Hello there!

Welcome to my travel diary :) Sorry it's taking me so long to set up, but it takes quite a few days to settle down after a monster travel over thousands of miles!

I've made it to Jinan, and have settled myself in ok. Visited the shcool that I'll be teaching at, and met some of the kids who are great! Living with a South African guy called Mark who's been here for 10 months, and he's one of the teachrs here at OE (Optimum English - the name of the school). Everyone has been very welcoming and friendly, and we teachers went out for a meal last night which was lovely.

The food is definately different to whta you'd get in a take-away. THe flavours just blow your mind. It's much more developed and they aren't afraid of using a bit of spice! Definitely not a complaint though.

It's very odd being so far away, and I won't lie, I'm finding it difficult. But apparently the first week or so is the hardest, so I'm sure I'll feel comfortable enough soon.

I'll try my best to keep everything as updated as I can! I'm having to use the school's computers at the moment because my laptop doesn't take the apartments ethernet cable, but it's being worked on! This is as good as anything anyway. THere's no facebook access here, but I do have it on my phone. But I won't be using it regularly as it costs an arm and a leg!

Hope everyone at home is doing well, and if any of you fancy e-mailing me at all, feel free :D

[email protected]

I'd love to hear from you.

More soon,

Much love! Chelsea xxxx