Urban Squalor!

A detailed response from my future roommate has answered many of the questions I've had about how to get ready to go. He says a visa and $300USD should take care of me for the first month.

The living conditions are different than I was told. Instead of the large house in Badaguan with 5 other teachers, living a sort of European suburban lifestyle, my apartment will be shared with Scott only, and it's in the middle of the city. This is exciting! I have lived in an urban setting for awhile and it's probably the best situation I could find myself in. I want to see Qingdao in its blossoming as a second-tier Chinese city, and I think I have a front-row view in the apartment Scott describes as "too nice for [his] tastes". I'm packing as I type this, and it's almost too much. Whatever worries I had last post have vanished, I've decided to plunge into this as enthusiastically as ever.

Scott also knows a great deal of Chinese, so practice will not be in short supply. I only hope I can rise to the occasion and learn a great deal in my year abroad. He speaks sarcastically of the other teachers living in the houses in Badaguan, as though they were spending all their time and money in Western bars trying to ignore the locals. The isolation of living in the city is desirable to me, I want more than anything to be a part of the city itself and not its rich suburb.

If I could get my hands on $300 I would be on cloud nine, haha.