Some lovely early Christmas gifts from my students, a foot warmer, a picture that a girl drew for me and a cup and card from another girl. Lovely!
Wednesday 21 December 2011
Foreigner Christmas Party!
Foreigners united... Or not!
The school was asked by the wenzhou city government if their 'foreign experts' as we claim to be, would like to go to a Christmas meal in wenzhou with a load of other foreign 'experts'.
We accepted but heard no more information than the day and that the school would send a car to pick us up.
On the day chris and I dressed it a shirt but still jeans and trainers went out in the afternoon and met the driver who came with us to wenzhou last time, and we know fairly well.
We arrived at the wenzhou Shangri la hotel, definitely one of the nicest and most expensive wenzhou hotels and as soon as a man held the car door open for me I knew I should have worn a tie. As soon as we were led into the spacious and art covered reception and registration area along with 300 or so other guests I then knew I should have worn a suit. But then I dont have a suit so I guess who cares! At least we were comfortable!
Elaine came along as our minder and friend and after some general milling around and meeting some people from other tables, surprisingly also all English teachers, we took our seats. On our seats was of course our complimentary gift of a glassware set for the kitchen, of which we of course have two... A random choice but a free Christmas present nonetheless!
At our table were us three from our school, 3 from dd dragon, one of which we knew already, and three from a school in rui an, another city near to ours! Along with the wenzhou education bureau head for our area.
The rui an guy and I got chatting (in Chinese) and he invitied us to go with him to climb a mountain and see rui an sometime. A very nice man, his English teacher was from the phillipines and her English was a little...limited, and she was very quiet.
Before the show got started the major of wenzhou went to each table to thank us for coming along with various other important people, so we got to cheers with them, also friendly people, before they shot off.
The meal itself was served with the usual eclectic mix of random music and dance shunted back to back with street dance following an orchestra, followed by a flute solo followed by a kindergarden performance followed by a pianist, games, a raffle and other craziness.
The food was ok, a little fish heavy and not the best but the roast duck was especially meaty and tasty.
After the meal and a few glasses of wine, in the traditional Chinese custom, everyone left, no straggling dance going on for hours just a start, a middle, and an end. The driver took us home ready to teach the first class again tomorrow!
Not bad for a free dinner though, and nice to see a really posh hotel!
We accepted but heard no more information than the day and that the school would send a car to pick us up.
On the day chris and I dressed it a shirt but still jeans and trainers went out in the afternoon and met the driver who came with us to wenzhou last time, and we know fairly well.
We arrived at the wenzhou Shangri la hotel, definitely one of the nicest and most expensive wenzhou hotels and as soon as a man held the car door open for me I knew I should have worn a tie. As soon as we were led into the spacious and art covered reception and registration area along with 300 or so other guests I then knew I should have worn a suit. But then I dont have a suit so I guess who cares! At least we were comfortable!
Elaine came along as our minder and friend and after some general milling around and meeting some people from other tables, surprisingly also all English teachers, we took our seats. On our seats was of course our complimentary gift of a glassware set for the kitchen, of which we of course have two... A random choice but a free Christmas present nonetheless!
At our table were us three from our school, 3 from dd dragon, one of which we knew already, and three from a school in rui an, another city near to ours! Along with the wenzhou education bureau head for our area.
The rui an guy and I got chatting (in Chinese) and he invitied us to go with him to climb a mountain and see rui an sometime. A very nice man, his English teacher was from the phillipines and her English was a little...limited, and she was very quiet.
Before the show got started the major of wenzhou went to each table to thank us for coming along with various other important people, so we got to cheers with them, also friendly people, before they shot off.
The meal itself was served with the usual eclectic mix of random music and dance shunted back to back with street dance following an orchestra, followed by a flute solo followed by a kindergarden performance followed by a pianist, games, a raffle and other craziness.
The food was ok, a little fish heavy and not the best but the roast duck was especially meaty and tasty.
After the meal and a few glasses of wine, in the traditional Chinese custom, everyone left, no straggling dance going on for hours just a start, a middle, and an end. The driver took us home ready to teach the first class again tomorrow!
