sunny,the lady in charge of our accommodations has said that there will be a unit in the living room “some time”.

View from living room

The journey back here was amazing. We were booked on KLM via Amsterdam with a 6 hour layover in that splendid city. WE had intended to go sightseeing but after leaving Ben Gurion at 4am and Jerusalem at 1am we were just too tired to do anything but sleep and eat at Schipol. So then we boarded the continuing flight and suddenly the air hostess asked to see our passports and when we looked alarmed said”Don’t worry I just want to move you to better seats”- imagine our surprise and delight when she led us to Business class comfy seats that lie flat and asked us if we would like champagne and Belgian chocolates! We were also presented with a huge menu on which we were to indicate our choice of meals for dinner and breakfast! They then proceeded to shower us with little extras and gifts! The only explanation for this I can come up with is that I had mentioned on Twitter that Swissair were crap and had not responded to our complaints on our previous trip back home and we had therefore chosen KLM who also had the added advantage of being cheaper and flying directly to our destination.I think maybe KLM are hoping to enroll me as a spokesman for them on Twitter and were rewarding us for my positive tweets,but that’s just a guess.

Of course we arrived in China delighted and well fed and rested.

The massive Living room

We were met at the airport by Sandra of the International Office who drove us straight to our aforementioned apartment.

It transpires that our neighbours are nearly all teachers at our university or a neighbouring one,both foreigners and Chinese. Next door we have Shannon from Texas and his wife Amber from Arkansas and their 3 small children, upstairs Jonathan from Texas and his wife Allie a Chinese American and their 2 kids,Jonathan S and Jessica also Americans and Alex from Montreal and the UK and his Chinese wife whom we have not met yet. On our floor is a guy called Bob from Scotland don’t know much about him yet. Shannon has now become known as “Wikishannon” because he is a mine of information and incredibly helpful .The first thing he did was present me with a list of bus numbers and where to take them around the area, useful bus stops down town and how to get set up with a water cooler. He then with the help of Jonathan J helped set up our broadband and wifi,since the Chinese guy from the company didn’t manage to do it.

WE were taken the next day together with a lot of other teachers,to the International hospital for our medical,and then to the bank to get set up there. They gave us sim cards for our phones and an ecard for travelling the buses,meals on campus and to use the library.

On Thursday we had our first faculty meeting which was pretty weird. WE were collected by minibus from the apartment and amazed to see about 40 foreign teachers in a huge boardroom. The first item was a long and boring talk by Kevin Lin about the structure of the university and 2 talks by veteran teachers here about their teaching styles. We then divided into two groups,those teaching EFL and those teaching other subjects. We went to a different building and met Dr. Narcisco Hayashi Domingo,the Philipinno head of the EFL department who told us to call him Matthew and who signs his emails Dr D -go figure. Most of his talk was flaunting his Phd and telling us that we have to use the books he distributed to teach. About 10 teachers will be teaching Sophomores so they started teaching on Monday, and the rest of us are all teaching Freshmen ,who only begin classes after the National Holiday,that is to say after October 7^th! We are therefore on holiday now,which leaves us time to explore the city,find our way around the neighbourhood and buy stuff for the apartment.

Our neighbourhood is kind of a suburb, the city being about 3 million people and a BRT ride of 35 minutes away. The BRT is a wonder to behold. IT is a bus that runs on a raised roadway,running from 6am till 10pm and is easy and comfortable to use. Yesterday we took it to downtown and enjoyed looking out of the window and seeing the view.WE went to a shopping mall with Carrefour supermarket, a French chain and then from there we took another bus to a second huge but fancy mall where we found a shop selling imported goodies such as whole wheat pasta,curry sauce,cocoa powder,feta cheese and other rare things. The university also runs a “Shopping Bus” every Saturday morning which picks up the teachers and takes them to the Metro Supermarket downtown.

So far we are happy with our neighbourhood- one colleague described it as being in Brooklyn and the city is Manhattan.Anyway that’s really enough for this incredibly long post so I shall continue later.

Yundang Park

From Chengdu to Qingdao-hotpot to seaside

Warning- this may be a bit wordy since a lot has happened and I didn’t have a chance to write for a while,and the laundry has been piling up! Well we got back safely from Chengdu all chuffed at the new contract etc. and immediately started to plan the rest of the time we have here in China before we leave for Israel. THis may sound a bit weird but we felt that we needed a bit of a holiday and since I had wanted to see Qingdao,the seaside place made famous by beer, beaches,Germans and the 2008 Olympics we decided to head off there for a bit of relaxation. WE were originally going to take a boat from there over to South Korea across the Yellow Sea but decided it was too much, added to which the weather forecast there gave rain and more rain, and then the University here said that we were not supposed to leave before July or we would not be paid for June and July. So we thought we would take it easy, spend a few days in Qingdao walking along the beach and so on and then come back to Lin’an to pack up and hopefully spend a few days shopping in Shanghai before we get to Eretz Israel.

