Hi Laura,

This is my first time to find out your questions and these comments on ESLteachersboard. I'd like you to see things a little bit differently :
All these comments are made on 2012, yet things are just so different from what it was because with regards to the license to hire foreign teachers, Echo IS licensed to hire now. If you do not believe if a school is licensed or not, just ask the HR recruiter who recruited you to send you a copy of their license, and then you will see it yourself with your own eye. You're welcome to ask me for a glance of it :) So it's not necessary to say that this school is legitimate enough. Whoever deny it will be considered fraud or slandering.

Secondly, the Hangzhou subway has just begun its operation on October. And this subway happened to stop right at Echo English's block. I often take the subway spending 20 minutes to LongXiangQiao, the very stop that you can see the Westlake, and 3 stop to be the city train station, and 6 stops at the very center of Hangzhou. What's more, if you are not living in Hangzhou, you may not have any idea that Echo is located at the Star Avenue, which is the center of Binjiang Area. This area maybe a little bit crowded than some small cities that you have seen.

If you're not living in Hangzhou, you may find it hard to imagine there are few big trainning school in Hangzhou because it is not such a good idea living in downtown if you don't have enough money due to the high rent. I guess you mean downtown with convenient transportation and foods and population. It is not hard to find area even 1 hour away from Westlake, because that's how big cities supply to its fellow citizen. Xiaoshan is itself a city before it's included as "Part of Hangzhou". So there is not fair to state Xiaoshan as a rural area with barely nothing (Xiaoshan people will say it's soooo untrue) (They got the Hangzhou Paradise Theme Park there)

If you have any questions, please ask me freely or just ask local people who does live here or who current working here. It will be more true and more detailed than any other comments :)