Not bad for a free dinner though, and nice to see a really posh hotel!
The big tree!
Shang Dan kuai le! (merry Christmas)
This week is the run up to Christmas! We have our advent calendars and are teaching our Christmas lessons including a clip of a mr bean Christmas, which I am getting sick of, and a Christmas carol, which chris is quickly getting sick of!
We spent monday night putting up and decorating our Christmas tree that we bought on the internet but thought it was a little small at 1.5m. We showed and Elaine and she agreed and yesterday arrived with a new tree asking us to move ours to the office and put hers up in our house.
Hers is a giant at over 2meters tall and with many decorations to match we spent another evening decorating a Christmas tree, this time with Elaines help!
This afternoon I carried our little tree all across campus full decorated causing several classes worth of students to press their faces to the window to see, much to the dismay of their teachers! I had to do the move during lesson time though to ensure the tree arrived unmolested and is now setup in my office facing out through the big window. Hopefully enough so students will see it but not so people can mess with it! Although I wouldn't be surprised to find it gone, to a students classroom or a teachers house!
Pictures of the baby tree and its transport attached! Pictures of the big tree to follow!
We spent monday night putting up and decorating our Christmas tree that we bought on the internet but thought it was a little small at 1.5m. We showed and Elaine and she agreed and yesterday arrived with a new tree asking us to move ours to the office and put hers up in our house.
Hers is a giant at over 2meters tall and with many decorations to match we spent another evening decorating a Christmas tree, this time with Elaines help!
This afternoon I carried our little tree all across campus full decorated causing several classes worth of students to press their faces to the window to see, much to the dismay of their teachers! I had to do the move during lesson time though to ensure the tree arrived unmolested and is now setup in my office facing out through the big window. Hopefully enough so students will see it but not so people can mess with it! Although I wouldn't be surprised to find it gone, to a students classroom or a teachers house!
Pictures of the baby tree and its transport attached! Pictures of the big tree to follow!
Tuesday 13 December 2011
A most welcome parcel!
Got a parcel through today from England, a most welcome parcel! The first feel of Christmas! and the first chocolate since I arrived, thanks mum!
Sunday 4 December 2011
Guangzhou again!
I spent a cool week there seeing the sights and wandering around, did some shopping and bought a shirt, shoes, a jacket, so many things, and found a cool clothes market where most of the stuff is designed to sell in bulk and lots of people in suits are buying loads of things for shops all around the world, its amazing and very cool! I was used as a standin model in a small shop as they hadn't had met a young friendly foreigner before and wanted to see how the clothes looked on white skin! very funny!
Went to the university district and wish I had come to university here for a masters, so cool! Its a massive campus, the size of a small town! with 8 different universities and shared areas with huge accommodation areas too, simply amazing!
Since I've been here before I didn't bother with too many touristy things, mainly shopping and exploring random back streets, also walked from the hostel out of town to a cool market street I didn't see last time, full of fake clothes! While I was there I went to a crazy little restaurant with an electric hotplate and some raw meat, but hey it was different and kind of tasty... I went to wash my hands and got directed to go through a small door, then up a tiny flight of stairs which looking down had 4 shop dummies creepily staring up at me, through a hongkong esque back ally warren with parts of several old shops, parts of an old housing project and all sorts of odd things! picture of creepy dolls included!
There was a serious rainstorm on one of the days and in the evening went out onto the balcony and relaxed with rain pouring down and watched the cars and people driving by, it wasn't cold there and I was still in shorts and T-shirt the whole time, so the rain was a welcome break!
Took some amazing pictures from the plane, on the way out for the first time someone had cleaned the window from the outside! wished I had my camera with me!
Remember remember the 5th of november....
We decided to celebrate bonfire night in China english style! Chris bought some fireworks and we invited some of the other english teachers from the school and some of the teachers from ddlong to come and watch them and have a roof top bbq and roof top fireworks!
We started setting up the bbq and some tasty prepared food and the teachers turned up, then we had a nice meal and a few beers before the ddlong teachers turned up.