WE took a bus to Shanghai from Lin’an,spent the night at our old friend the Asset Hotel, and then bought train tickets from Shanghai to Qingdao. The train is the fast one which does the huge distance in only 6.5 hours and can reach a speed of 320 kilometres per hour. Actually it only went up to 307 but believe me that was FAST. This journey was really comfortable,but it was also more expensive than the plane we discovered AFTER we had already bought our tickets. Due to our crappy Chinese the lady sold us first class tickets.but we weren’t sorry as the trip was so incredibly smooth and comfortable.

lovely promenade full of statues in Qingdao

We were offered three different places to stay in Qingdao,one with a couple called Pia and Gareth from Couchsurfing,one with Andrea also couchsurfing and a third Chinese guy. We didn’t want to impose on anyone and had never slept at a couchsurfers’ place before so we fixed only 2 nights with Pia and Gareth and then took a cheapo hotel for another 4 nights. We had a lovely time with Pia and Gareth,who are a young couple-she is from the US and he is from Ireland. We found much to talk about with them and they kindly hosted us and showed us round some places in the city, the night market and the old part of the city with its German buildings. We also went on our own to the Qingdao Brewery built by the Germans in 1903 and we took a sailing boat on the sea with a Chinese couple and their kid.

Olympic Marina

In the evening we went twice to Beer Street which is a street full of bars and restaurants selling typically Qingdao beer (which some people carry away in plastic bags!) and lots of seafood. There are also people singing and playing guitars and it is generally a lot of fun there.

We also had dinner one evening with Andrea, a teacher from Texas who I met from Couchsurfing and exchanged teaching experiences.It was very pleasant,and she said she might come visit us here in Lin’an to look around ZAFU.

On the Saturday morning as we were leaving Pia and Gareth’s place we chanced upon a Chinese wedding which was just beginning outside their apartment so we stayed to watch and take photos. It was great to see the dancing and the dragon and lion costumes, the drummers and canons shooting confetti over the bride and groom.There were also people breathing fire! It was great.

Wedding Drummers

We also took a ride up the top of the TV tower to see a view of the city but unfortunately it was very cloudy so we didn’t see much. All in all we enjoyed the trip immensely and had a good rest and some sea breeze and flew back to Lin’an to pack up and get our heads round the idea of returning to Israel in a couple of weeks.

Homesick? Or just the “Mayday Blues”

So I was forewarned that at some point homesickness would kick in ,and having been here for 8 months and no sign of it I thought I was immune. But suddenly,this holiday weekend it hit me. The main catalyst was the nasty head cold I got as we were away in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. But the second element was definitely the horrid journey back which was fraught, and which cost us a fortune due to a ridiculous error on my part and the fact that all of China was busy attempting to go somewhere, just as I had been warned.

Mao in the square

So we had a great trip down to Fuznou,on the 6  hour fast train from Hangzhou. The hotel didn’t look too bad,despite the complete lack of English and their unwillingness to give us a receipt tor the deposit money. Deposit is something we are already accustomed to in China but not the fact that the hotel refuses to acknowledge you have paid it. We got to the room which “looked ok” actually was pretty huge. The bed turned out to be even harder than usual in China but that was not the main fault. At 4.30 am we were awakened by military music outside the window. Being positioned “punkt” in the main square of Fuzhou right about the Mao statue we bacame part of the morning flag raising ceremony and this happened the next nights also except ironically enough on the morning of May 1 when we had to get up early to leave in any case!

Musicians in Xihu Park Fuzhou

Firefox

Fuzhou was nice enough,not nearly as pleasant as nearby Xiamen,though. We looked around a couple of Unis ,the Agriculture and Forestry campus,which was as nice as ours,full of plants,trees and a lake etc.,but the Technology campus out in University city was way out in the middle of nowhere. We also saw the White Pagoda,,Xihu Park and lake which is a kind of Mini version of the Hangzhou one,but nowhere near as big or beautiful, and the adjoining Panda centre complete with pandas and firefoxesIt was fun watching mums and kidddies ogling the pandas and taking photos..In the evening we saw the renovated part of the town near the river called “Three Lanes and Seven Alleys” a kind of yuppified area of bars and restaurants and old style shops,very attractive. The area around the White Pagoda was really lovely ,on the top of a hill called Wushan right behind our hotel. The main square (the Mao one) was however,definitely a bit too “soviet realism ” for me,despite having a huge shopping centre across the road, with ads for Armani and all the other brand names, and a parade of shops with the statutory KFC,McD and Pizza Hut adjoining.

