So yesterday an actually quite scary thing happened: cycling down Ren Min Nan Lu on my way to work, I was hit by a car. Ridiculously, given the fact that I was thrown straight out into two lanes of oncoming traffic, both I and the trusty steed (that's the BIKE, filth) have survived reasonably unscathed. In even luckier news, the driver took full responsibility, drove me to hospital and paid for my treatment. Two hours, four pints of iodine, and one complementa...

Oh my good lord, I've been here a month. Apologies for the long blog absence, everything has happened incredibly quickly and the job - whilst genuinely wonderful - is pretty gosh darn time- and labour-intensive! I should start by saying that I am very firmly in my 'honeymoon' period with Chengdu at the moment. Whilst a part of me does yearn for the architecture and idiosyncracies of home (hearing 'Hi_Tech Zone' and 'North Railway Station' announced on the Metr...

Three days in, and the reality of day-to-day life in a country where I am basically a toddler - three phrases (plus assorted, largely useless pronouns) of the language, illiterate save for a few arbitrary characters ('China'; the numbers one, two, three and ten), and lacking the social skills for smooth inter-personal relations - has started to hit home. Before this move, the most dramatic I had undertaken had been my university year abroad in France. At the ti...

I'm writing this from what is apparently the 'world's best airport dining experience' (so far it is fulfilling all my expectations) in the sort of state of disorientation you'd expect from a first-time long-haul flyer. To be more specific, one who finds herself in Hong Kong airport, partially deaf from deficient eardrums which really don't like air pressure too much, feeling very strongly that it should be this morning, and seriously wondering whether she did in ...

It may have been mooted that I am not one for dithering about with half measures, but the move to China has been quick-sharp even by my standards. Turns out, when your Chinese contact says the turnaround from interview to start date is swift, what they actually mean is something along the lines of 'pack yer bags Laowai, you leave in two weeks'. As a result, the last fortnight has consisted chiefly of packing everything I own into two suitcases, photocopying ever...