Novotel Hefei

Well, it was another 3 day weekend. We love these. One thing we have found, though, is that many of the places that we can go for a three day weekend from Anqing are started to get limited when it comes to variety. Also, my mother is going to visit in a little over a month, so we decided to go to the capital of Anhui and enjoy our weekend unstead of trying to find something new, so...Hefei it is!

As some of you may know, we live in Anqing, Anhui Province, China. It is a small town and it has a few trains to immensely wonderful places, but here is the glitch, not all of them we can take at a time convenient to us. Therefore, we have gotten into the habit of going to Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province, by bus and then taking their train. More choices all around. This time we went up to Hefei on 13 November - our 2 1/2 year ...

Uda Buda. Have now been in China for two weeks, and it seems like its been a whirlwind. On the go, the internet is slow, and access is not always available. Even though I don't yet speak Chinese, the peoples up here in Huangshn hsve been awesome. Arrived late night on October 3, and have daily had the thought of keeping it real by blogging regularly, but have yet been able to reach these services more than twice. Let me try to bring you up to date. The ...

... due to the fact we went back on ourselves and past the town of Mr Hu. About half an hour after passing Tankou a whole bunch of other people got on the bus and it was very crowded all the way to Shangers. It wasn't until about 3 hours later and a toilet stop that the fun really began. We had been talking to a guy called Miles previously about what to do in Shanghai he had given us a few tips. It was verging on late by this point, around 21:45 and a few people had got moved ...

... shops, back and forth to the bus station we settled into Motel 168. Motel 168 is a chain that caters to business travelers. The friendly staff introduced us to Dave (his English name) who helped us book a ticket to Xi,an for this evening. We invited him for dinner. He took us to this nice restaurant where we proceeded to eat enough to feed an army. The dishes were delicious and for the first time I am ...

... per class rather than 60 as in Hefei. Not to mention how lovely Suzhou is. We'll see how things go. This week sees the beginning of a huge month-long holiday for most of China. I'm struggling to decide where to go. I'm meeting a friend in Guangzhou on the 4th Feb and don't know if, before this, I want to go to the north of China to see historical, "educational" sights or the south to be war

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, the blur of days inbetween, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day....sad to say this month of festive feasting and happiness has raced past with me barely noticing. I am now certain that there's some kind of intrinsic need for humans to celebrate something! The last four months have been strange in every way. My work has been a bouncy castle of enjoyment at managing to teach something, anything, to a class of 60-odd (mostly) non-English-speaking ...

Its strange to think that I've been in China for nearly two months now! I'm getting used to life here and am slowly realising that the strange and random things that happen everyday here are just part of normal Chinese life. One of my students is called Final Fantasy. Following attempts to provide English names (most Chinese adults have a Chinese name and an English name, and foreigners who come to China are often given a ...

Hey Everyone, I have been getting emails from several people expressing concern over the news of Typhoon Wipha slamming eastern China, namely Shanghai. I and the other girls with me are all safe and ok in Hefei. We seem to have gotten out of Shanghai just in time. It was raining a lot while we were there but that was just the beginning of it ...

... who need to avoid it if you ever visit China. The second meal was delicious! Everyone is so, so kind here. They love red hair and green eyes and think that pale skin is beautiful! Quite different I think from the view in Britain. One of the women thought my freckle was a bit of cake hehe. It really is a novelty having everyone think I'm this beautiful alien!! They also consider being fat as a compliment although the younger ...