Do you have a choice? If you're looking for a Chinese experience with the presence of foreigners, Hangzhou is nearby and probably easier.

I just spent several weeks in Ningbo staying with a friend. It was an interesting experience, but I felt somewhat isolated. There are few foreigners and only a modest sprinkling of English-speakers in stores or restaurants. You certainly won't, however, find negative responses to foreigners. Didn't ever see an International Herald Tribune, but if you have internet that isn't a big drawback. Unless I missed them, even the Xinhua bookstore didn't have English books.

The city is fairly affluent: lots of BMWs and with new Zegna and Cartier stores. I hear rents are not low. Chinese food (supermarkets, small restaurants, late-night street food stands) can be incredibly cheap and good, but you can also find the incredibly expensive (a new restaurant along the river just opened with 1000RMB lunch). There are a small number of good foreign restaurants. Chinese beer drunk in Ningbo is atrocious to a westerner (often 1.9% alcohol, bland and not very cold); even Tsingdao comes in a range of quality. There are a couple of bar areas with good foreign beer, where several places serve Guinness, for example. If you're shopping for Belgian beers and Swiss chocolates in stores you have to look hard, but they can be found.

Taxis are cheap (10-15RMB), and buses are cheap (1-2RMB) once you catch on to the routes, but infrequently air-conditioned.

Websites with some info for foreigners are
helloningbo.com and
ningboexpat.com

If this all sounds too negative, that wasn't my intent. It's a cautious recommendation.