Continue reading »]]> Many people have seen, or at least heard of, the film “Avatar”.  Of those people, nearly everyone would’ve assumed that since it was one of the biggest CGI and 3D films on the planet then the scenery was 100% CGI.  The scenery in Avatar was, in fact, real and I had the chance to visit it first-hand.  To say it was “good” or “awesome” would’ve been a bit of an understatement – breath taking may describe the feeling when you first see the mountains overlaid onto a blue sky with the odd cloud or two dotted around.  Pictures really don’t do it justice, so to imagine what it looks like in person, imagine you’ve just been dumped in the middle of Avatar!

Whilst the scenery was amazing, we went to the National Park on a tour package which was paid for by Yandi Institute.  The tour was interesting, to say the least.  It started at 0600 on a Monday morning at which time we were catching our bus at the coach station (although in China, it’s just called a “long distance bus” and “coach” doesn’t have much meaning).   The journey was around 5 hours and moderately comfy although I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact Chinese vehicles really aren’t built for anyone much taller than around 5’10” so my knees were quite squished and even more so when the person in front decided she wanted to invade my little bubble by putting her seat back, back.

On arrival we were ushered into a building to eat what they attempted to call “food”.  I think the only reason part of us enjoyed what we were fed was because we were so hungry.  Lunch lasted all of 5 minutes before we were whisked off to visit site number one – a cave!

Now, at first this cave was interesting and quite impressive because of its size but once you’ve seen the first ten stalactites and stalagmites, they all seem to look quite similar – so we whizzed around the cave and enjoyed the boat tour provided at the end before regrouping with our tour at the designated time.  Sadly, there aren’t many photos as the lighting didn’t allow for good photos.

After the cave we were put back on a bus for 40 minutes to take us in the direction of our hotel.  Our tour guide (nick named “flagman” because he always carried a flag and spoke no English at all) failed to (attempt) to convey that we’d first have to go to a sales pitch!  The tour group was crammed into this little room to be given a 30 minute talk on how amazing and special Bamboo is and how many different products can be made from it – it’s the same talk Gemma and I had when we visited Xi’an except this time we didn’t have someone translated into English for us!  40 winks later and we were nearly at the end of the talk but we weren’t free yet!  We first had to walk around a carefully constructed labyrinth (they called “a shop”) in which we were followed by several Chinese women who were ready to pounce the second we showed any sign of interest in any item they had for sale.

We escaped the sales pitch and waited for the rest of the group (who appeared to want to buy everything in the store) to emerge before marching toward the hotel.

Upon arrival at the hotel, our promises of “3 star luxury” were quickly diminished.  The only stars this hotel were capable of achieving were the ones that it’d drawn on the window itself.  The rooms we were given were a mess and the air-conditioning units wouldn’t work until 7pm.  The rooms hadn’t been serviced since the last guests had stayed there and attempting to get the chamber staff to understand this proved difficult.  At one point she said “tim bu dong” which is Chinese for “I don’t understand”.  She didn’t understand what?  Why we didn’t want to sleep in dirty bed sheets, why the room hadn’t been serviced or generally what we were saying?  We decided to phone Steve – one of the most helpful people we’ve had at our disposal during the summer.  He spoke to the reception for us and told them they’re to clean our rooms and make the air-con work – and so, our wish was granted.  The staff “cleaned” the room and put fresh bedding on the bed and clean towels in the bathroom but neglected to hoover or sweep the carpet and left a 10 week old bread crust rotting under the bedside cabinet.

After dinner (which was another attempt at something that tasted good) we were taken to a show!  This was a truly spectacular show which made great us of the “unreal” environment and some fantastic lighting.  At one point a Chinese man was swinging from a rope high up in the mountains with very little safety precautions.  Although we were foolish to think that we could just sit and have a peaceful evening!  Before the show started we had to listen to an auction for paintings for 30 minutes – it’s hard enough listening to a woman screeching in English, but for them to screech in a language you really don’t understand it’s very testing.

