Everything is fine, and we are settling in okay.  Our apartment is nice, but it needed some cleaning to make it comfortable for me.  Gordon has been going out in the city to find the things we need and has had many adventures.  Some of the items that I use every day at home are not used much here, so are hard to find.  Then there’s the language problem!  We have used Google Translate several times, and we also have a “taxi book” that has locations printed in Chinese that we can show to the driver.

In China you are expected to pay everything ahead – electricity, water, etc.  We have a card for each utility and we have to go to different places to “top it off” as they say.  Our electricity went out yesterday morning before I even had a shower and I had to go to school without doing my hair!  Gordon had to go out and try to find the place to pay, then bring the card home and put it in the meter to restart the power.  Even at the nail salon you are expected to put some money in an account to be used each time you come in.  I haven’t been there yet, but a friend told me how to do it.

The people at school are very nice and come from all over the world.  Many of the new teachers have small children and they have been with us a lot during this orientation week.  My head of school is from New Zealand, but his most recent post was Belgium.  My partner teachers are from Australia, Greece, Spain, and Latvia.  Two other new teachers are from the U.S.  The work at school is overwhelming right now because all of the systems are new to me.  Also, I have to attend the trainings for elementary and secondary, since I will be teaching K-8.  I have two music rooms – one on the 2nd floor for elementary, and one on the 4th floor for secondary.  The elementary classroom is in need of a lot of organizing, and I will be working on that this weekend.

Gordon has been working hard to make our home comfortable, and he has joined me at school for some of the orientation.  He has also been talking to the HR department at his school about visas and other paperwork that they need.  He will go to work on August 15.

People in China don’t like dryers, they believe that clothes should dry in the air.  Therefore, no apartments have dryers. We were able to find a small dryer and have it delivered, but the vent hose was missing.  We eventually found one, but in the meantime made do with a Boomwhacker!

Another surprising thing about China:  No tipping – anywhere – anytime.  Wow!