Then Chris went to set off the fireworks and they were very cool, but very short lived! and very noisy, tracy, one of the teachers kids was very scared of them!
All in all a good night, great fun setting off fireworks from the top of the building and a little revenge for all the times they have set fireworks off at us!
I also realised that using the firelighting gel you can write things in flaming words, and its much easier to write with than a flammable liquid! very useful stuff! and very cool!
The last of the bacon with a triple yoked egg!
And a gift from Elaine, a huge box of Pomelos! They are ripe now so everywhere has hundreds of them, and everyone is eating them everywhere, and Elaine bought some back for me! haha, crazy! But very tasty!
Sunday 27 November 2011
Chris takes the cake! and the medal!
Chris had an art lesson and I had a chinese lesson, and I agreed to meet Chris after and Elaine would take us all shopping, I called Chris after his lesson and started to leave, but before I could get to the class to meet him he was already walking back, and I didn't have a chance to make it halfway before I got another call asking where I was, because he had been run over!
At least we answered the question, and Chris takes the ribbon for first car accident, lucky bugger!
We met him soon after and heard the full story, Chris had been walking at the tail of a group of chinese guys and as an electric motorbike swerved between two buses it enountered chris. It encountered Chris at 30kmph and hurt his leg, back and arm due to the impact, the bike however went on going and was then hit by a bus, throwing the guy across the road.
The guy was in a bad way but luckily Chris was fine, if very angry, and so he just limped off, getting the hell out of there before anyone noticed a foreigner was involved!
We met him limping along the road and I think his worst problem was he didn't know enough chinese to tell the guy who hit him just what he thought of him leading to some pent up frustration.
We met him limping along the road and I think his worst problem was he didn't know enough chinese to tell the guy who hit him just what he thought of him leading to some pent up frustration.
The road was starting to get closed down due to the big accident and so we took a few back roads and went shopping anyway!
At least we answered the question, and Chris takes the ribbon for first car accident, lucky bugger!
Bacon no more!
We managed to find bacon in China! we bought 12 packets of it and spent a lovely couple of weeks eating bacon sandwiches, we went back today to buy some more and disaster had struck, no more! no space for it either, in China you just can't predict shop stock, its probably better for our health anyway! but that doesn't mean we don't miss it already....
Tuesday 22 November 2011
Students, dear students...
Our students were asking questions about sports to each other, and one stood up and said, "Does she enjoy playing with balls". Keeping a straight face was a bit tricky, but we just about managed it!
Monday 21 November 2011
Thunderbirds in China
we have been looking for some TV to watch and relax in between lessons as we don't usually have time to get out and do anything more than sitting down for an hour, and so we downloaded some thunderbirds! both Chris and I watched it as children so rewatching now in China is a bit surreal, but still its pretty funny, neither of us remember it being an hour! But its also crazy how much we remember of the episodes, and the names of the characters!
We showed Elaine and some of the teachers but they were none too impressed... no accounting for taste I guess!
Class 2 meal
Grade 2 Class 2 did well in the sports day so decided to invite us out for a meal to celebrate in little fat sheep, the hotpot restaurant! We went along and us, 50 students and a few teachers had a great meal laughing and joking with my old students. The students were drinking beer along with us and getting quite tipsy, even some of the girls were drinking along with the teachers!
The teacher there really loves his beer and managed to drink a pint out of a bowl faster than the students could drink a small glass!
The teacher there really loves his beer and managed to drink a pint out of a bowl faster than the students could drink a small glass!
Had a good meal and a good few beers, the students paid for all the teachers along with themselves, but taking over the restaurant was pretty fun too!
first jumper day!
Oh dear, today was the first jumper day.... a bit cold now! God damnit.... it's the start of winter!
Second English Competition
So... we made a mistake, it turns out that our speeches and general confused shenanigans last time in the new school meant that the old school wanted to do the same and organised it's own English competition, with us again as the judges of honour!