The performance was over and bedtime was upon us – off to sleep we went in our wonderfully clean and shiny rooms.  The following morning we were awoken at 5am by the hustle and bustle of the Chinese, in the corridors.  I awoke and attempted to have a shower only to find that the hot water wasn’t on in the morning and a cold shower was all that was available – so be it.  Breakfast (another failed attempt) was served at 6am and we arrived at 1 minute past to be told we’re late!  Some Chinese women shouted something at us in Chinese before dumping some rather bland food on the table.  What a great start to the long day ahead of us!

Into a coach we got and off to the mountain we went.  We arrived at the foot of the mountain we’d be climbing and ushered into another bus.  That stopped and we were then ushered into another bus after which we arrived at the top of the mountain and were told to meet at 12 noon.  Off we toddled to look around – the scenery was truly amazing!  As I’ve said before, the photos really don’t do it justice but they give a good idea of what it was like.

Time soon flew by and lunch approached – I’m sure everyone can, by now, guess what my description of the food is going to be.  After lunch we were given more “free time” and told to meet at the bottom of the mountain at 1630.  Flagman tried to convey to Matt that there were two options: A cable car or a path but instead he got across that he would be going down the mountain by a car and would meet us at the bottom after we’ve walked.  It was only on our arrival at the bottom that we realised what he was trying to get across to us.

The walk down was painful – for every ten steps we went down, we’d go up another 20.  It felt more like a trek rather than a simple walk down 1400 metres of steps to reach the bottom.  Eventually we made it and were just about ready to curl up into a ball and go to sleep except, we had to go to another sales pitch!  This time it was about Chinese tea.

We were all taken into the Tea centre and given a talk (in Chinese) about how Chinese tea is made and what the different types are used for.  We were given the opportunity to sample different types but being a coffee lover I was left rather unimpressed with the bitter-sweet taste that was being left in my mouth.

We escaped the talk (and their labyrinth shop) and made our way back to the hotel to relax.  After dinner we were invited to the room next door by some people we’d met during the day.  They spoke pretty good English managed to help us through quite a few things during the day and invited us over to play card games and chat.  One of the boys didn’t have an English name and asked us to name him so we chose “Oliver” (although quite often just shortened it to “Ollie”).  He was extremely interested in learning some English card games and getting to know us a bit more which made for an enjoyable and relaxing evening for all.

The following morning, we were awoken by the rowdy strangers in the corridor again and made our way to breakfast at some ungodly hour.  Since it was our last day we were hoping that we’d be free from sales pitches but we couldn’t have been more wrong.  We left the hotel at 0630 and were taken straight to a sales pitch about Jade!  We didn’t leave the shop until 0830 because (again) most of the tour group wanted to spend thousands of Yuan on Jade jewellery – did they not realise they’d need to carry it around the mountain with them all day?

Eventually we were free and were taken to the base of the mountain we’d be climbing.  This time there was the option of a cable car (both ways) for only RMB100 (£10) which we took without a second though.  We were given only 90 minutes to go up, look around and come back which meant if we’d have walked we’d only be half way up the mountain by the time our 90 minutes was up.

The photos at the bottom will illustrate the kind of scenery we saw during these 90 minutes and there really isn’t much more I can say about it – it just wouldn’t describe it.

After we were done we had our final meal and were then taken to one (final) shopping trip which lasted over an hour.  This time there was no sales pitch it was just a massive warehouse that sold everything from Tea to Jade to Bamboo to sweets – but it didn’t change the fact we didn’t wish to be there and we most certainly didn’t want to be waiting around to go home.

Once again, we had to wait for the Chinese tour group to finish buying more things before getting back on the bus and making tracks for Zhuzhou.  Overall the tour was badly organised and put us off organised tour packages so much that we cancelled another trip we had planned with them BUT the scenery we saw made up for the agony we were put through.

Next stop was Shanghai and Beijing in only 2 weeks.

Continue reading »]]> As mentioned in the previous post, we had two days off and wanted to go somewhere! We decided to go to Xi’an (pronounced “She-ann”) to see the Terracotta Warriors.  To say we enjoyed it would be a bit of an understatement – it was amazing!

Our journey began at 0330 on Wednesday morning – whoever invented that time should be shot at dawn (ironically).  It’s a silly time to be awake, but we had to do it to maximise our time in Xi’an.  We flagged down a taxi and paid the extortion of 300 Yuan (£30) to the airport, which is around 35km away from Yandi Institute.  We arrived at the airport in good time and managed to check-in and spend some time wandering around the airport.  We were quite hungry so decided to follow a sign marked “FC” in the hope that it meant “Food Court”.  We eventually came to the only restaurant in the airport and sat down to have a bite to eat.

