Great way to live abroad and learn about China

I was one of three WorldTeachers at my very rural school and taught 15 classes per week - different students in every class. At my school, these classes were not really formal English language/grammar classes, but were instead just to get students excited about learning English, so we sang a lot of songs, played a lot of games, and generally just tried to spend the hour with as much communication practice and fun as possible. When I wasn't teaching, I was free to do whatever I wanted, so I picked up a couple of new hobbies like the guitar, tutored a few students, trained for my first marathon, and spent a lot of time studying Chinese. Weekends and holidays we could travel, so I visited a lot of other volunteers in their sites, and spent long vacations visiting other parts of the country, including big trips to Tibet, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang. Our stipends were enough to live on in our towns and enjoy luxuries like massages and eating out a lot and some weekend travel, but not enough to cover big vacations, so expect to use some savings if you want to be able to take cool trips. WorldTeach gave us a lot of freedom and the staff were there if we needed them but not constantly monitoring what we did (in contrast with Peace Corps, for example), which was nice - as long as we fulfilled our obligations at our schools, we could travel as much as we wanted and pretty much take care of ourselves. There were about 60 volunteers in the program when i did it, which was nice because we had an instant network of friends and support, and we often got together on weekends and for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many of the people in my program are still some of my closest friends, even ten years after we finished the program. Overall, it was a fantastic experience for me, but as always, it depends on your attitude and what you make of it, because it definitely wasn't without its daily frustrations and challenges.