Life's been a ride!

So here I am sat in my fave café which is open till late every evening, which is perfect for me, reflecting on another busy week in my fave city - Shanghai! Mondays and Tuesdays are always my long days and then in no time Wednesday arrives and I’m more than halfway through my working week.

This has been the best weather I remember having during the month of November. It’s been weather the equivalent of an English Summer. It is gonna get cold soon – but I’m sort of excited for that! Plus, in no time (basically in six weeks) I’ll be travelling somewhere hot for sure! I’m thinking Sri Lanka, Australia, South India… I’ve got all sorts of ideas so going to start getting things booked over the next two weeks!

So last Tuesday after work I rode my scooter to and back from MMA... I think I must have gone pretty hard because on Wednesday my body was ACHING everywhere. I love the feeling though. I’m determined to get stronger, fitter, increased technique knowledge and confidence. My coach, Ramsey, taught me a valuable lesson last week. During the class, for some reason, I wasn’t feeling good, performing well and I felt annoyed at myself. I cursed myself and said “I’m so bad”. He stopped me and explained to me that we humans should never talk badly about ourselves. He explained that how we see ourselves and talk about ourselves is SO important. How will I achieve anything speaking negatively about myself? It’s true and I really held onto that lesson; and even passed it onto another friend who always calls himself stupid and puts himself down.  

So back to my point, instead of going to MMA on Wednesday, I decided to get my hair cut!! I haven’t had it cut in easily six months, so it was well overdue. It’s good fun getting your haircut in China because they take their time, massage you and all for a cheap price! I’ve gone a lot shorter with the hair and I’m happy with it! Was nice to sort of be pampered! However, I STILL need to get a massage. It’s on my list for next weekend! I want to try the hot stones massage. I’ll let you know next week if I do it or not.


Work was nice last week. Whilst I struggled and put SO MUCH passion into teaching my grade two’s ON, IN, BEHIND, UNDER and NEXT TO, my grade three’s made very cute pictures of things they love during English Corner.


 So, by the weekend the weather was lovely AGAIN. I rode around Shanghai on my scooter that day with the sun shining - it was amazing. I had my usual productive Friday and then Friday evening, after getting pretty merry with my tutoring family, went out with some fellow teach English in china friends. Prior to going out I had lots of drinks (yellow wine my Chinese friends called it) and lots of scrumptious, home-cooked Chinese food; consisting of fish gladder!




 The next day, Saturday, I met up with my friend Furkan and we visited the only existing, and old 1933 cattle slaughterhouse in Shanghai. It’s located in the Hankou District and is such unique in design and architecture. In fact, it was designed by a British Architect in the early twentieth century. It was such a nice afternoon exploring around the area, stopping for lunch and enjoying the sights – even though it was a very polluted day!


By the late afternoon/early evening, we were in a cosy, bar/café doing some work, like studying Chinese and preparing my PGCE UCAS application (which I need to hurry up and submit). We were there for a while so I eventually ordered myself a nice glass of red wine (for the heart) to accompany my Chinese. I’m really getting into studying Chinese now actually. I love it and can feel myself improving. My HSK 1 test is officially booked for the 4th December aswell!


Today, I had a super productive day in which I met my lovely Chinese friend, Grace for a catch up aswell as an hour’s Chinese lesson in a café, on West Nanjing Road. After this, I headed to tutor for an hour some lovely kids. I treated myself for lunch today at Waga’s with some scrumptious pesto, chicken and pasta! Mmmm. After this, I headed to Xujiahui for another Chinese lessons. After this, I headed home, dropped off/picked up some stuff, rode my scooter to Miniso as I needed a few things and now I’m sat at my fave café, Loshanguan Road, writing this blog.

Another week starts tomorrow, time flies out here. It really does.

I’ll be in touch,


Sabrina Xxxx


Location: Shanghai, China

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