This time, a little more prepared, we shaved and found a shirt to wear and arrived with some idea of what to do, except a different bunch of student teachers had organised this one and so it was of course, completely different. This time, instead of writing the scores on cards collected and only the average being announced each judge had to look the students in the eye as our score was read out. I of course reacted by constantly over scoring and giving full marks many times. The other problems included that the first 3 students were marked out of 8, integers only, then marked out of 10, decimals allowed, then out of 7 and 3 separately with decimals allowed, so the students had no sense of cohesion!
We also were asked for a speech and I decided to do it, as Chris has decided my improvisation, or should I say pulling it out of my..ear ability is more refined!
Gave a nice little speech and spent the whole time while the children were performing prepared speeches smiling, winking, and listening attentively, which the 4 chinese judges ignored them, simply talking over them!
The children did great and some were really amazing, and again they tried to run some silly games, with more problems! The student teachers asked the students to volenteer, of course none did, so they asked us to take part, I jumped up and waded out into the students asking ones who looked interested, soon the stage was full and we played a game in which they said an action and two people had to perform the action on stage, swim, sleep etc, on the fly action I mimed superman and won, but then succeeded the next round to let the students play, always leaving the stage with a bow and a salute, to applause sometimes, or laughs, just like a performance! Its always like this....!
Ah well, for the two english competitions we have been paid around £30 extra! so not a bad little bonus, although again no pictures I'm afraid!
This time, a little more prepared, we shaved and found a shirt to wear and arrived with some idea of what to do, except a different bunch of student teachers had organised this one and so it was of course, completely different. This time, instead of writing the scores on cards collected and only the average being announced each judge had to look the students in the eye as our score was read out. I of course reacted by constantly over scoring and giving full marks many times. The other problems included that the first 3 students were marked out of 8, integers only, then marked out of 10, decimals allowed, then out of 7 and 3 separately with decimals allowed, so the students had no sense of cohesion!
We also were asked for a speech and I decided to do it, as Chris has decided my improvisation, or should I say pulling it out of my..ear ability is more refined!
Gave a nice little speech and spent the whole time while the children were performing prepared speeches smiling, winking, and listening attentively, which the 4 chinese judges ignored them, simply talking over them!
The children did great and some were really amazing, and again they tried to run some silly games, with more problems! The student teachers asked the students to volenteer, of course none did, so they asked us to take part, I jumped up and waded out into the students asking ones who looked interested, soon the stage was full and we played a game in which they said an action and two people had to perform the action on stage, swim, sleep etc, on the fly action I mimed superman and won, but then succeeded the next round to let the students play, always leaving the stage with a bow and a salute, to applause sometimes, or laughs, just like a performance! Its always like this....!
Ah well, for the two english competitions we have been paid around £30 extra! so not a bad little bonus, although again no pictures I'm afraid!
English Competetion
but then it came back to haunt me when Chris and I were asked to be
judges for an English competition in the new school.
We agreed and dragged ourselves over for the preliminary stage and
watched our students perform, mainly because they wanted us to watch
them for support and not really for any other reason. Then the next
week the day of the competition came and so chris and I, after a long
day teaching, wandered over to the hall, and quickly found ourselves
wishing we had bothered to shave and wear a shirt!
All the student teachers who had organised this were dressed up to the
nines and the heads of both the schools were there along with a few
hundred students! We had no idea what was going on so just kind of
rolled with it, but the student teachers seemingly had just about as
much idea as us!
We sat down at our set places at the front of a large lecture hall
with large airline style conformable seat and only then noticed that
everything was on video and there were two professional photographers
around as well.
The students then proceeded to put on prepared performances including
providing an english voiceover for the snow white film, singing
English songs and all sorts of cool things.
The teachers then tried to run a game with the kids but of course none
volunteered, so Chris and I jumped up on stage and joined in playing
the balloon games with them, I worked with ChenChen, my old student
and friend, and Chris with another student.
At the end they asked us, without any prep time, to give a speech! So
I Stood up and gave them a small speech, most of them were students I
am or have been teaching, and so it wasn't too hard to give a little
on the spot thank you speech, then unfortunately chris also had to
give one! In the end the snow white dubbing girl won! and Oceane a
student we are friends with was a pretty close second. However in true
chinese style she was heartbroken at being second, its just not good
enough! She was genuinely upset! crazy chinese!
