Postcards from Ngland: Teacher Training in Shanghai (2007)

My itchy feet started back in 2007 when serendipity landed me in a teaching job in China. There I met many fantastic people, some of whom have become my life-long friends. Needless to say we had a great time over the year, and I managed to travel to over 40 places!

So I'll start at the beginning - Shanghai, where we spent our first 2 weeks taking a crash course on how to teach.

It wasn't the first time I'd been to Shanghai, and I've been back there since 2007. Maybe I'm biased, having grown up in Hong Kong, but my impression of Shanghai has always been on the uninspiring side. For me it's just a huge metropolis, split between lots of expensive foreign brands, and pockets of derelict buildings from the Mao era. The genuinely historic sites are way off the beaten track (if they exist at all), whilst the famous ancient relics could only be visited if you paid a high price and were prepared to get sardined with local tourists.

Nonetheless, our first 2 weeks in China were novel and fun. Here are a few highlights :)

Zhujiajiao (朱家角) water village, on the outskirts of Shanghai