Last night I got a taxi with Sophie to an internet cafe 20minutes away from our accommodation (the Lakers bar near the University) so that we could use Skype, reply to emails and contact people to let them know that we had arrived. This was fine until it came to us getting a taxi back to the school and our accommodation. The school had given us a map so that we could show it to a taxi driver to get back but although the taxi driver said he could take us there, I realised after 20 minutes that he didn’t have a clue where he was going. In total the taxi driver stopped to ask for directions 10 times! We obviously didn’t have a clue how to get back and didn’t speak Chinese and the taxi driver didn’t speak English. The girl that I was with, Sophie, started freaking out straight away and I thought she was going to have a panic attack. She started phoning the staff from TTC and getting all worked up about the taxi driver being lost and shouting about how awful it was, I had to wrestle the phone off her and explain our situation. TTC got a Chinese speaking woman to give the taxi driver directions to our accommodation, but the taxi driver got lost again! What should have been a 20minute journey that cost 30 RMB (£3) turned out to be an hour and 45minute journey and the taxi driver tried to charge us 154 RMB! We couldn’t even get out of the taxi as it was a quiet road with no one around and no other cars. We finally got to a part that we recognised and we directed the taxi driver to our accommodation but then we had to try and explain that we weren’t paying 150 RMB because the taxi driver had got lost. We paid 50 RMB and I got out the taxi, but Sophie stayed in trying to explain why we weren’t paying the full amount and the driver tried to lock her in the taxi so she would pay him, I ended up dragging her out of the taxi and we ran to our apartment and the driver got out his taxi and started to follow us! We got into our apartment and locked the door and I phoned the staff to say we were back in our accommodation and were safe when Sophie started screaming! I ran into her room to see what had happened and there was a little tiny lizard in her room and she was screaming about that! I definitely think she needs to chill out a bit as it is just one big learning curve and a bit of an adventure.
Today I had to get up early (6am, very early for me) to get ready and leave the apartment at 7am to walk the 45 minutes to school ready to start at 8am. We went to see the principle about what she wanted us to do today as we were waiting for the TTC staff to find us another placement. The principle didn’t want us to be in the classrooms as the children get attached really quickly to staff (which is fair enough) so she said we could have the day off while we wait for TTC to contact us with our new placements. Our TTC contact messaged us at the end of the day saying that hopefully he would be coming to the school tomorrow to sort everything out.
I had two of the teachers phone numbers and asked them where was good to go for tea and they invited us out for a meal with them to a local Chinese restaurant which was a really nice meal. Hopefully placements will be sorted out tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment