My apartment in Tianjin

The lounge

Looking out the kitchen window

I have been really busy lately teaching at my new school so my posts haven't been as frequent as normal. The summer period is not a holiday for some of the kids as they sign up to extra classes to prevent any 'backslide' in their English. 

I thought I would post some pictures of the apartment that I share with another EF teacher Ellie from Wales. We are on the top floor (level 28) and look out over the city (and a sea of other apartments in various stages of construction). We are in a very convenient location as we are sandwiched between a large mall called Joy City on one side and a subway station on the other. Joy City is about 6 stories high and has a ice rink at the bottom where shoppers can look down and watch either kids skating around or ice hockey players practicing their shots at goal. The mall is always busy, similar to Christmas shopping at St Lukes lol!

This school apartment is much nicer than the one I received with my first school in Yongjia. It has a kitchen and all the mod-cons you can ask for and everything is much cleaner and in better condition.  It definitely feels more like a home than the other place. When I arrived, the school gave me a little goodie pack with sweets, coffee, toiletries, towels, slippers, a map and laminated copies of my home and work addresses in both Pinyin and Chinese characters (very vital information). My bedroom had been cleaned beautifully and the bed also had new sheets, duvet and duvet cover.

Our apartment - terracotta one in the foreground

View outside my bedroom window

I was given a set a keys to get into the apartment, one was a tag to get past the security gates, one key was to get into the building and another into our actual apartment. We also have security guards that sit out by the gates 24/7 letting cars in and out and just watching everyone going about their day.

Joy City

The kitchen