Qingtian translated to Green Field is a city in the south of Zhejiang. It is a small city with about 100,000 people in the city area. It is said that the population is anywhere up to 250,000 people but I am alluded as to where all these people are. Many Chinese nationals go abroad to Spain, Italy and Germany and I think they are still counted in the population.

It's a nice quiet place, Trev and I have made ourselves very much at home. It took some getting used to. We are the only expats here and initally the staring was rife.

Now a year on, we can speak a little of the local dialect, barter for goods at the market and have a small circle of friends who are not just teachers.

China is a place where sometimes when you travel you feel completely ill at ease. The language barrier is huge. But whenever we returned to Qingtian after a stint away it always felt like returning "home". It's so small there is no getting confused as to which bus to catch, there is only really one route. We live at the school so it is not uncommon if we are transiting between the city and somewhere other than the school the bus attendant won't let us on. Saying "Mei qu Qing Zhong" (not going to school) or alternatively if we want to go past the school we get kicked off the bus at the school stop. It's all done in a friendly manner and really they are just trying to look out for us.

The school year ends on the 30th of June and then we will stay in Qingtian for 2 weeks before heading off on our Summer holiday travel and new home in Zhaoqing. I'm sure we will spend a lot of time having farewell meals and who knows maybe Trev's fishing rod he bought 8 months ago might get wet.