It is times like those where I wish that the Chinese served an English breakfast! We didn’t feel like a feast, just something small.  Gemma opted for “porridge” and I chose beef noodles after the advice of the waitress.  We forgot that the Chinese have big appetites in the morning and were promptly served with cauldrons full of food!  It was nice but there was just too much.  We paid the small fortune it cost and went in search of our plane.

We found our plane and our seat – the next 90 minutes are slightly fuzzy as we spent most of it sleeping… Although I do remember the flight taking far longer than it should have due to “congestion”.  Eventually, we landed and made our way towards the exit only to be mobbed by taxi drivers who were proclaiming their 100 yuan journey was cheaper than the 26 yuan bus.  In Xi’an it appears the taxi drivers find you, rather than the other way around! Even if you don’t need a taxi, they’ll find you and tell you that you need a taxi…

Another hour later and we’re in Xi’an itself!  Although most of the journey was, again, spent catching up on missed sleep from the night before.  We sniffed out some food and then started the hunt for a bus to the Terracotta Army – that was, at first, easier said than done.  There were millions of buses but none of them seemed to go in the right direction.  Eventually we found a “tourist bus” that was going to the army.

After another 90 minutes on a bus, we arrived at the Warriors!  On the walk to the ticket booths we were approached by a tour guide (Peter) who gave us a 2 hour tour of the museum and the warriors for only 150 yuan – but first we had to get to them.  We purchased our tickets and then a golf-cart ticket so that we didn’t have to walk the (apparent) 2km to the warriors – although our attempt at being lazy backfired as half-way down the track our golf-buggy broke down and stopped walking… So much for being lazy.

Peter took us to the “history of the museum” and “showcase of bronze chariots” building first to explain the history behind the warriors, the chariots and the tomb.  After the brief whistle stop tour of this building we went to the gift shop and the 8-screen cinema to watch a short movie on the warriors.  Whilst in the gift shop we purchased a book about the Terracotta Warriors and had them signed by the farmer that discovered them!

From there, we visited the first pit.  It was so surreal to think that these figures are 2200 years old… The first pit is allegedly the “command post” as the warriors are facing each other whereas in the other two pits they’re organised in a battle formation facing east – as Emperor Qin wanted protection (in the after life) from his enemies in the east.

We moved on to the second pit which is mostly unexcavated, so there wasn’t much to see other than a few rocks and the occasional head or leg sticking out of the ground.  So, on to the pit 1, but only after having our photo taken with our arms around a warrior…

Pit 1 is by far the best pit.  It contains 6000 of the 8000 warriors, all in rank in trenches.  It’s also the busiest pit so photo opportunities in front of the warriors were hard to come across – unless you wanted a close up of the hairs and freckles on your face with a small amount of terracotta warrior in the background.

Onwards we went! Towards the 2km walk of shops… Peter, our guide, was wonderful but he didn’t understand that once we’d spent 150 yuan on a Terracotta warrior made from the “real” clay, we didn’t wish to purchase anything else!  So, we visited every shop between the warriors and the bus to look at Jade bracelets, necklaces, rings and other assorted jewellery, bamboo, food, magnets, keyrings and many other random accessories that would require the removal of limbs to afford!  The best part had to be when Peter felt we needed a life-size replica of a Terracotta Warrior for the round price of £200 – the selling point (which we heard several times) was “we’ll even deliver it to your house for you and insure it”.  Sorry, what is the other alternative?  To carry it under my arm all the way back to Zhuzhou and then to board a plane with it in September?  We continued to listen to their constant sales pitches before telling Peter we need to get the bus back to the city – he obliged and pointed us in the right direction before taking our money and disappearing into the distance.