In all the craziness we didn't even manage any pictures! Only one of
Oceane receiving her giant but disappointing awards!
Thursday 10 November 2011
A difficult job...
The day after the sports day I say some students fumbling on the ground, I wondered if they had lost their glasses in the sports day so I offered to help but it turned out they were tasked with picking up all the confetti that had been thrown and fired from fireworks the day before, by hand! Crazy china!
Paid 3000rmb per hour
Sports day was actually a 4 day event here with all the school decamping into the lovely sunshine to watch or take part in more events than I knew existed!
Everything from running and hurdles to jumping, skipping and all the rest and since both schools were taking part (3000 students) and there were endless heats and races it was 4 full days! The students not taking part either watched and cheered their friends along or sat in the shade talking or doing homework! With some not turning up at all!
The competition even had an opening ceremony with all the classes parading in wearing their (self organised and bought) class branded uniforms with fireworks and confetti and balloons, amazing! Unfortunately we only know about that through pictures as Chris and I ended up going for a social beer the night before to new the new English guy in lingxi and we didn't get home until 6am, for a 7.30 start! Not that they told us there would be a ceremony!
The next few days I spent wandering around the field and since all my grade 1 students were there and all my old students now grade 2 I had 2000 students to meet and greet, and they got to practise their English, so everyone was happy!
Chris decided to head off to shanghai for the weekend and do a little shopping and catch up with friends so I help the fort at the sports meet.
In the end the teachers all organised a teachers only relay race for the Saturday afternoon and since grade 1 was missing some teachers I was asked to take part, mainly because I knew the students would enjoy it I accepted.
As all the teachers were introduced they all got a shout of approval but when I was announced there was a huge roar of students wanting to see the foreigner run, what had I signed up for?!
I was given my number and my team and told where to stand, it was a 200m relay and I was last in my team of 10.
All the teachers ran and my team was destined for third, in fact when I was eventually called up it was obvious that the teachers ahead had already finished and the one behind was miles behind! I was going to be third.
All the teachers were accompanied by shouted encouragement from the students but when it was my turn all the students formed a tunnel one person wide for me to run down with students on each side the whole way, often 2 or 3 deep! For the whole 200m! Crazy! But very funny with them screaming for me to go faster I ran as fast as I could and did a quite impressive job, putting on a good show for them even though I could not have changed the overall rankings whatever happened!
Afterwards I was congratulated by an endless parade of students and teachers and invited for a meal, but since it was too early to eat I just headed back for a shower.
That night all over the students qqzone (Chinese Facebook) there were lots of comments about me and my running and a huge number of pictures and videos turned up too! With one student making me my own webpage with a video montage set to music, awful! But pretty funny.
The next day I was given 50rmb (5gbp) for my trouble! In china whenever a teacher does something like that apparently they get a reward! I only did it for a laugh!
Working it out if I got 50rmb for one minutes work that makes a nice 3000rmb (300gbp) an hour! I see why professional athletes do it now!!
All in all it was all good fun!
Everything from running and hurdles to jumping, skipping and all the rest and since both schools were taking part (3000 students) and there were endless heats and races it was 4 full days! The students not taking part either watched and cheered their friends along or sat in the shade talking or doing homework! With some not turning up at all!
The competition even had an opening ceremony with all the classes parading in wearing their (self organised and bought) class branded uniforms with fireworks and confetti and balloons, amazing! Unfortunately we only know about that through pictures as Chris and I ended up going for a social beer the night before to new the new English guy in lingxi and we didn't get home until 6am, for a 7.30 start! Not that they told us there would be a ceremony!
The next few days I spent wandering around the field and since all my grade 1 students were there and all my old students now grade 2 I had 2000 students to meet and greet, and they got to practise their English, so everyone was happy!
Chris decided to head off to shanghai for the weekend and do a little shopping and catch up with friends so I help the fort at the sports meet.
In the end the teachers all organised a teachers only relay race for the Saturday afternoon and since grade 1 was missing some teachers I was asked to take part, mainly because I knew the students would enjoy it I accepted.
