New Digs

So it's been an eventful couple of days. I've arrived back in Shanghai and found a new apartment, which I'm quickly falling more and more in love with. It's in a circa-1930s building which means there's lots of character and a few –how to put this? – "quirks." It's been renovated a little bit since it's birth but nothing extreme so it's still affordable – and comes complete with lots of very friendly Chinese neighbors. This afternoon for example, I bought a bed and brought it back to the apartment. Downstairs there was a woman with a toddler running haywire all over the place while she prepared dinner at the outdoor sink. She was very smiley and said a lot of things I didn't understand. Then I walk upstairs and there's about 8 Chinese people standing around in their underwear in my apartment chatting with the landlord's wife while she cleaned the place. Construction workers/ renovaters were busy on the second floor while my taxi truck driver schlepped my mattress up the stairs and simultaneously smoked a cigarette. (Hands free - such skills!) Yes, the whole place is very renao (hot and noisy) and I think I'm going to learn some more Mandarin ASAP. Not an English speaker in sight.

Tomorrow I teach my first lesson since I've been back here. To say I'm feelng rusty on my teaching after 2 months off would be an understatement. Time to go plan!