The 80 minute journey was over in no time and then we had a new challenge – finding a taxi that isn’t taken.  Whilst doing this and gentleman pulled up in his little motor-trike thing and offered us a life.  We declined as the seat could barely hold one person, let alone two and it looked like it was held together with a few match sticks and duct tape.  Our search for a taxi wasn’t going overly brilliant and we gave in to the motor-trike man (after a brief bit of negotiating for a good price) and allowed him to take us to the hotel – what had we let ourselves in for?  The driver seemed a very happy chappy to have two English folk on the back of his taxi and once he realised people were waving at us, he enjoyed it even more!  It’s very easy to feel like royalty in places like this…  Anyway, we continued our journey down a few back streets and down the wrong side of the road (as you do) until our driver got bored of the road and wanted to give us a small tour… of the park.  So, up onto the pavement we went and round and round the park.  Small children, grown adults, the elderly and decrepit and even dogs were sent flying in every direction as we went flying through crowds of people!  Our driver was loving it and we were… holding on for dear life!  We did actually manage to hit one man that had his iPod in and wasn’t paying any attention to us!  Out of the park and onto a street – we’re lost.  The taxi driver, in all the excitement, managed to lose his bearing and completely forget where we wanted to go.  A quick pointing-and-acting session later and he seems to realise where he’s gone wrong – off we drive!  Down a few more back alleys and up a few streets in the wrong direction and we’re a bit closer but the driver still doesn’t know where we are.  He decides to drop us off and say “it’s over there somewhere”.  Time to hike!

We managed to find the hotel, although we ended up in the restaurant rather than reception!  We spent a few minutes wondering if we’re in the right place as the girls at the desk were unable to find our reservation at first – not that it’s hard, as it’s the only one not written in Chinese script!  After the reservation was located we were on our way!  The hotel room was quite amazing, although it was also a very quick way of burning cash.  Many of the usual accessories in the room had a small yellow sticker with “RMB 10″ written on them – this indicated that if you touch it, you buy it!  £1 isn’t that much, in reality, but you could’ve quite easily spent £20 on “not-very-expensive-things” really.

A quick ten minute rest and we were off to watch the musical fountain at the Big Goose Pagoda.  It speaks for itself really – lots of water, some music and dancing fountains!  To get back to the hotel we decided to take another motor-trike, except this one had a cover over the top – but this driver also got lost!  Eventually he found his way (after asking his friends) and we were safely back at the hotel.  Sleep time!

The following morning we awoke and went to breakfast.  Whilst there we met a Canadian bloke named Bill – hi Bill, if you’re reading!  After breakfast we went our separate ways and headed back to the Big Goose Pagoda, which was impressive but definitely not worth the amount we paid to climb it!  After the quick 1 hour tour of the Big Goose Pagoda, we made tracks towards the Shanxxi History Museum as it was rather wet outdoors.

We arrived at the museum to find that the ticket offices were closed.  We decided to do the typical British thing of queuing (a concept that isn’t fully understood over here) and waited 90 minutes to receive our free ticket to the museum.  As we were toddling up the stairs to the entrance, Bill happened to appear right next to us!  Of all the places we could’ve all gone, we happened to choose the history museum at the same time… Major coincidence there!  We spent a short while looking around the museum before saying our (final) goodbyes and heading back into the city to find something to eat.  Time was getting on at this point and we only had about 2 hours until we had to catch our coach back to the airport!  So, we opted for our favourite restaurant… KFC!  It’s quick and simple and meant we still had about 90 minutes to look at a final few things!

After dinner, we decided to pay the Bell and Drum towers a visit.  The story goes that many years ago, the Bell Tower was used to signal the start of a day (start of light) and the Drum Tower was used to signal the end of a day (start of dark) although my personal feelings are that you’d never be able to hear the bell or the drum from across the plaza where they were based – let alone elsewhere in the city!  This could, however, just be to the noise pollution these days – back when it was just a horse and a cart, it might have been possible.

Our time was running out and we started to make our way to the coach so we could catch our flight.  Why can’t catching a plane be like catching a bus?  Why can’t we just turn up 5 minutes before it’s due to leave so we don’t have to leave the city 3 hours before we’re due to fly…

On arrival at the airport we heard announcement after announcement after announcement about how flights were delayed or cancelled due to bad weather, air traffic congestion or late passengers.  Here’s the departure board after only an hour of waiting for our flight:

We finally got on our flight and departed (only 40 minutes late) and experienced a rather, bumpy, flight home!  The weather was deteriorating rather quickly and when we were taking off it was rather hard to see the terminal building due to the fog… Despite the best effort of mother nature to try and prevent us from having to return to the Zhuzhou, she failed and we arrived only 20 minutes late.  Martin and Valerie, some of the Chinese volunteers here, had driven to the airport to pick us up!  It was so nice to have someone we recognised and know that we didn’t have to worry about anything other than just sleeping and relaxing from now on!

