Just got word that my Dad is mailing us over a wok cookbook from his extensive library, and apparently it ain't cheap mailing stuff all the way to China - thanks, Dad! I don't know what it costs to send something over here, but it wasn't too $$ sending a small box to my daughters up in New York and Vermont from Shanghai, I wonder if it costs more to send it here than to send something to the states??
Reminds me that we still have not received our first mail test-run (a small package) from the states (Thanks, again, Jack and Sheila!) and it's been over three weeks now. We ordered some critical software for our work here - MSWord Office!, and we are beginning to fear the worst - all mail comes to the security gate here at the school and perhaps the guards may have purloined our package...that would be a real bummer because 1) it was expensive software, and 2) Microsoft will not let me purchase the software online since I am located in China! so we would have to try to have it mailed here again...??? hmmmm...a conundrum for sure.
Anyway, we are headed for a short train ride to a neighboring city today (Saturday), much bigger than DanYang, called Nanjing. The same place we went for our Valentine's Day dinner. They have a French grocery store called Carrefour, that has selections of food that we can't find here, namely spaghetti sauce, some canned options (the Chinese put NOTHING in cans for some reason, which makes no sense at all seeing as it would be easy to create that whole manufacturing sector), fruits and vegetables with a more Western flair, hamburger meat, etc...it's worth the 40 minute train ride on the fast train (270kph) and we bring a suitcase and stock up on supplies and freeze some stuff so we have some eating options...
Jenn's tutoring job pretty much fell in her lap last week so I'm going to put the word out and maybe I can get one also, in the evenings...in Shanghai, private English tutoring runs about $150 - $250 per hour but here in this small city we are looking at around $14 - $20 per hour...but the xtra $$ would come in handy since our bills from home are still in $$ and we make 1/7th of that here...
For anyone considering doing what we are doing, well, I just may write a book about how to do what we are doing (you can read all about moving and living in other countries at this great website) and a whole section would talk about paying bills, the obstacles of banking in China, etc....
We are in for a nice meal tonight at home (probably spaghetti!) and tomorrow we are being taken on a 3-hour bus ride to another city that they say is historically ancient and has amazing architecture, Wuzhen. Other than the extended bus ride we are excited about seeing another city and the trip will include lots of English/Chinese dialogue of course, and I will be sure to take plenty of pics...
The classroom teaching is going very well (I'm going to start putting our TESL lesson plans on the blog for other teachers) and last week we were part of the founding ceremony for my school's 3rd Annual English Club kick-off...this is the #1 high school in the city so it is an honor when they take the two top students from each of my 16 classes and created two classes (one hour and 40 minutes) just for teaching them more English and of course Jennifer and I are the star attractions...the news media (TV and journalists) were there again, along with all the students, and they had me give a speech along with the V.P and Director of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Chen (Victor), and it was quite exciting.
We are really proud to be able to offer our skills to these kids (it didn't take long but I now feel like they are my kids!) and both of our schools, so we are now racking our brains to come up with excellent lesson plans that will convey our passion for teaching here...it's a first for both of us but we are confident and we seem to be natural's at this...
More later, we are off food shopping...
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