Another weekend in paradise

Friday evening Susan, a student from class 9, Peter (class 16) and Echo (9 i think) and some of her friends along with one of Chris's students came over to our house to use our computers to do some editing for a show on sunday. We waited around for a while but then left them in the flat and went out for some dinner at Go Tea Go, our usual restaurant.

At Go Tea GO we noticed a change, the usual chinese only menu with some awful random chinglish mixed in had been removed and a new menu with real english in has replaced it. Now it is a little boring as instead of choosing random pictures that look tasty we actually know what we are ordering, and now its lost some of its appeal!

After our meal we were both really tired and after paying the bill were about to get up to leave when a random black guy walked up to the table and started talking english.

Turns out he was a Somoan born guy with an American passport that had used that to come to China more than 10 years ago.

He had only arrived in Lingxi that night to work in a private school teaching young children called ...something castle...

Both tired and with students waiting we chatted for a while (he speaks chinese) and he explained he was there on a welcome meal from his company and soon a member of their staff joined us, someone who didn't speak any english. Soon they were inviting us to see their school which was nearby and in my case half asleep we ended up going. We had a wistle stop tour of their little school and Kim, our new friend, started talking about how he wanted to start filming short plays for CCTV, and if he needs any white faces then we will give him a hand!

 

After finishing up we walked back to a mercifully empty flat and got some needed rest!

 

A note left on our table said that the students would arrive at 11.40 the next day for more editing and to cook us a meal to say thank you! Very nice of them!

Woke up on Saturday at 9 and rushed off to my chinese lesson, had a good 3 hours of chinese and learnt some more useful things including how to say, 'that man is crazy' always useful! Ta zhe ge feng zi!

I came back to the house to find that Chris had slept through and they had knocked and then some had left. When I got back they had come back again and brought the needed food and they had begun to cook us a lovely lunch.

 

They cooked many different things and we had a tasty lunch together with around 4 or so students and Chris and I. We spent a few hours messing around in the flat with the students while they edited music and got ready for the show the next day and taking stupid pictures, just relaxing really which was cool. Then Louise and Amy turned up, I had forgotten I had agreed to play pool with them and teach louise how to play pool, or try to! They messed around with us for a bit before we all walked out into lingxi to play pool as a group.

Dashien, Chris's student, and the head of the drama society knew a cool place so walked us into the town centre, near the big supermarket, but unfortunetly his favorite place was closed for a refurb, as most of china seems to be every other week. Luckily just next door was a new pool hall that he had never been to, so we went there.

We got a table and started a doubles game, while they were playing I took louise and amy off to the shop and bought some mosquito repellant and coffee tokeep me going.

After half an hour we got back and they were still playing their first game so louise and I took another table next to theirs for £2.50 an hour, expensive by chinese standards!

I helped louise play for an hour or so and even got the ever negative Amy to join in a bit, with a lot of help.

After pool we went to a hotpot restaurant again but this time Chris and I paid, we ate lots of crazy things but I really like the hotpot style, very cool, although i only really ate the spicy half of the hotpot.

 

We walked the back way back to school (that some of the students didn't know!) and split off from our students. Back in the room two of the students (Dashien and Susan) who had skipped the meal to do some editing were still there and asked if they could edit until late, the problem being that after 11pm they could not get back to their rooms so could they please stay over at ours!
Since it was saturday night it was no problem and we chatted and messed around until late and then sorted them out an airbed and sleeping bags for the night before leaving them to it!

 

Big day tomorrow, I got a call today asking if I wanted to go another English teachers wedding!