So after the most flawless 27 hours of traveling we've ever experienced, Steve and I made it safe and sound to our apartment in Harbin. We settled in for a few hours and then embarked on a short tour of our surrounding area. We were doing pretty well but ended up passing out by about 6:00PM! Of course, we were laying wide awake in bed by about 4:00AM the next morning. Oy, jetlag.
Our internet access was not working until about 5 minutes ago, so I decided I would update first thing to ease any concerns. Not that we've really had time anyway! We have been nonstop in orientation, training, and Mandarin Chinese lessons. Last night we had a great welcome dinner with a lot of the staff from the school where we'll be teaching and yesterday afternoon had a walking and driving tour of the city which was great! It looks like Harbin should be a fun place to explore. Oh, and it is as cold as we were expecting!! We all nearly froze to death walking around the city yesterday, but we're learning to put on way more layers than you think you need. The biggest shock was when they told us we had class(es) to teach this weekend! Steve is out observing a class right now, taking notes, and preparing for his first lesson on Friday or Saturday. I have two classes back to back to teach on Saturday.. intense!
We have 8 others in our program, including people from Australia, New Zealand, England, America, Canada, and South Africa. The guy from South Africa (Shaun) is our roommate for the first month until some of the other teachers move away and there is an open apartment for him. He's hilarious and we're having a lot of fun with him! In fact, all of our classmates are great, which is so nice. Nobody is negative, culturally insensitive, or shy so we have a great dynamic in the training classes.
I'm meeting Steve at the school when he's done observing his class and then we're going shopping. We haven't had time to buy food or anything for our apartment, so we're going to be getting as much as we can carry home of that tonight. Anyway, I'm going to use the rest of my free time right now to organize my stuff a little bit better. Comment on this blog or send an e-mail if you have any questions.
We love you all!!
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3 comments:
wow Steve going to class... that's a first
How is homemaking different in China than in the United States? Any tips on how to achieve simple bliss while overseas?
Eat some street meat for me!
Just kidding, don't eat that stuff.
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