Sunday 18th December

Today is my last day in China and I spent it doing what I do best, shopping! I went to the markets to get some last minute Christmas presents as I had packed earlier that morning and knew I had space. I found a stall that had some gorgeous handbags that were really cheap and went a bit nuts and bought 6! I also found a stall with some really lovely earrings and it was only when I got home and was packing that I realised that I had bought 13 pairs. They were so cheap, it was worth it. Although squishing everything into my suitcase turned out to be a lot harder than I had thought!

I then had to go to the phone company with the modem to get the internet disconnected, which took an hour as no one spoke English and my Chinese is nowhere near good enough to explain what I wanted, so it was through mime and Pictionary that I eventually got them to understand. I then went to the bank to see if I could get my money before I left, I managed it but again it was a really slow process and they were not happy that I was closing my account! By this point I was exhausted, it really takes it out of you trying to get things sorted at the phone company and the bank! I got home at 6pm and finished my packing and then had an earlyish night at 10pm as I have to be up and ready to leave for the airport at 3am!

Friday 16th December

Today is my last day at Beijing International Bilingual Academy. When I arrived at the school I had to get the children ready for the Christmas concert where they were performing in the auditorium for all of the parents. Then we all went down to the classroom to watch Mr Bean and have the class party with popcorn and snacks that the parents had bought in. By 11am children started to leave and by 11.30am everyone had gone. I received a few Christmas presents off the children which included 6 oranges, a toy squishy dog, a pashmina, a scarf, toiletry set and a box of chocolates. I was also offered the use of a few summer houses which was nice.

When all the children had left all of the staff met in the canteen for a speech from the principal and then our special Christmas lunch (which turned out to be dominoes pizza) and then by 12.30pm we were allowed to leave! Everyone went to get their things and I cleared my desk for the next intern, then we all went to the Swan for a few drinks to celebrate the start of the holidays.

Wednesday 14th december

Had to get up bright and early today as I had forgotten to buy the popcorn and prizes for the grade 2C last lesson party, so I was at the supermarket at 8am buying that. I then went straight to school and was covering the grade 1A lessons all day again today. I had English in the morning and realised that because I was covering lessons all day this actually clashed with my grade 2C lesson! Grade 1A were supposed to have a end of month party at the end of the day, so I switched those around so the grade 2C party was at the same time as the grade 1a party and had them all in the grade 1A classroom eating popcorn and watching Mr Bean. I then presented the prizes to the 3 students from grade 2C with the most green stars and gave everyone from 2C a lollipop as it was their last English lesson. The next lesson I had was with grade 1A teaching social studies and then I had a free period to catch up with all of my marking.

After school I went to China Unicom to try and cancel my internet but I have to come back on Sunday with my modem and a pile of paperwork the woman gave me. It was relatively stress free, which was surprising as I was expecting it to be as bad as the bank. I then got a taxi to Pinnacle Plaza to meet some of the teachers for dinner which was nice. After dinner I went to see the curriculum coordinator to discuss the job in more detail and it is starting to sound like a really good opportunity. It is still a really difficult decision to make though and I am still feeling really torn.

Tuesday 13th December

Got woken up this morning by another text asking me to cover today’s lessons for the grade 1 teacher as they were still off sick. I got to school and had English in the morning with grade 1A and then it was lunchtime. After lunch I took grade 1A up to their music lesson and I started on the display board for the classroom for the next lesson. During this time I found out that one of the children had banged his head on the climbing frame and had been taken to hospital for stitches! I was also given another unofficial job offer to stay on at the school, this time as a teaching assistant for the grade 4 teacher and office assistant with a pay offer of 10,000 RMB (£1000 p/m, double what I was offered before) and money towards my flights, as long as they can organise a visa for me.

At 1.30pm I had my English lesson with grade 2C to finish their “all about me” project, tomorrow is their last lesson with me so I want to make sure they have finished it so I can do something fun with them. There was one child who did barely anything in that lesson and was messing about the whole time I told him that if he was going to act like a 1^st grader then he was going to have to come and work with the first graders to finish his work after snack time. He had 3 worksheets to finish and after snack he came and sat in the “naughty corner” of the grade 1A classroom to finish his work, while my grade 1A class were working on their time lines (they were working really well and quietly, I was so proud of them showing the second grade child how to work). Funnily enough, with no distractions and being shown up by my first grade class, he finished all three worksheets in 1 lesson, why couldn’t he work that well during his own English class?!

My next lesson was social studies which flew by and before I knew it, it was 4pm and time to send the kids home. I finished some laminating and decided that the marking can wait until tomorrow, then I went to meet Raena and Doreenda for dinner and to discuss the job offer I had had earlier as I feel really torn about it. We made a pros and cons list which didn’t really help my decision either, I really don’t know what I want to do. When I got home I had an email asking if I can cover the teachers classes again tomorrow and I skyped Matt to discuss the job offer. Looks like I have lot’s to think about over the next few days.

