The Magic of China

 Since this was my first 'real' job, I had no idea what an annual 'team building' activity was. I assumed it had something to do with being in teams, perhaps a type of sports. The company, EF, decided to host the first team building event I attended in Suzhou, around the time of Halloween, with each 'centre' having its own 'theme'. Since Andy Oliboni was the manager of two centres we decided to have a combined theme of 'the Mario Brothers', though, I really have no idea as to how the theme came to fruition, and all I knew was that it was a Nintendo game involving two, if I may say, Italian-looking men with thick black hair and moustaches, overcoming obstacles to get to a beautiful girl with long blonde hair in a pink dress, with a similar look as Aurora in sleeping beauty. It was decided that there would be only one Princess Peach from each centre, with everyone else dressing as a Mario Brother. I really didn't care who I was, but I was told ...

In the interview I was asked where I would like to be based, and I had been looking up places and learning about Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities in China. While looking I saw Nanjing was a pretty vibrant place, filled with many expats, but wasn't really 'international' on the same level as 'Shanghai', with the prospect of having a more fully immersive experience in China of learning about the culture and the language. I was told that Nanjing was 'competitive' and was already full, and then the lady suggested Hangzhou because the Olympics in 2015 had meant that many expats had left due to the increase in security and police interference. I looked this up and did some research and saw that it had been nicknamed 'Heaven on Earth', with Westlake as the main attraction....on that I was pretty much sold.  The process had started, and I was getting my online free TEFL certificate as part of the visa requirement that I had to finish before flying to Shanghai. I don...