Finally all settled into our apartment in Pingxiang. We've been here nearly 2 weeks, but we've only just got the internet completely sorted, and in this day and age it is a necessity to have it to be truly at home.

We've had a good few classes as well, university classes are so different from those we did in Shunyi. Introduction lessons started on Monday, and true content will start the Monday after for most (3 classes start next week for me, so they'll be 1 behind and on catch-up). I'm a little worried about the support from the college at times, as we hadn't received our time-tables until two days before we were expected to start, the textbooks hadn't been given to us to work with until only a day-or-so before that, and even they weren't necessarily the ones we were going to have to teach from. I still have yet to see the books for any of the writing classes I'm teaching, Sammy at least has hers for the English Oral classes.

The travel from Beijing was entertaining, although the requirement to be at the train station several hours before our train was due to leave made very little sense to me. The journey itself (23 hours long) was comfortable enough, though the quality of the surroundings was understandably lacking. Whilst on the train we got chatting to those that we were sharing the area with, Jerry-Lee and Sandy helped us with our Chinese pronunciation, and a young girl who couldn't have been more than 4 years old kept offering us various snacks and sweets - and correcting Scott on his tones. Jerry-Lee and Sandy helped us when we got to Zhouzou as well, what with getting our many cases up flights of stairs, and navigating us to the exit. Sandy then joined us in the car on the last leg of our trip to Pingxiang itself, as it turned out that she lives across the road from the College!

We were treated to a banquet upon our arrival by Bob, the vice-Dean of the Foreign Language department, and met by Andy, our contact. For her assistance on the train and at the station, Bob insisted Sandy join us as well. The meal was good, but was a pre-cursor for the rest of the food here in Pingxiang - everything is loaded with chilli peppers. Unlike the rest of Jiangxi, Pingxiang has a love for all things spicy, and has adopted a lot of cooking styles from the province that surrounds it on two sides - Hunan. Nevertheless, we're experimenting gradually and finding foods that aren't so spicy that you can melt metal with your breath after eating them. The other food issue is something that I think is typical of all of China, and that's the lack of good cuts of meat. Every dish seems to be served with the meat on the bone, and you're just expected to chew and suck on it and then spit out the bone. All well and good for flavour, an absolute pain on the teeth. What I wouldn't give for a good chicken breast or steak right about now!

Well, I've got teaching to look forward to tomorrow, so I better sign off for now. More will be forthcoming now we have a (semi) stable connection!