The disaster really was on the day when we returned home. Because of a stupid mistake I made (or the ticket lady?) when we arrived at Fuzbou south station we discovered our return tickets were in fact Hangzhou to Fuzhou and not vice versa. A nice boy took us down to the ticket office and wrote on a piece of paper in Chinese that we had been sold the wrong tickets and we wanted to exchange them. However this being May 1 and a ver BIG public Holiday,there were no tickets until the next afternoon. We had to be back to teach May 2 at 8am. We therefore jumped in a taxi to the airport (200RMB) and asked for any flight to Hanghzou. There WAS only one flight- 9pm at night,(it was 10am ). So with no other option we  coughed up 1700 RMB and prepared to do nothing at the airport for an entire day, by which time my head cold was brewing nicely. At 8.30 pm it appeared all was well but at 9pm they told us the flight was delayed (which did not come as a big surprise, since all the preceding flights had been delayed due to the raging thunderstorm outside). We finally took off at 10.30pm and arrived in Hangzhou at 1am or so. We then had to get a taxi to drive us the hour to Lin’an (another 450RMB) and we got home at 230am so made it to morning class despite feeling crappy. All of this and my main thought was ” I really want a bowl of vegetable soup like at home, and a crusty loaf like at home”. Homesick? or Just sick?

TIme will tell…

Renee and Barry Shanghai weekend-Shul and Jazz

Since this last weekend would be our last opportunity to visit our dear friends Renee and Barry in their Shanghai apartment before they return to Hawaii we were delighted that the weather was fine and we were finally able to see them.We arrived in Shanghai at 5pm and were met at the South Bus station which is a convenient short walk from the apartment given them by Shanghai Normal University. So it is different from the Lin’an setup as it is not a campus university. WE had a wonderful noodle supper lovingly prepared by Renee and then went out on the town. We went down to East Nanjing Road , the throbbing pedestrian street at the heart of the city and walked down to the famed Peace Hotel,where Barry assured us there would be live Jazz. Sure enough we were treated for the sum of 100 RMB including one drink to a marvellous band of old Chinese guys playing lots of smooth classic Jazz.Then at 10pm another younger band came on accompanied by a guest artist from New York, a sax player called Eric Wyatt, After Barry told him that he was from Brooklyn the guy game over to us and chatted, autographed a CD for us and also played a song about Brooklyn for Barry! It  was a terrific evening,as the hotel is a sort of Colonial style luxury hotel looking like something lavish from the 1920s. IT was great fun.

Next day we got up and after a splendid Renee breakfast we went down on the metro to the old Jewish Quarter of Shanghai called Huangpu where Jews had been taken in during the Second World War. There was a reconstruction of the Ohel Moshe Synagogue now a Museum and we had a wonderful guided tour from a young Chinese woman volunteer called Lulu who was most knowledgeable.

Ohel Moshe Shul Shanghai

WE then walked to the little park in the neighbourhood which had been where the Jewish children of the ghetto played, now full of the requisite Chinese doing their exercises, and old men playing cards etc. It was a charming place. IT is interesting to know that when most of the world turned its back the Shanghainese welcomed the Jewish refugees as best they could. We then stopped at a wonderful bakery next to Dalian Metro station for a coffee and a bun.

We took a metro to a place near the Pudong Tower where you can see a view over the whole city. But instead of going up that one we took the lift to the 85th floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel where there is a bar. From there you can also see all the lights of the city,which is a truly amazing sight.

Roof of Hyatt Hotel

Then we took the metro again across town to eat at the famed Grandmother restaurant on Sichuan street which was wonderful and cheap. WE had planned to pop next door to the House of Blues but unfortunately it was too full and there was no room to sit, so we got a taxi home and fell into bed exhausted from our wonderful day.

