Well our internet connection is as patchy as a lawn in the Sahara. So this may not get updated as often as I want it to.

Teaching is going fine, as expected some classes are far better than others, and it can be very tricky to adapt lesson plans to suit. This is made worse by the range of skills in each class - rather than grouping by ability it seems that the college simply groups people, with little or no rhyme or reason.

Sammy and I have enjoyed a couple of visits to Nanchang - the provincial capital, and photos are on her blog. We've made good friends with the guy who runs the Magic events there, and there's a very friendly community. I'd also like to mention the comparative cheapness of cards out here. You can pick up a booster box for the equivalent of 70 quid, and individual cards tend to be much cheaper too.

We're having a lot of fun with some of our students, going out for meals every fortnight or so with a couple of our more eager students, mixing it up each time so they all get to ask questions and get to know us, and us, them! It can be very difficult to convince them to let us treat them and pay for the meal though - as they still see us as an honoured guest. We've managed to get compromises where we pay for the meal, and they pay for the drinks at the little cafe type place after.

Some interesting things I've noticed:
In movies, where you see the ridges fading into the blue-ish fog, over-lapping from left and right - that's not fake. That happens here. Nearly every morning, if there's fog, we'll be greeted with that as we walk up the drive to the teaching building. If it weren't so damp I'd get pictures but I don't want to risk the camera.
Plant-life here is ridiculously diverse. From one of my classrooms I can see a few fir trees, a palm tree, some deciduous tree that I don't recognise, a bunch of firs, several bushes that I've been told flower with bright colours and a bunch of other different elements of foliage. All within 2 metres of each other. All of it is naturally occuring in this area.
Privacy is a completely alien concept. The students here live in dorm rooms of 6-12. There are no locks on most doors (thankfully there are on ours). There are very few places around campus that you can be alone, though there are plenty of benches under little wooden gazebos.
The weather is wetter than England, and nearly as changeable. A few days ago, the day started so foggy it was not possible to see more than 2 metres from our window. By lunchtime, it was glorious sunshine (though temperature was a 'cold' 14degrees C), and by the evening it was hammering it down as though the whole Pacific Ocean was being emptied onto the campus.
We've seen pictures from a volunteer organisation that go to help teach and build schools in the mountain villages in the province - and the poor here live in conditions that rival those shown on charity appeals for Africa. There's so little mentioned or said about it though - and it's almost taken for granted that these people choose that lifestyle - though I don't know how true that is.
Life in the cities is not necessarily better. While we were in Nanchang, Sammy and I took a shortcut through a lane to get to one of the temples - and we saw squalor there like I have never seen before in my life. The homes, with the bars on the exterior windows reminded me of battery farm cages. Everything was pushed so close together. That kind of neighbourhood in England would promote feelings of terror - if it didn't get pulled down. Here, I felt completely safe walking through it, and even asking a couple of men for directions, as the map we had only had part of the lane on it. Everyone is so friendly.
This should be contrasted with what life was like across the river - there were individual high-rise apartment buildings with masses of space around, and wide boulevards with brilliant lighting and fancy paving. All of this, less than 3km away from what I just described.

Anyway - that's going to have to be all for now. More will be put up when I can. We may have to look for an internet provider of our own, rather than relying on the college's provided service - but then there's the difficulty of actually understanding what's going on...