Acadia? Not much good to say about the quality of the course and/or course material, which is a messy mash-up of documents full of English spelling and grammar mistakes, which the owner claims costs $100 to replace if lost. I hope the owner has actually hired a real teacher now, because earlier he was teaching the courses by himself - which resulted in arguably fun but useless chatting and almost no teaching or practice during the courses. Waste of time.

Secondly, the owner/teacher at the time is a native speaker of English, but entirely fails to grasp English grammar. After all, grammar is the key to understanding how a language works, and if you can't tell an adverb from an preposition, you cannot possibly teach others how to teach others.

Finally, the owner's a bit of a compulsive liar. He makes all kinds of promises he cannot keep. Two of my fellow course attendants were promised well-paying jobs in Shanghai and Beijing after the completion of the course. One was left hanging and the other just given the contact details to apply for the job in Shanghai.

He claims to have all kinds of connections at universities here and there where he can land you a job, but in the end nothing materialises. Even his own marketing manager was promised a lot of paid work, but in the end he only got to work a few hours. To be fair, he was paid for those.

When you point out that he promises but does not deliver, you get a nice ad-hominem attack in your e-mail box which further proves the lack of professionalism demonstrated by his company.

Staying away from Acadia is the only advice I can give you, unless you really need that piece of paper and you have no where else to go. Don't expect any useful skills or experiences.

Are you sure the Baidu Plugin for Wordpress doesn't work, by the way? I didn't get my API key yet so I can't verify, but it looks pretty legit.

When I have a better internet connection, I'll be happy to look at the plugin software.

Hi Dan,

I had a look for you. Looks like it's going to be a pain in the ass: you'll have to get acquainted with Baidu Maps' JavaScript API which is only documented in Chinese:

developer.baidu.com/map/jsdevelop-9.htm

I'm unfortunately on a bike trip so I can't help out, but it doesn't seem too hard. in short:

1 you call the javascript API through the HTML script tag
2 create a new BMap() instance
3 choose a point(x,y) and center and zoom through centerAndZoom(point, zoom)
4 add any controls through addControl(control)
5 create a marker for each of your point through marker(point, icon, label)

the latter is a bit complicated as the label can contain all kinds of information.

Have a look here for an example:

blog.csdn.net/etmanwenhan/article/details/12055555

Or here, in combination with a MySQL database with marker points:

www.cnblogs.com/milkmap/archive/2011/08/16/2135323.html

Don't forget to request your own API key, of course!

If you don't feel like digging through the manual though, why not use google.cn instead? It loads quickly and perfectly within China PRC and outside.

Biking in Kunming is IMHO entirely safe, safer than in my own hometown in the West where cars drive way faster than 50kmh.

But back on the topic bike kids. There are plenty of forums where self-righteous Europeans can go step on long American toes.

This is about the bicycle. 800 RMB is fair, but check the quality. If it's a brand you've never heard of, don't be surprised if the pieces start falling off after a while. There always seems to be something wrong with PRC-made products and especially with products that have to deal with a lot of force. Good idea is to read some reviews.

Nothing cheesy in 老奶洋芋, it's all oil and potatoes. Lao Nai means grandmother in this case.