First Post...The Adventure is soon to begin

Ni Hao! 
Welcome to my blog all about teaching English in China, my adventures in China, and other travel adventures while in Asia.

I will depart this fine country in less than two weeks to teach abroad in Shanghai for around 9 months. Honestly, I am more nervous about teaching middle schoolers than I am about living in China. I have only a little bit of experience teaching--I have tutored kids before and have sat in on some elementary school classes, but that is it. Gulp. I am up to the challenge though! Supposedly, Chinese students are more behaved in the classroom than American students and teachers are widely respected over in the "Mainland," as they say. I am preparing for the 35-50 students I will be teaching in my class by looking up middle school activities on Pinterest. Haha there's not much I am actually able to prepare at this point. When I get there they will provide me with a textbook to use for my classes. I will only be teaching 25 hours a week, which is nothing to complain about. Since I'm going to have some extra time on my hands, I hope to find some kind of internship as well.

Right now I am at the tail end of my preparation....now I just actually have to pack all of my stuff into one giant suitcase. So far, I have masks for all the smog I will encounter, a water heater, warm clothes, and a decent stash of American food such as Pop Tarts, popcorn, mac and cheese, peanut butter, and chocolate chips to name a few things. Is there some food items I'm missing? There will be no shortage of noodles and tea over there!

I now have my tourist visa which I will have to exchange for a work visa once I am over there. I can't lie, I'm a little nervous about that part since the laws have recently become more stringent. I will most likely be traveling to Hong Kong to get that within two months of my entrance into Shanghai. When I first get there, I will have orientation for a week while staying at a hotel in Shanghai, and then be placed in a furnished apartment with either one or two roommates.

One of the things I am most excited about is probably all of the food! Shanghai is the most populated city in the world, and naturally has some of the best food in the world. Since Shanghai is a port city, there is a great supply of fresh seafood including a specialty called "hairy crab." On top of that, there are dumplings, stinky tofu (which is actually stinky, but supposedly good), tons of noodle dishes, frog legs, this dish called drunk chicken, etc...I want to try it all! And yes, that means I will try a little bit of dog, although they are more often considered pets over there now.

In other news, I have the Rosetta Stone for Mandarin so I am trying to learn a little bit in my free time right now. It is a tough language with no official alphabet and four different tones, but I'm trying! I know that I will stand out no matter what I do over there (pale with blond hair isn't something most Chinese see on a daily basis)...although my height fits in rather nicely. All the clothes and shoes are going to fit me over there!

I'm super excited for this new experience, and who knows, maybe I will even fall in love with teaching! I am determined to come back in nine months though, even though a lot of expats (foreigners who work in the country) end up staying for awhile longer.

I will update this blog regularly. I will try to write a post at least once every two weeks once I'm in China so keep reading if you are interested in my travels and especially if you think you might also want to do this someday!