Overall, the trip was definitely needed and well worth the money – even if I was ripped off for a little Terracotta warrior.

Continue reading »]]> So, after three weeks of attempting to go to Changsha for the weekend, we finally managed it!  On Wednesday we asked the volunteers to book us a hotel and train ticket – only to find 2 minutes later that catching a train isn’t actually safe for “foreigners” because there are (apparently) a lot of people going home for the summer.  We were strongly encouraged (read, told) not to catch the train and to catch the coach instead.  So, that’s what we did!

Off the coach station we waddled – via McDonald’s – to catch a coach to Changsha.  RMB 24 (£2.40) was the price of the coach for a 1 hour journey across the province!  Alex escorted us to the coach station and onto the coach and then recruited a (random) Chinese lady (or two) to “look after us”.  One lady was even instructed to take us directly to our hotel!  She wouldn’t let us pay for our taxi and spoke not a word of Queen’s English, yet was being as lovely as pie to us just on the basis that “Alex asked”.  However, her part in this story doesn’t end here!

This nice young lady took us to the hotel and then left us at the entrance.  We phoned Alex and asked him to translate what the receptionist was saying and found out that check-in had to be before 1930 and that they’d sold our room to someone else which meant they were full! So now, we’re stuck in a city that (appears) to speak very little English, with no way of getting home from where we were and nobody around to help us find another hotel!  Luckily, our female guardian angel came back (after being summoned by Alex) with 5 of her friends to escort us to a taxi for the taxi driver to take us to another hotel!  Luckily, this hotel had a spare room and allowed us to check-in!

It was nice to finally lie down on a bed in Changsha and have a weight lifted from our shoulders because we’d actually secured a room for the night.  Unfortunately, my lie-down was short lived as Gemma quickly found out that the plugs don’t work and I was promptly sent down the stairs to reception to try and convey that the plugs don’t work to a team of people that speak no English at all! After they realised what had happened, they picked up a radio and shouted a few words that sounded no different to complete gibberish.  I was then asked to “wait”!  What I didn’t realise was that 4 Chinese men had descended upon our room to fix the plugs, brandishing screwdrivers and gadgets to fix the plug sockets.  Bearing in mind these men speak only Chinese and that when the Chinese speak they seem to shout at each other – Gemma was now confused as to why there were suddenly 4 men stood in the goldfish-bowl-sized-room with screwdrivers and tools and all sorts!

After returning to the room I was able to enjoy a night’s sleep in a (relatively) comfy bed with a proper duvet…until we were awoken to the theme tune of “QI” by Gemma’s phone!  We promptly washed and packed our things before heading downstairs to find out where breakfast was being served – again, the flaw in this plan was the lack of English speaking staff!  We decided to head into town and find breakfast elsewhere.  Our choice wasn’t limited but we didn’t understand a single menu or sign, so Starbucks it was!  We had roast sandwiches (chicken and strawberry jam) and some nice coffee!  Unfortunately, we were getting too used to Chinese prices and we were extremely shocked to find that the prices were the same as in the UK, with an extra zero!

Next stop on our tour was Changsha zoo!  Before heading there, we wanted to know how much a taxi was going to cost – again, lack of English speakers made this really, really difficult (and to think I’m here teaching English)!  We decided to just go for it and slowly watched the meter increase in price for twenty minutes.  A 33 kilometre journey cost us RMB 60 (£6) – bargain!

We managed to get to the zoo in one piece and then find our way to the entrance – RMB 80 (£8) for an adult ticket.  We even purchased a bus ticket so that we can hop on and off the cart like buses that take you all around the zoo.  Our first stop was the tigers!  We were quite horrified at the very small cages they were being kept in at first, but later found that they were allowed to leave the cages and enter the “safari” park which gave them plenty of room to run around as they pleased – although most of them were lay on their backs because of the 37 degree, 100% humidity weather!

