Bye Bye China?????

Well, it’s been two weeks of living here now and I must say…I am loving it!
The place is busier than a beehive, but it has a certain something :)

I have even mastered the art of crossing the street (so far at least).
For those of you who have seen Disney’s Mulan: I am crossing like grandma … close your eyes and just walk! As said before, the traffic does not stop; it slows down and curves around you (all 4 lanes of it). This place really should be on any driver’s test route: if you can drive here… you can drive anywhere! In two week’s time I have only seen one accident here and that was literally only a scratch. My “please don’t kill me” mantra has gone down from 25 times to only two times per crossing, so that’s a good improvement. When crossing one does not run, one strolls at a good pace, never slowing down or speeding up. The traffic adjusts its speed to just miss you by a hair and swerve around you.

The apartment I am living in is quite big: two double bedrooms, a good size living room, bathroom and kitchen. At the moment I am on my own here, as Lynda has left and there is no new teacher yet. There should be another girl coming soon, but I am quite happy living on my own for now. I’ll post some pics once I get around to them.

The teaching is going not too bad. At the moment I have classes with ages from 4 to 8 years old. The kids are great fun. It is so fun to see them trying to impress each other and the teacher with all their knowledge of English. Any games I can think of that test their vocabulary goes down a treat.

Tuesday 6 May 2008 - 19:52
I was writing the above this morning. Since then a lot has changed. Tonight my colleague Ben and me are going to Hangzhou on the night train. We have our medical tests tomorrow at the China International Hospital. Depending on how we pass these, we will get a work permit.
Unfortunately that’s not the last of the bad news: we are not allowed to go to Hong Kong anymore to get our visas (it would mean “leave” China, get a new visa and return on our work visas). Since May 1st the rules have changed: we need to go to our own countries. This means that poor Ben and me have to fly to the US and Holland, get our new visas approved and return on the next flight to China. Luckily the flights will be paid for us by our employer (otherwise I don’t think either of us would come back).

Off to the train station now. At least that is a nice adventure, haven’t been on an all-nighter in years :)
I’ll keep you guys posted on my return tomorrow night.Keep your fingers crossed that I am all healthy and will pass my medical and that in due time I will get back to Holland and get my new visa.