As all the teachers were introduced they all got a shout of approval but when I was announced there was a huge roar of students wanting to see the foreigner run, what had I signed up for?!
I was given my number and my team and told where to stand, it was a 200m relay and I was last in my team of 10.
All the teachers ran and my team was destined for third, in fact when I was eventually called up it was obvious that the teachers ahead had already finished and the one behind was miles behind! I was going to be third.
All the teachers were accompanied by shouted encouragement from the students but when it was my turn all the students formed a tunnel one person wide for me to run down with students on each side the whole way, often 2 or 3 deep! For the whole 200m! Crazy! But very funny with them screaming for me to go faster I ran as fast as I could and did a quite impressive job, putting on a good show for them even though I could not have changed the overall rankings whatever happened!
Afterwards I was congratulated by an endless parade of students and teachers and invited for a meal, but since it was too early to eat I just headed back for a shower.
That night all over the students qqzone (Chinese Facebook) there were lots of comments about me and my running and a huge number of pictures and videos turned up too! With one student making me my own webpage with a video montage set to music, awful! But pretty funny.
The next day I was given 50rmb (5gbp) for my trouble! In china whenever a teacher does something like that apparently they get a reward! I only did it for a laugh!
Working it out if I got 50rmb for one minutes work that makes a nice 3000rmb (300gbp) an hour! I see why professional athletes do it now!!
All in all it was all good fun!
Fire in lingxi!
Woke up a few days ago and there was a funny smell, so we took a look outside to see this! A massive fire! Being a little Chinese now we obviously decided to walk towards it and take a look, a whole warehouse was on fire and the firemen had obviously decided to just stop it spreading and let it burn out. We watched for a while and took some pictures before heading back to class!
A heartfelt gift!
Elaine went on a trip for a few days to a beautiful waterside town a few hours away and brought me back a gift, a pumpkin with Chinese characters written into the side whilst it was still growing, resulting in this. (see picture)
And for those needing a translation the first character is ni (you) the second is Zhen (really) and the last is Ben which means stupid. (sorry if you are reading this ben!). My students all thought it was very very funny.
And for those needing a translation the first character is ni (you) the second is Zhen (really) and the last is Ben which means stupid. (sorry if you are reading this ben!). My students all thought it was very very funny.
Sometimes I really love my students!
one of my students drew a picture of me and showed me, not an awful likeness I guess! It could be worse! And he is a lovely kid even if his English is maybe worse than my Chinese! Haha!
Also put a few random pictures of my students up, them playing around and chatting outside the classroom, very cute kids!
The slightly large boy on his own is stark, the boy who drew me, him and a few other students came over and danced for me, played guitar, sung a song, and showed me some things they like, a few Japanese cartoons, good fun hanging out with them!
One boy, who I have named rolo! (although now I need to get a packet of Rolos from England) bought me a baseball cap like his because last lesson he kept wearing his, so I kept stealing it and wearing it, good fun!
Also put a few random pictures of my students up, them playing around and chatting outside the classroom, very cute kids!
The slightly large boy on his own is stark, the boy who drew me, him and a few other students came over and danced for me, played guitar, sung a song, and showed me some things they like, a few Japanese cartoons, good fun hanging out with them!
One boy, who I have named rolo! (although now I need to get a packet of Rolos from England) bought me a baseball cap like his because last lesson he kept wearing his, so I kept stealing it and wearing it, good fun!
More teaching!
Had an uneventful week with the students taking exams so we had a day to relax, much appreciated! There was mention of some sort of English corner on the weekend which I said I might attend but I realised I forgot to ask when and where so sadly was forced to spend Sunday afternoon relaxing instead!
This week is sports week, which should be fun!
This week is sports week, which should be fun!
Hangzhou trip end
Wow so much blogging to catch up on! I will try to write it all down and throw up some accompanying pictures later as im blogging on my phone today on a long journey, but we will come to that soon!
So hangzhou... After we stayed a night in a possible den of sin we moved into a much nicer hotel in the expensive row near the train station and wow, what a difference! International standard, large rooms with large windows and well a lovely change, although im sure I will remember the other hotel for much longer!
