This blog is going to be about my time in China as a ESL teacher it will be informative for ESL teachers going to China and informative for travellers to China. I will not be candy coating anything I will try and refrain from using profanity but sometimes I will not be able to help myself since that would be candy coating the facts and my emotion.

After thinking about it for so long I had finally decided to go to China as an ESL teacher. I attacked by posting on Linkedin that I was interested in going to China as an ESL teacher. RED ALERT! be careful of doing that. I was emailed by several recruiters about positions all over China. I had so many job offers I was overwhelmed and I had to just little by little reply to them. I started replying to these recruiters and it was very frustrating because the level of their English was that of a 7 year old maybe. Believe me that is challenging to deal with when you are trying to negioate a teaching position in a country you are not familiar with and maybe a little intimidated by. Finally after a month of this kind of B.S. I was approached by a recruiter that could actually speak English very good. 

We talked many times over the phone and I accepted his teaching position to Handan, China. Okay here is another RED ALERT! Do not go to small cities in China really really a bad idea. Only go to large well known cities believe me there is a reason for this. You will start learning the reason shortly. I started reading about Handan, China over the internet and it seemed intriguing and exciting. I could imagine all kinds of adventures and all the people and an excellent public transportation system with a really cool subway and everything. HAHA!! sorry about that. I got my plane ticket and got ready for an exciting adventure to Handan, China and teaching the Fall semester there. 

I received an email from an assistant in Handan asking me to give her information about my arrival so that she could book train tickets for us to travel to Handan from Beijing. RED ALERT! take this stuff seriously trains in China SUCK!! If going to China as a teacher or a traveller if you are taking a slow train and these are called K trains or something else other than D or G train make sure you pay a little extra and get a sleeper car.  Always being willing to pay a little extra for your own comfort this is serious in China. It is usually not that much more. Okay now back to the story. I emailed her back with the information and she said I will book the tickets and look forward to meeting you in Beijing. I packed up and got ready to go. I packed everything including much deodorant, shampoo and soap cause I remembered how expensive those particular sundries were in Japan so I thought it was probably the same in China. This is a fact these items are much more expensive in China. 

I was ready and I was on my way to Handan, China first stop Beijing. The Plane ride was good and comfortable but very long coming from Detroit about 13+ hours. We landed in Beijing Capital Airport and customs and immigration was very easy and they were actually friendly. In the meeting area I was met by a very friendly and helpful young Chinese lady. She held up a sign in the meeting area and I quickly thought WOW! she is great! We exchanged hellos and nice to meet yous and we were off. The next stop is Beijing Xi Railway Station the main train station in China and the largest train station in all of Asia. NOW THE JOURNEY BEGINS!!