With the Jazz musician Eric Wyatt at the Peace Hotel

The following day some other friends of Renee and Barry from Hawaii who are going to be staying in China for 5 weeks arrived and we all went off to take photos in the nearby park. This park was an oasis of green and calm in the city,full of Chinese doing whatever they like-exercises, cards, mahjong, singing folk songs,flying kites, walking dogs or just relaxing with their kids. IT was a wonderful finale to our weekend,as 3pm we had to get the bus back to Lin’an. We felt as always so close to Renee and Barry,happy to meet their friends Chuck and Meli and hope to see each other again really soon. It is great to meet people who share our love of China and the Chinese people who have always been so friendly and hospitable even if we can’t speak much Chinese.

Where is Home?

So here we are back in Israel on a flying visit. We arrived January 22nd after a horrid flight, despite being well fed by Swissair, we had a 7 hour layover in Zurich where they wanted a ridiculous sum of money for Internet use (we didn’t use) and a ridiculous sum of money to buy a sandwich or coffee which we did even though we weren’t hungry. Also you pay them in Euro and they give you useless change in Swiss Francs. So we arrived back in Israel at 3.30am to be greeted by our lovely son who came to pick us up.So now we are here back in Jerusalem until February 9th,enough time to sort out various bureaucratic things and see a bit of friends and family,and we discover two weird things. One, most people are not REALLY interested in what we are doing, except perhaps for perfunctory questions about whether all Chinese look the same, and whether or not they eat dogs. Secondly,we are missing our home in Lin’an ,the campus , the students and of course the FOOD.So we are checking in on our friends there on Facebook and so on, and it all seems very far away. When we were in China we thought that 2.5 weeks here in Israel would not be enough to do stuff. But now we are here, we are happy that we will be going back soon. Apart from various material comforts (easy internet access,soft bed, central heating) our life in Lin’an is more varied, interesting and stimulating.And here we are BORED.So that’s it for today’s entry.We had a great weekend with family and such. Next weekend we have a barmitzva to go to and the following weekend we will be back in Shanghai-YAY!

Jerusalem-the touristy view

Ghost-town Campus and Globe-Trotting

Okay so this post is probably going to be a bit long and involved as much has happened since the last one and I have had no time to update. Basically fro December 25th Xmas party until now the students and staff gradually trickled off home from campus for the Spring Festival which takes place on January 25th.We have 5 weeks holiday and during this time most of

more Hong Kong Glitzy skycrapers

the foreign teachers nip off on their travels,either to warmer climes (it is freezing here) or in some cases off home to see their folks for Xmas and the Chinese New year.So we are doing both- we decided to travel a bit,especially as it is REALLY cold here,and then we will go home to Israel for a couple of weeks to see the boys, and my dad and to do a bit of paperwork that needs taking care of .Second semester begins here on February 13th so we are flying back here on the 10th.

 

 

So on January 7th we got a flight down to Xiamen, a lovely coastal town which we had heard good things about. Coincidentally two of our colleagues,Iain and Courtney are doing a 3 week Chinese course there and another Becky arrived just after us. We spent 3 lovely days in Xiamen which lived up to its reputation as a great resort,with seaside,lovely warm weather and a charming island called Gulangyu which is car-free and used to be home to Europeans looking to escape to a romantic getaway. The little winding streets and seafood restaurants are kind of like Cornwall but not really! There are also lots of funny little knick knack shops selling porcelain and wooden cats,for some reason. The island is reached by a small ferry from Xiamen which is itlself an island. Xiamen proper is a pretty big city complete with western style shopping malls,flyovers and restaurants and also a lovely nightlife area full of bars where Chinese with dyed blonde hair and cowboy boots sing songs by Bachman Turner Overdrive and Queen.

In the evening we met up a couple of times with our friends from Lin’an for Hotpot and Italian food and one time for a beer. We left Xiamen by overnight sleeper bus for an 8 hour trip to Shenzhen, the border crossing into Hong Kong. The sleeper bus was very weird.You board the bus at 10pm ,remove your shoes which you place in a plastic bag at the bottom of your bed,and go to sleep and wake up in Shenzhen at 6am where you can cross over customs into Hong Kong which is truly another country. Not only do they use Hong Kong dollars and speak Cantonese and English,they also drive on the left as in England. The whole place felt like one enormous glitzy shopping mall. We spent 5 nights there and I can’t say I was totally enamoured of the place- maybe for people who care about Yves St.Laurent,Chanel and all of that crowd it’s shopping heaven but we really felt we could have spent more days in Xiamen more profitably.Plus it turns out that a lot of the wow of Hong Kong is based on the amazing views from the top of Victoria Peak and Victoria Harbour,but since it was horribly cloudy all the time we were there we felt a bit cheated on that score. We did get a few good shots of the harbour at night with all the lights,but again, not the most exciting place we have been on our travels.