Our second stop was the elephant show.  RMB 10 got us entry into a very spectacular show – full pictures at the bottom!

Gemma even had a photo on an elephant!  I was hoping that I’d be able to get a photo with a tiger (due to previous stories about Chinese zoos) but sadly I never found such an opportunity!

After the elephants it was onwards!  We saw some pandas and monkeys and all the usual culprits that you’d expect to find in a zoo.  On the way back down in the direction of the exit we had a Chinese man attempting to usher us onto a tour bus – we didn’t understand why so kept trying to tell him that we’ve seen the zoo.  Nonetheless, we got onto the bus and set out on the tour.  What the chappy we previously saw failed to tell us was that it was a safari and not just a tour! We were taken through the back “forests”  of the zoo to see tigers, giraffes, bears, horses, ponies, camels and a few other animals!  It made the trip that little bit more worth while.

The tour came to an end and we decided to head to our next stop – “Orange Continent”; AKA, “Orange Island”.  It’s basically a strip of land in the middle of the river that is famous for one reason or another.  On the island, they have a million or so orange tress in every spare inch of dirt and a nice garden area and a giant statue… of someone’s head at one end.  For RMB 20, we got a tour bus around the island – which after 6 hours on our feet, was needed!

We took a few photos and looked around a bit before deciding that it’s time to find somewhere to eat.  We opted for KFC!  It was delicious! It was so nice to have western food touching our lips – our stomachs thought it was Christmas all over again.  Whilst eating we had a “deaf” guy come and try and sell us hand made bracelet type things – we gave in a purchased them.  I’ll give him his credit as they do like nice.

After KFC it was time to try and find the coach station and start our journey home.  Easier said than done! In Zhuzhou we’re used to just sticking your hand in the air and having a taxi pull up beside you to take you to your destination, however in Changsha it’s extremely difficult to find a vacant taxi! They don’t appear to have heard of “taxi ranks” and seem to drive around endlessly looking for their next fare.  We gave in and started walking in the direction of the train and coach station until we found a bus stop.  A quick 2 minute “pointing” session with some Chinese people and we’re on a bus that is (apparently) going to take us to the train station!

The bus comes to a stop and we alight.  Now it was time to use the map that Alex had kindly drawn for us, to work out where we were and where we needed to go!  The problem was, we didn’t know any other place than the bus station so the map was useless as we could hold it anyway around as the bus station was in the middle of it!  We wandered around for a bit until we remembered Alex had written a few phrases down for us – such as “Help! I’m an English idiot and don’t know where the coach station is.  Can you show me please?”.  It worked!  A nice Chinese person pointed us in the right direction and we were one step closer to getting home.

Next challenge: Purchasing two single tickets from Changsha to Zhuzhou.  Luckily Alex figured we’d have issues with this so wrote a paragraph of Chinese symbols which would allow us to buy a ticket.  I believe it translates to something along the lines of “These English muppets need two tickets from Changsha to Zhuzhou, without insurance.  Please give it to them.  After they’ve paid, please show them to the right coach.  If you don’t, they’ll stand around the coach station forever and keep trying to ask you questions about how to get back to Zhuzhou – it’s in your best interests that you just show them where the coach is”.  Again, this appeared to work and the nice young lady behind the desk went out of her way to walk us to the right coach!

At last! We were on our way home.  Our time in Changsha was fun – even if it was rather short.  It was just nice to get away from work for a while, rather than being stuck in the same city with very little to do.  Hopefully, we’re going to have another two day trip to some distant place… Maybe Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors or possibly Shanghai; who knows?

Continue reading »]]> Titled as such because we haven’t done much in the past week other than plan lessons and embrace radical change after even more radical changes.  We’re planning on heading away somewhere for the weekend and have Monday and Tuesday off – so hopefully I’ll have something to blog about!

However, it was Hilary’s birthday on Sunday (happy birthday Hooper) so we went to Yandi square to dance in the musical fountain again!  This time, we had everyone plus a few volunteers from Yandi, close behind.  It was fantastic!  Everyone has had such a stressful week that it was good to get out and then enjoy ourselves.  There’s something quite therapeutic about dancing around in a million litres of water that’s falling on you from the fountains scattered around the square!