We spent the next few days exploring hangzhou, mostly things I had already done, including a taxi driver who was really sure he had to tell me at length how handsome he thought I was! Crazy man!
We also did west lake and a bit of shopping as well as visiting the islands, again! Something im not sure Chris still might have missed, despite it being what hz is famous for!
In the end O'Keeffe got the flight and I made my way back to wenzhou by train early the next morning, tired and in need of another holiday to relax after my first holiday!
Luckily after national day and its week holiday we have a 4 day week because of exams and then the week after that we will have a 3 day week because Thursday and Friday are sports days! Crazy! But not entirely sad..... Being a teacher in china does have some benefits!
So hangzhou... After we stayed a night in a possible den of sin we moved into a much nicer hotel in the expensive row near the train station and wow, what a difference! International standard, large rooms with large windows and well a lovely change, although im sure I will remember the other hotel for much longer!
We spent the next few days exploring hangzhou, mostly things I had already done, including a taxi driver who was really sure he had to tell me at length how handsome he thought I was! Crazy man!
We also did west lake and a bit of shopping as well as visiting the islands, again! Something im not sure Chris still might have missed, despite it being what hz is famous for!
In the end O'Keeffe got the flight and I made my way back to wenzhou by train early the next morning, tired and in need of another holiday to relax after my first holiday!
Luckily after national day and its week holiday we have a 4 day week because of exams and then the week after that we will have a 3 day week because Thursday and Friday are sports days! Crazy! But not entirely sad..... Being a teacher in china does have some benefits!
Tuesday 25 October 2011
Third day in hz
For dinner we went back to the food street again and grabbed some tasty snacks, as we left we decided to get a taxi and buy some fruit for a snack. We got into a small motorised three wheeled taxi and the guy started off in chinese about how handsome I was.... crazy! But he really would not shut up, talking to my friend about handsome I was, I made a few jokes about it, and asked him about his wife, (in chinese obviously) but still he carried on, eventually he dropped us outside and took our money with some more handsome comments.
We went inside and found that this supermarket had no damn fruit anyway! We went back outside and he was still there waiting for us! He shouted out and told us he would take us to an awesome place, we got back in and he drove us to another snack food street, much bigger than the last and much more interesting! We thanked him again and he wouldn't even take any more money, just wanted a picture with me before we left, so strange!
We looked around this snack food street and bought a few things before heading back to the rooms again. I rediscovered today a fruit I had in thailand a lot and loved, apparently it is very common out here too! So cool! So I can eat that now, whenever I want, so cheaply! So cool!
Second Day in Hangzhou
Walking around the corner we found that we were at West Lake, the most famous place in Hangzhou! And an amount of people you would not believe. It seems the whole 5mile side of the lake bordering the city was packed with people, a continuous stream maybe 5 wide, at least. It was crazy. More people than I even though existed, and it all fell into place why all the hotels were full. It was a national holiday and EVERYONE had decided to go to see Hangzhou in the autumn.
We took a few pictures around the lake and enjoyed the sunshine before heading towards the possibility of a hotel I had booked online the day before.
We got to this hotel, and it turned out to be a pretty expensive and damn nice hotel, I felt a bit guilty standing there in my shorts and t shirt, in this swanky lobby.
I showed my phone with a screenshot from a computer saying that instead of paying at least £85 i only wanted to pay £35. For a long time they looked for my reservation but eventually found it, and I paid a healthy deposit, but I was promised it back when I checked out.
I showed my phone with a screenshot from a computer saying that instead of paying at least £85 i only wanted to pay £35. For a long time they looked for my reservation but eventually found it, and I paid a healthy deposit, but I was promised it back when I checked out.
I went up to the 11th floor and found a really nice room, a nice view (for china), and was very happy. Having a much needed shower we headed out into the city. We explored the famous traditional street and a couple of temples and shops around town.
In the evening we went back to the traditional street and the food court section, and pressing through a silly amount of people bought some tasty snack foods for dinner!
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