Shanghai!

The first thing you notice about Shanghai is the heat, then the pollution. Must have seen blue sky only once since I've been here! Once you get used to that, the city is pretty amazing. Its divided into two parts: Pudong and Puxi. Pudong is the businessy part of town with the huge skyscrapers and TV tower (googleimage pudong skyline) which is really impressive. Then Puxi is where the old town is, Yunan gardens, People's Square, the big avenues and touristy areas. Everything moves so fast, and allready a couple places I saw when I arrived have been demolished and rebuilding has started. A lot of it is for the Expo 2010 which is going to be huge and Shanghai is preparing really well for it. Yesterday went to a bar where you could see all of Pudong and we went for sunset so gradually saw all the lights of the buildings coming on it was amazing, then we headed for Nanjing road for a neon light invasion it was mental
We are staying at the Bell language school in Pudong, but quite far from the centre. This means we're in quite a local area so get a few stares in the street, although now most of the neighborhood is used to us hanging arounmd. It's weird to have developped a routine here, we all have our favourite food places and bars and stuff, but thursday we all head to our towns!
The dorms are really nice and there's about 80 of us there, so its al a bit like fresher's week again. My roomate is Ben hes cool hes from LONDON. We have mandarin lesons in the morning then teaching lessons and workshops in the afternoon. Mandarin is tough to learn, especially pronouncing the different tones but its coming along a bit, and really NO ONE speaks english so ill be speaking loads i reckon.
The British council course is very good they take care of us really well and we've been to see an acrobatics show, peking opear, and had a huge meal/party at their office there was SO MUCH FOOD it was pimp i even tried jellyfish
The food here is delicious everything has so much flavour and so cheap. By the way fro anyone who said they were considering visiting, know that a big bottle of beer costs 30p, thats all i gota say...
Started teaching a few classes as practice and they were really loud and excited, but there was only 25 of them so I duno how im gona handle double! but it went well and the observing treacher gave good reviews so should be fine.
As far as nightlife goes we've been out a few times to western bars mostly, which can get quite pricy but its good fun. Last time we went out, came outside and there was a man with a monkey chillin there!
So I looked up my town (Wanzhou) in Lonely Planet CHina and all it had to say was "a grimy town rising in steep gradients" then it goes on to explain how to avoid it when taking the Yangste cruise... whoop!
Thursday i take a 28 hour train to CHongqing with a few others then getting picked up to head to Wanzhou, pretty excited, ill write again then, got some videos and pictures coming aswell!
ciao! and remember facebook doesnt work so email to get in touch

Me voici a Shanghai! La premiere chose qu'on remarque ici c'est la chaleur, suivi par la pollution. Des qu'on s'y habitue, c'est vraiment une vile incroyable. ELle est divisee en deux parties: Pudong et Puxi. Pudong, c'est le quartier business avec les grattes ciels et la TV tower. Puxi c'est la ou se trouve People's Square, la vielle ville, les jardins YuNan, et les quartiers touristiques.
On est tous a la Bell language School, a Pudong mais assez loin du centre, et comme on est 80 Anglais, on se fais assez remarque lorsqu'on se balade! Les chambres sont sympas (ya la clim!) et c'est un peu comme a la fac. On a des cours de Mandarin le matin, puis des ateliers et d'autres cours sur l'enseignement dans l'apres midi. J'ai deja donne quelques cours en entrainement a des etudiants chinois et ca s'est ssez bien passe, meme s'ils faisaient beacoup de bruit et de blagues!
Le mandarin ca avance aussi un peu, mais c'est dur de pronocer tous les tons differents. Mais bon personne parle Anglais donc je vais etre oblige d'apprendre vite!
Le British COuncil s'occupe vraiment bien de nous ici, et on est alle voir un spectacle acrobatique, peking opera, et on a eu un diner enorme avec trooop de bouffe! J'ai meme goute un peu de meduse c'etait bof. Mais la plupart de la bouffe ici est vraiment bonne et je vais esayer d'apprendre a en cuisiner un peu
la biere est a 30 centimes aussi, pas mal!
Donc voila, Jeudi je prend un train de 28 heures pour Chongqing, puis 2 heures de voiture pour Wanzhou, j'ecrirai plus des que j'y suis.
A bientot! ps facebook ne marche pas donc utilisez hotmail pour me contacter!

Quick word before I go

2 days to go and I'm off to Shanghai! No idea what to expect for the year ahead, hopefully I'll be speaking mandarin and be a pro at teaching when I get back, but I have a lot to learn. My impressions of China come from books, magazines and TV documentaries, so I really don't know too much about life in China, especially not in the town I'm going to, Wanzhou. I'm definently scared of becoming a teacher, and also of not being able to communicate with people. The concept of being in China is really sureal at the moment as Ive spent the whole summer chilling in Portugal, France, and Switzerland, and although I talked about what it was going to be like with a lot of people, I really can't imagine it. So here's a lil blog to document my adventures. Apparently facebook is unavailable in some parts of the country at the moment, so I'll probably be using email to communcate with people. Hope everyone is having a good summer!

Encore deux jours et je pars a Shanghai! J'ai beaucoup discute avec des gens a propos de ce qui m'attend en Chine, mais mes connaissances et impressions de ce pays viennent vraiment seulement de journaux et de livres, donc je ne sais vraiment pas a quoi m'attendre. Surtout dans la petite ville ou on m'envoi: Wanzhou. J'ai passe un super ete a voyager entre le Portugal, la France, et la Suisse, et donc pour moi l'idee d'etre en Chine dans quelques jours semble tres surreelle. Voici donc un petit blog pour documenter mes aventures.  Apparament, facebook ne fonctionne pas en ce moment dans beaucoup du pays, donc je communiquerai plutot avec hotmail. J'espere que tout le monde passe un bon ete!