I have arrived!

Sorry for the delay on updating, it's been a very busy week.

Here are a bunch of pictures and a short video just to give you an idea what I've been experiencing so far.  I just got into an apartment on Sunday September 10, after spending a week in a hotel while the school put finishing touches on our apartments.  The accomodations that I was welcomed to last Monday night were horrible and we refused to stay there for even one night.  But that's okay now we are in our homes and I can't wait to make it my own.

For those of you who do not know, when I arrived at the airport I was told that myself and the other Bond teachers on the same flight as me had all been upgraded to Business Class. Below are some pictures of what I experienced while on the flight.  In general the movie selection on the airline wasn't that good but I spent most of my time sleeping, reading and listening to my audiobook so it didn't bother me that much.

My feet barely reached the seat in front of me, let alone the floor.

Here is one of the other Bond teachers modelling how far down the seats went into sleeper seats.

My dinner on the flight, about an hour after leaving Toronto.

The airline put us up in the Hilton in Beijing overnight while we waited for our connecting flight to Nanjing.

It was a nice comfortable room that I didn't want to leave.

To the left of this picture were the toilet and shower each in their own little walled in stalls.

This is the view from my window at the hotel, luckily the room was very well sound-proofed I barely heard any planes when I was struggling with jet lag that night. 

Here are Maggie and Paul, the main two teachers I will be working with this year as we wait for our connecting flight to Nanjing.

Here is the terminal, off this little round room there were five gates all with flights arriving and departing every few minutes.

This is the apartment I was shown to when we first arrived.  This is actually a converted dorm buildings that all teachers live in.  There was no kitchenette and no real space.  The bathroom had chipped floor tiles.  The beds themselves had such large body imprints it was disgusting.  The shape of the walls were not much better.

This is the top of the tv and it is absolutely caked with dust.

I must remind you this is not where I am living but when I saw shown this it was very hard to picture myself living here for the next two years.  Must admit Maggie and I were both contemplating a return to the airport we were just that disgusted and upset. We were taken to a hotel shortly after these pictures were taken and we never had to see the rooms again, we stayed in the hotel from Monday night until Sunday afternoon.

The building on the right is the one where my classroom and office are.  We are located on the fourth floor of the building in the International Department.

This display greets me every morning when I reach my floor. On this floor is also an American program that has two teachers teaching the AP program.  

Every morning when we arrive the students are doing their exercises. All 5000 or so of them group together on the sports field and do various stretches and other exercises, it usually takes them about 30 minutes or so.  They jog from the buildings to the field and then jog back afterwards.

On Thursday night, the Bond administrators wanted to take us to dinner.  We drove about 30 minutes outside of the area that we live in, to the Confucius Temple, which is now a large shopping district with both Western and Eastern stores.

The restaurant we ate at specializes if giving tourists a taste of various local dishes without having to pay for an entire plate full.  Each of those little dishes in the picture is a local meal that we could find at any other restaurant full sized.  I tried a lot of the stuff but most of it wasn't really to my taste. 

After dinner our hosts took us on a night cruise through the canals to look at the lanterns that are found all around the buildings. 

I'm really enjoying my time here, despite Monday's accomodation debacle.  I'm trying different foods but I haven't eaten yet what we would consider a full meal all week.  This afternoon after school Maggie and I are hitting a grocery store so hopefully tonight's dinner is full of protein and I am able to eat it all. 

I wanted to show you a virtual tour of my apartment but the video is not uploading. I'll have to go back and take pictures of the apartment again and do it that way.  So until tomorrow then folks.