“Guess What Carcass This Came Off Of!”

This is a bit backwards, as it's from my first night in Beijing (23rd Feb - sorry for any confusion!!)

So, it’s my first night in Beijing and I am exhausted. My journey from Leeds to Beijing (to my hotel room) took a whole day and now that I’m here… I hardly feel like I’ve left home. As I’m struggling from severe jetlag, I’ve yet to venture out and see everything. BUT the good news is, having an organisation here to pick you up and take you to your hotel room makes the whole process a lot less scary. The whole process once I landed in Beijing was painless – no trouble at immigration, no missing baggage, and a bunch of smiling faces to greet me right at the meeting spot in the airport itself. From there it was a simple coach ride to the hotel… and in a few days we’ll commence orientation.

Today was all about getting settled in and relaxing. All we accomplished was getting our room keys, bathing (thankfully) and then heading downstairs for a meal in the hotel… The meal was proper Chinese buffet, but there were no signs with each curry so we had no idea what we were eating at my table. To be honest, the food was lovely and you couldn’t fault it, but you did have to do a whole lotta “hm.. is it mushroom or squid?” “beef or pork?” “bean curd or chicken?” – Now, being a fake-a-terian myself, I struggled a bit since I like to live in ignorance with my consumption of meat… not question which animal is floating in the curry…. But ah well, it was fine!

Tomorrow, I get to sit in on a few classes that are already in session to see how other TEFL teachers set out to teach and plan their lessons. Unfortunately, the school doesn’t allow filming (which I can understand) BUT a shame as I would have loved to have posted real lessons from Beijing for everyone to see.

In any case, I will definitely have more to talk about tomorrow, as I’ve got an early start at 8:30 – will be running around Beijing sitting in on lessons, checking out what the interns are up to and of course, taking in the scenery.

Tonight? Well, it’s not 8PM yet but I think it’s my bedtime as I’ve been awake for more than 24 hours now. I plan to snooze in my bed hoping that 1 of 47 Chinese channels just might have subtitles! … I’ll also try and ignore… what sounds like never-ending fireworks outside my window.

Until then!

Nayani

• China
• teach in China internship
• teach in China
• TEFL
• TESOL
• TEFL job