It’’s been a busy week for us. We have been at the new school for exactly one week and, for the most part, we love it.

The work schedule is lighter than we had anticipated so we have a fair bit of free time. The kids we are teaching are mostly fantastic and, unlike the last school, they are more than happy to talk in lessons. The school campus still blows me away despite the fact I see it everyday - it certainly puts most UK schools (and perhaps even universities) to shame. I”ll upload some pictures soon.

Last night we went to a little international party to celebrate the mid-autumn festival. We were offered many (mostly disgusting) moon cakes and watched a series of (mostly impressive) performances including singing, dancing, Chinese opera and poetry. While the food wasn”t particularly great it did give us a chance to meet other westerners currently living in Jiaxing. Among a few others, we met an Australian girl named Zoe (18) who is currently teaching at a school about 15 minutes away from us. She has been in the city for a little longer than us and, as such, game us lots of useful information regarding banks, restaurants and supermarkets. As the evening drew to an end, we all swapped contact details and headed home.

Today we were in town when, though some crazy coincidence, we bumped into Zoe again - this time with a friend. It couldn”t have worked out better because she was able to show us around town and take us to the various places she had mentioned the night before.

Her friend (a guy whose name I have just this moment forgotten) was also really cool. He’’s a bit older than us (29) and has been traveling for about 2 years. Unfortunately, although he had planned to spend another year teaching in China, due to visa difficulties he has to leave tomorrow.

We are a bit concerned because the problem that he came up against has the potential to mess up our plans too. Basically, because visa guidelines seem to change daily in China, what would have been a simple process 2 weeks ago is now a void of red tape and paperwork. Nevertheless, we don”t think there’’s much point worrying about it - we”re just gonna wait and see what happens.

Over and out!

P.s.

Dan, if you”re reading this, good luck at University - I”m sure you”ll have a fantastic time. To my little brother and sister, happy 14th birthday!!!

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