Hebei

Well i am here.
I have been well greeted by the school who have been very help full. i have had plumbers carpet fitters and a computer tech to fix my internet connection.

The other teaches seem very nice and i have been given the kinder garden position as they think i have enough energy to keep up.

my apartment is big. two bedroom for my self and a nice kitchen and toilet area...

i have training on thursday and friday then start on monday.
Liyang is ment to join my on friday but i am not sure if she will...
it was great to see her again if only for a couple of hours.

today is the lantern festival, IE people have been blowing things up since 8 am and it continues all around the city, if i stayed in bed i could well be waking up in a war zone as it isnt to dissimilar.

apparently the chinese have fired a rocket at the clouds to bring rain to the northern areas that are currently in drought.
not sure if i believe that... the city is looking very mercky today but that is mostly due to the amount of smoke let of by these rockets and bangers that are constantly exploding on my block.

honestly there stings of bangers that last about a minute each sound like a machine gun.
Mike a teacher that lives next door, went out drinking last night, i heard from him today at around 12 that his head was in agony from the constant explosions,
with every large rocket fired the after affects are more bangers, also the entire city falls into a car alarm paradise.

Imagine new years eve /day 12:01 and multiply that for every second in the day.
NOT GOOD

the people in this city seem to be keen to be seen with a white man, on my first day (2 hours after i arrived) i went ot eat with simon, (a chinese guy who is my tour guide) and i noticed 3 girls taking pictures of me from the other side of the restaurant, then 2 came up to me and asked if they could have their picture taken with me. all very interesting and kinda socking. .
still great fun.
i hear from the other teaches her that if you go to a club/ pub you do not need to bring any money, as all drinks are free to white people.


so far i have met people form EF (english first) hutchins (my company) and another one that i forget now.
I also met people from the local university, they get payed 2000 RMB and have to find there own accommodation, EF get around 6000 and have to find there own accommodation, i get 4500 and a free large apartment in the city centre, 2 free bikes, and the tax is taken care of by the school.
I have got it quite nice here.
in shanghai i avoided buying a good phone, it turns out this was a good idea as i have now bought a phone that can take 2 simcards at the same time, do the internet and QQ (the local chat, msn thing) and touch screen and all the bits and bobs for 700RMB around £70.

i can eat for around 5RMB and every thing is alot cheaper than shanghai, even phone calls. 1.5quai or 0.1p per min, amazingly cheap if you only ring in Hebei province.
I must dash as SunShine is picking me up and taking my somewhere,,,,,,, Dont know where.............. to do something, i dont know what............. all very strange,


SunShine is my translator / teaching assistant / PA, she is organising every thing and even tuned my tv to get English channels, 21 years old and has a seance of humour. ( i did make the mistake of making a joke and then trying to explain it, some where i mentioned it was humourus,, then i got asked about humour, to which i said i could not explain the meaning as chinese didnt have this.... she looked it up and told me off....) hehehehehe. poor girl,


i will be on here more than once a week as long as my laptop is working, so feel free to look more then once a week.