Blog Post no 1

20th October 2012.

Hello. This is my blog. I started this so that I can document to other cyber souls what Shanghai is like through the eyes of a 22 year old graduate.

I've come to Shanghai mainly because I got a job here. I am teaching English on a 1 year contract with Shane schools. They have a number of schools around China and in other countries too.
I'm now into my third week here, so I've still quite a fresh face in these new surroundings but I have settled well.

There is a lot that I can say as there are a lot of differences between English and Chinese life. For example I could say that the Mento's here taste rather soapy or the one English channel ICS shows repeats of 60 minute makeover constantly and has late night 'High Drama' which usually consists of an old film from the 90's.

My first impressions then of Shanghai as a city, it is dynamic, constantly developing and eager to develop and impress. It has almost a youthful grandeur that it wants to portray to the world. I'm not sure how representative some of the buildings that are being strung up are of Chinese life. These magnificent buildings lack history, they are all so young and are really only representative of the last 20 years which is quite a bizarre concept.

So the first two weeks have been pretty hectic. I arrived on Friday the 5th and stayed in a Hotel which was like a haven from the city as there were no windows. Whilst this was happening our Welfare officer Alex who is the nicest Chinese person I've met showed us around some apartments. We (me and Welsh Sean) were transfixed by one which was on the 31st floor of an apartment block in a complex called the beautiful city or something. Our moving in day was quite momentous, we had to tranfer all our stuff initially then did police registrations, internet installations, we got a sofa from a dude then took a trip to IKEA.

I've been to the Shanghai Masters which is fully deserved of the best tournament on the ATP tour 2009, 2010, 2011. Watched Federer, Murray, Djokovic, Tsonga do their thing. I went to check out the Shanghai Hairy Crabs today, a rugby club a little out of town, but with 60 playing members it looks definitely worth a join.

My job has been ok, I work Sunday to Thursday in 5 different schools. I'm at my language school tomorrow. The lunch food has got some time getting used to it, but now I really enjoy it and may even pop in early for breakfast. My schedule is ok, I have 20 hours of teaching time but then like 15 hours of traveling, prepping time, so I'm fairly busy.
My first week of lessons were mainly introductory. I did simon says, tictactoe, a writing race game, next week is where I begin to teach off the syllabus.

 Well I could talk more about the food, classroom games, what the people are like, first night out in Shanghai, but these things can form part of blog post no 2.