The weather is still quite nice here and so the other day Sean and I decided to take a walk around campus and take some pictures of Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology. The campus is big and there are about 14,000 students who take classes here. Most of them live on campus in crowded dorms but some of them live at home in the city of Changzhou. Below is a map of campus - we live in the southeast corner in the little lines of houses.
Below is the view on the right crossing over the bridge heading from our houses to Market Street and the North Cafeteria.
This is the view on the left when crossing over the bridge. The huge building is the new library, not quite finished yet, but still the pride and joy of the university.
This is Market Street - one of the main social hubs because it includes restaurants, snack shops, ATMs, a hairdresser, small supermarkets, an internet cafe, copy/print places, a cell phone dealer (China Mobile) and an eyeglass places. Students can get pretty much all that they would need on Market Street.
While walking around campus it is common to see many bike corrals. Many students have pedal bikes or motorized bikes which they store in one of the many corrals.
Walking down Market Street we pass basketball courts on the right and head towards the North Cafeteria. This is where Sean and I eat most days. On the first floor you can get a tray of a variety of food and on the second floor you can get dishes from different restaurants. We have an English teacher group lunch on Wednesdays on the second floor of this cafeteria.
Heading towards the hotel on campus and one of the bigger entrances to the campus we see the new library which is pretty impressive looking.
The hotel on campus houses visitors to the university but also many of the foreign teachers. Daniel, Peter and Jordan live in the hotel. The accommodations are smaller than the townhouses but there are no mosquitoes and they have dryers for their clothes. Jordan actually lives near the top of the pen in the round part!
There are many dorms on campus and all of them are completely segregated. Boys are not even allowed to enter the girls' dorms and vice versa. The electricity is turned off at 11pm in all dorms and all students must by inside by that time as well. There is no drinkable water in the dorms and students actually have to buy it and cart it around in giant thermoses. You can always see clothes drying out on the balconies after they have been washed by hand.
Around campus there are also several little places to sit or walk with interesting pieces of architecture.
These are the pillars in front of the building where I teach and we are back to where we started. My townhouse is just straight ahead past the pillars. If you are interested in teaching here, check it out in the web here.
Dear Sarah, dear Sean, thanks for this blog. Do you still remember me? My name is Libby, actually Satu ... i was hanging out with Walli and Max a lot. sarah, you took care of the cats ... after i left .. thanks for this :)