After getting drenched and enjoying the cold shower, we played a good old game of duck-duck-goose on the lawn (next to a sign that said keep off).  Within twenty minutes we had the majority of the city in a crowd around us, watching the (insane) English folk tapping each other on the head before running around the circle and then diving on the floor.

This evening we went shopping at a new shopping centre that has opened.  We found a few home comforts – such as HEINZ (!?!?!?!) ketchup, Nescafé Cappuccino and Kellogg’s cornflakes!  So, all that we need now is fresh milk (apparently there aren’t any cows here), a bowl to eat said cereal from and a spoon!  I have a feeling the latter will be easier to find than a knife though, as we’re (apparently) not allowed to buy a knife to eat with as we might kill someone with it… great.

Anyway, that’s it for now! I’ll be sure to blog about whatever we end up doing at the weekend that is worthy of being told to my humble readers – which according to Google analytics is a whole 30 (?!) of you; here’s me thinking I was writing just for the nearest and dearest!

Continue reading »]]> Wednesday we played basketball with the Government officials that share the building next to the school – we had our arses handed to us on a plate.  However, it was extremely fun!  On arrival the court was taken by some “youths” however, once the government officials entered the court it was ours – that’d never happen in the UK!

So, the game started and by the end of the first quarter we were about 21 points down!  The government officials had obviously been practicing and were wiping the floor with us. Our team were doing well but we needed to pull together and act a bit more like a well-oiled machine rather than a team of one-man armies.

Second quarter was over and the lead had increased further.  We were now over half way behind.  We managed to hold the gap in the third quarter and managed to prevent the lead on us increasing.  Fourth quarter was very well played! We reduced the gap to about 15 points and put up a magnificent fight.  Sadly we didn’t win but we enjoyed ourselves and that’s all that matters.

After the match we were taken out to an extremely fancy 3 star hotel/restaurant for an “after-game” meal – courtesy of the government officials.  The food was delicious and we had as much food and drink as we wanted.

We government were now hooked and the following day challenged us to a table tennis match that evening – naturally we said yes!  Sadly though, the government officials won straight sets for the first 5 games but managed to win all 6.  I didn’t realise we were going to playing at the same speed as the Olympic athletes!

As with the basketball match we were then whisked off to a restaurant around the corner from the school to eat and drink until our hearts were content. We had a selection of Chinese dishes and a bar full of alcoholic beverages.  After a good friendly chat and a few songs we adjourned to our flats.

Since we’ve now played both basketball and table tennis (both of which the Chinese are renowned for) we’ve challenged them to a football match on the beach!  We’re still waiting for confirmation of the date but we’re looking forward to playing one of our own games – maybe this time we’ll win?  But does this mean that we then have to buy dinner….?

Continue reading »]]> So Saturday was the day of our first “organised excursion” by Yandi Institute.  It was only a one day excursion but it was amazing!  We were taken to one of the five great mountains (Wikipedia information) – the south mountain, Mount Heng.

Everyone was shoved into a coach at the lovely, early time of 0800 to start the 2 hour journey to the mountain.  Mark (with his megaphone) was constantly telling us information about the monks and how to great them along with information on how the boys should help the girls climb!

We arrived and were directed towards another bus – except this time it was more like a rollercoaster.  The driver didn’t appear to have much understanding of how driving around a corner (that was about 160 degrees) at 30 to 40 miles per hour, wasn’t a good thing for those sat right at the back.  Although we did all arrive safely.

Out of the bus and into a queue – I thought Britain was bad for queues, but here there are queues for queues!  Eventually we were at the front of the queue and then let into the “area” where you queue for the next cable car.  Upon its arrival we had to convince ourselves to not look at or think about how many people (around 30) were crammed into one small car being held up by a bit of string.  We arrived safely, despite having a rather “ill” child that was throwing up from time to time.

The last part of the journey was a 40 minute walk the rest of the way to the peak… in 37 degree, blistering heat!  It was a nice walk, albeit hot, sweaty and rather tiring!  But the view from the top of the mountain was surreal.  At the top, we went straight to the Temple/Monastery to eat with the monks.

Not many people can say they’ve been to a monastery at the top of a mountain in China.  Of those people, very few can say they sat and ate a meal with the monks there!  It was one special occasion, I’ll say that.  Whilst dinner was “OK”, it was extremely spicy – but to them, it wasn’t! So asking for something less “spicy” got me nowhere.