tram in Hong Kong

On  our second day in Hong Kong we took a tram to a little island called Lamma Island which also has no cars. Unfortunately the weather was not very kind to us again. It was very misty and a bit drizzly. The island was nice but not nearly as nice as Gulangyu. We did have a great evening at our friend Nigel’s house, met his lovely wife Susan and very much enjoyed their local cuisine. Many of the things we had planned to do in Hong Kong seemed to be dependent on the sunshine,so we left Hong Kong feeling a bit underwhelmed. We flew back to Hangzhou and on to Lin’an to find the campus completely deserted. We did meet a friend,Simon, a German who is studying Chinese here. He said that nearly all the campus shops and restaurants are closed,and we shared a taxi back up to campus with him ,and indeed the place looked like a ghost town. We are only staying here 3 days luckily, just long enough to pack up the stuff we have bought to take home and then we will take a bus to Shanghai and then fly on to Israel on Friday.

misty view of Hong Kong island from Ferry to Lamma

Lamma Island Ferry landing

Hong Kong Glitz

Trip to Wuzhen (subtitle-Pluie takes a photo -or 100!)

Last weekend we made a trip to the attractive but very touristy town of Wuzhen on the Grand Canal that once linked Wuzhen with Shanghai and Bejijing.Touted as the “Venice of the East” although it does not have the grandeur and resonance of Venice,it is nevertheless an attractive place to spend a weekend and good food for artsy photography.We we there with my lovely students Monica and Pluie,who helped us with all the arrangements,the hotel booking ,bus tickets etc. Bearing in mind this was still during National Week,there were hordes of Chinese tourists there and everything was very crowded,but no other European tourists at all.After a 3 hour bus journey to Tonxiang,we then took another bus to the ancient city of Wuzhen and after the owner of the quaint little guest house had picked us up in a car,we dumped our stuff,had a quick rest and set off to explore/

We then went into the old town area.This is divided into two parts-the East and the West which are very different.The East side is a little “grubby” but attractive in its own way.Entrance to both parts costs 150 RMB.So we toured the east part for a couple of hours,and then went to eat at a restaurant just next to the hotel.Food was as usual in China delicious and cheap.We had 4 vegetable dishes and lots of rice.Monica explained that the usual way is to order one more dish than diners.It was a massive amount of food for us!

Next we went to the West part of the city which involved a short ride in a cyclo.We were instructed to hide while Monica negotiated the price,which would automatically be raised if they saw us foreigners ,whom the drivers assume to be very wealthy.We travelled in two cyclos to the West part of Wuzhen.After a small museum with mock ups of life in ancient Wuzhen,and a short ferry ride we reached the Western part of the city, which was all lit up and much more elegant than the East,with many upscale restaurants,tea houses and boutique style shops looking onto the canals.Gondolas cruised up and down and many people strolled along taking photos and enjoying the view.After a few hours we had seen nearly the whole area.

WE left West Wuzhen at about 10pm and got a taxi to take us back to the guest house.The driver claimed to know where it was but dumped us in some other place.We noticed his speech was not like the girls’and Monica confirmed he was speaking in local dialect and was “not a local” ! Anyhow we started to walk back,and at one point I fell and bruised my ribs,but nothing really serious.We returned to Lin’an via Hangzhou the next afternoon.The return trip took us also 3 hours but seemed longer as we got a taxi to the bus station in Wuzhen,then a bus to Hangzhou,another bus across town to the West bus station,the bus from Hangzhou to Lin’an and finally the local bus from the bus station to campus,arriving home around 5pm safe and (more or less) sound.

Chinese tummy strikes

Well I guess it was too good to last.We have been here a month and I have been eating all kinds of things all over the place and finally my tummy decided to rebel.This is hardly surprising since all the other teachers bar one have already been sick,and also many students sent me messages that they were ill and not coming to class on Wednesday and Thursday.

So instead of rushing off to Hangzhou this weekend as we had planned I stayed in bed with tea and immodium to keep me company.On Friday we went into Lin’an city to scout around for various desirables for the house such as chair cushions and mattresses,since Chinese furniture is notoriously hard. We did get cushions,and we located some lovely covers to put on our couch and chairs in the sitting room,but want to measure before we buy.

This week I start to teach 2 new classes,of Freshmen,who have now finished their 10 days of military training. Then next week we have a week’s holiday for National Day. We are planning to go travelling but more of this anon,as my herb tea beckons.