Nihao from China - We've landed!

Welcome to China and welcome to our blog about our life in the lovely Suzhou (pronounced 'su-joe)- 35 mins west of Shanghai! Over the next year or so we will regularly update this blog so that you, friends and family, can take part in our lives and read about our impressions of this vast, colourful and exciting country! We would be very happy if you would leave comments.

We landed in Shanghai 3 days ago after having been on a nearly 20 hour journey with the lovely Emirates from Glasgow. In the days leading up to our departure from our home in Glasgow, we'd been packing the whole flat and put lots of boxes and furniture into storage, so it's ready for when we decide to return to the West, and those days were incredibly hectic, nervous and excited. A good friend of Anette's, Stine from Denmark, had come to visit on the Monday and instead of being a tourist, she became an invaluable help in the moving-process. We just cannot thank her enough!

We finally said an emotional goodbye to our life and amazing friends in Glasgow on Thursday and nervously and excitedly set off to the East and China. We arrived in Suzhou on Friday night, and were greeted by members of staff from the uni, who showed us to our flat and then left us again. We were alone in a flat in China, jetlagged and tired, but in remarkably good spirits and we set off to search for some food!

Our flat is in a brand new complex of high-rise apartment blocks, and it's appropriately named Scholar Garden. We are on the 7th floor out of a mere 18, and we have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and a large living area. We are sharing the flat with another new teacher named Phil from the US, and we are loving our flat. It's clean and spacious and now it has even got wireless internet! We will upload some photos soon.

On Saturday a guy, Pippo, from the Uni came to show us around the Education-park area. In the area where we live there are at least 3 universities and a lot of shops and restaurants. Everything is newly built, so it looks absolutely amazing. Pippo helped us set up a bank account, registered our address with the police, helped us set up internet, showed us the school where we will be working as of tomorrow, and took us to a massive supermarket where we were going to buy beer, water and some cleaning supplies - so just the essentials! The supermarket was the biggest supermarket we have ever seen! It had 109 checkouts and you just couldn't see the walls anywhere. In the centre of the supermarket there was a regular market atmosphere complete with stalls and hot-food places and even large fishtanks where customers could pick their own fresh fish and have it killed before their very eyes - food does not get fresher than that!

Yesterday, Sunday, the super had to come and show us how to turn the TV on. You would have thought that 3 people with university degrees would have sussed that sort of thing by now, but no! Chinese televisions apparently don't have normal buttons! While he was there he also sorted out our overflowing toilet in our ensuite bathroom. We could not communicate with him, so before he knew it, a jet-stream of water shot vertically upwards into his face, and the poor bloke was not amused. - we were though, as it seems that Anette has a habit of shooting toilet water whenever she visits the Far East (check facebook-blog from Japan for more details)! Only this time it was someone else in the firing line!

So far we are absolutely loving it here. We have more or less combated our jetlag and the area we live in is so lovely and modern that it doesn't feel totally alian - we even have a Italian coffee place (with Western prices) should we need a restbite from potential cultureshock.

There are lots of foodplaces around and the food is fantastic! It's so cheap to eat out that we highly doubt we will ever use the kitchen for more than making tea and storing the mugs. Lunch and dinners are between 50p - £1.50 per person, and the portions are generous and tasty! We have already had a variety of foods ranging from noodlesoups with meat and vegetables (including the ever wonderful chickenfeet) to tasty dumplings and large plates of good 'homecooked' food! For breakfast we eat sweetbread and bananas. We have not found any cereal yet, so banana seems to hit the spot in the morning.

We start work tomorrow. We are both really excited and looking forward to meeting our colleagues and settling into a work-routine. We don't start teaching until next Monday, so we have a few days to get used to the school and find out what we are actually teaching and what is expected of us. We have met some graduates from the uni, and their English is pretty good, so we feel optimistic and nolonger daunted by the prospect of teaching for the very first time. Mind you, when Sunday evening comes around we might feel differently! - We'll let you know how it all goes.

Please pass this link onto others who may be interested and once again you are strongly encouraged to leave comments, as we would just love to hear from you all.

Here are some pictures of our flat and the view from our balcony. - Click to enlarge.