Shanghai, a town of 22 million people............

Well, I have well and truly caught the travel bug. On Wednesday we ventured into Shanghai on a staff excursion. I promptly followed this up with another trip on Friday followed by a trip to Suzhou on Saturday. Shanghai is amazing, such a big and busy city. The train stations are interesting experiences - you wait in a waiting room and then when your train is called, you line up and push your way onto the train (despite the fact that there are allocated seats!). On Wednesday, I missed my train back to Wuxi (I stayed in town to hang out with David, my friend from the UK) but was lucky enough to meet some new friends on the way back - I have had invitations to go to dinner at my new Chinese friends' homes and for them to take me singing!! They loved practising their English and I was able to have a practise of my Chinese too. Suzhou is gorgeous, beautiful canals and gardens, will definitely go back there soon. I bought my first piece of artwork there - an oil painting by a famouse Chinese painter from the area. Am very proud of it and looking forward to getting it framed soon. We start 'real school' tomorrow - a week of curriculum planning and PYP training. I get to meet my teaching assistant too - not bad for a class of 8 children! Will post some photos of my travels soon. Take care, Anna.