Anyway, after the meal we had a quick chat with the “head” monk who told us all about the temple, the mountains and his religion.  It was very interesting although somewhat fragmented because it was being translated and a lot of things lost their true meaning!  We finished our green tea and had photos with the monk(s) before starting our descent down the mountain.

Given the amount of confidence we were filled with by the cable car (or “cableway” as it’s called here) we decided to go down the mountain in a coach.  Coming up in a coach was quite… different (flying around the 160 degree corners) – going down was somewhat more interesting as there were no restrictions on speed and we had gravity working against us!

So, overall it was a really enjoyable day!  I’ll apologise for the rather short and fragmented/stuttery – it’s taken nearly 4 days to write this in full.

*Before anyone corrects me on the word “buddish” – it was the phrase used a fair bit to describe buddist people during the trip.

Continue reading »]]> So, it appears that just being British means I have random photos taken of me… James (our guardian angel) found a newspaper article with a picture of us in the musical fountains!

The actual translation is:
“Some foreign friends took a walk at Shennong Square enjoying the music fountain in the crowd and the coolness and pleasure of the water.”

We didn’t go to any overly special event… We just went to a local “festivity” that happens every single night! It’s quite nice though… Just going out and enjoying yourself to then end up in a newspaper the following day!

Additionally, we’ve found photos of us on the internet from a school we recently observed lessons in.  http://www.zzjy1999.com/xinwenzixun/xiaoyuandongtai/2011-06-27/1255.html

It’s so weird having all these photos go up of us… Just because we’re British..!

Continue reading »]]> Today I had my first real insight into teaching.  Talk about throwing us in at the deep end!  We got into the office this morning and were presented with the task for our workshop – to choose a grammar topic (from a hat), spend 40 minutes preparing it and then teach it to each other in a classroom environment (for 10 minutes).  Luckily I got the same topic I’m teaching to the Russian students on Monday – possessive and object pronouns.  Sadly though, it’s harder than it sounds!  As native English speakers we don’t actively think about grammar rules… We just do it!  When we’re conjugating a new form of a verb, we don’t spend 30 seconds working out how we structure the sentence – we just do it!

Overall though, my lesson went as nice as can be expected for my first ever teaching scenario!  Feedback from my mentor was positive and has given me some food for thought in time for my lesson with the Russian students on Monday.

Work finished and food eaten, I hobbled on down to the Gym with my mentor (Mike) and Matt for a few hours.  If you’ve never tried spinning, I’d recommend it! It’s so much fun – although that could be the fact it felt more like a nightclub than a spinning class…

Anyway, work in the morning – 0830 sharp.  Got to teach pronunciation of 3 new words to our “mock” class… I’m yet to pick my bloody words! ARGH!

Continue reading »]]> We’ve just returned from Yandi Square, Zhuzhou city, where they have a fantastic fountain display (type thing) every evening at 1920.  Whilst most go to watch; we went to run through the water and get soaking wet! I think I may have stretched my t-shirt somewhat…

After dancing and singing in the rain, we watched (and possibly took part in) some local dancing!  It’s somewhat akin to line dancing, except it’s not country and western… It’s quite… samba-like.

After an extremely enjoyable evening, we stopped for coffee/smoothies/milkshakes.  Disappointed would be somewhat of an understatement The cakes that Gemma and I purchased tasted very strange – imagine a mix of curdled/gone off milk with very-very-very sour cream and you’d be on the right track of understanding what these cakes tasted like.  I was convinced it was icing sugar on top; now I’m left wondering whether it was mould rather than icing sugar.  Nonetheless, my iced mocha was delicious!

P.s. I apologise for the rather short and possibly “energy-drained” post.  I’m exhausted and now going to shower and crawl into the nearest bed.

Continue reading »]]> It’s Sunday and we’re up at 0900!  We were meant to start Tai Chi / Kung Fu lessons today but it appears that there has been a clerical error and we aren’t able to start this week.  So, a nice relaxing morning around the flat instead!

This afternoon we’ve got a basketball game, a spring/water festival and a football match to play (against the Russians).  Time to stock up on a nice large supply of water before dehydration kicks in I think!