Monday 12th December

I got woken up by a text at 6.30am this morning asking if I can cover for one of the teachers that was off sick. I don’t usually get out of bed until 8am so it was a bit of a shock getting up at that time to be in work for 8am. It was the grade 1A teacher that was off so I already knew the kids which helped and I started off taking them to morning assembly and then teaching English. After lunch I had to take them to rehearse for the Christmas concert and get them used to walking onto the stage in the right order and actually getting them to stay still which is not easy with a class of 7 year olds! I then had my normal English lesson with grade 2C finishing their “all about me project” which most of them have very nearly finished, which is good as we only have another two lessons left to get it done. I then had a 10 minute break, just enough time to get my things together for the next lessons! I had maths with grade 1A where we were working on time and then the final lesson of the day was English writing where the children all made up a Christmas story about snowmen which was cute. By this point I was worn out, I had taught 6 lessons back to back and was ready for a sleep! I had a load of marking to do though and had about an hour to do it in as we had our staff xmas meal where we give our secret santa gifts and we were getting buses from the school at 5.20pm.

We got the buses to the restaurant that we were having our meal at and we all sat down to a big selection of Chinese dishes. The Chinese teachers were so excited and were going round to every table wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, apparently the restaurant we were at was quite expensive and one of the teachers said they look forward to the meal all year, which is paid for by the school. There were towers of mashed potatoes with whipped cream on top, chicken (plus chickens head), what looked like salami, snails, garlic vegetables, a weird meat that you put in tofu pancakes (I don’t think I want to know what that was), shrimp, pigs heart, chicken and peanuts, shredded lamb kebab, chicken curry, squid and king prawns, spicy minced meat rolls, green vegetables, fish soup (complete with fish tail), dumplings, mushroom and some sort of furry meat soup, rice and duck pancakes. After dinner (and endless speeches in Chinese then translated into English) we were each given a gift from the school, a scarf and pair of socks. Not just any scarf though, there were scarves with fur, lace, bows, netting, you name it, we had it! We each got photos with our scarves, I think I can safely say that most of them will not be worn in public. We then swapped our secret santa gifts and I was given chocolate and a moisturiser set by one of the Chinese teachers. We then had to all go into the room next door where there was a stage to have a staff photo (there were 75 of us, it took a while!) then at 8pm, straight after the photo, everyone left. Nothing like any staff meal I have ever been to, usually we all stay and dance to cheesy music! Quite an interesting day and it was nice to have a staff meal together and I got a pair of socks out of it!

See all pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628401498071/

Sunday 11th December

I realised this morning that I must have left my purse in the taxi last night as I couldn’t find it anywhere and that was the last place that I had it. This is even worse because I had my English bank card and Chinese bank card in there and about 500 RMB (£50).

The first thing that I did was to call Ashley, one of the teachers that speaks a bit of Chinese and has been here a while so sort of knows how the banks work. We got a taxi to Euro plaza and to the bank with my bank details from when I opened my account and my passport. It took us 3 attempts with different people to explain that I had lost my bank card and that I wanted a replacement card and to withdraw my money that was in there. After the bank manager and two cashiers had had a lengthy discussion they turned to me and said “no”. That was it, just no. When I asked “no what?” I was told that I couldn’t withdraw my money, but could order a new card. Ok, let’s start there then, I thought and we were taken to yet another cashier (who could speak quite good English, I don’t understand why we weren’t taken to him first). I started my story again for the fourth time, that I had lost my bank card and that I wanted a new bank card and to withdraw my money. I was told that yes they could give me a new bank card but it would take 7 days for my new card to arrive, but I wouldn’t be able to withdraw any money until then (7 days would be Sunday and I leave for England at 3am Monday so it was cutting it fine). I explained again that I had absolutely no money and needed the 75 RMB (£7.50) that was in my account, which the cashier openly laughed at me saying that it was only 75 RMB. Yes I know this, but I have NO MONEY and need anything I can get! Even the bank manager was looking at me in amazement and they kept saying that there was only 75 RMB in my account. We were then told that the new bank card would be available to be picked up on Monday 19^th December (which is no good as I would have left China by then) and when I explained this I was told that I could return to China to pick up my new bank card and withdraw my 75 RMB then. There is no way that I am coming back to China to claim my £7.50! I was getting really frustrated by this point so I said what if I just close my account, can I have my 75 RMB? Again I was told no, I needed my bank card to be able to withdraw my money or I could close my account and come back a week on Monday when the account will be closed to claim my money. I got really angry at this point and said “so you are holding my money hostage?” I decided to go ahead and close the account, which I had to tell the cashier numerous times “yes I want to close the account” and the cashier would say OK and sit there looking at me “so you need to close my account now” and then the cashier said “but why?” it was so frustrating! I told the cashier I was never banking with their bank again because they wouldn’t give me my money and to close the account. I then sat there for a while waiting for the cashier to fill in a load of forms when the cashier then told me that it would cost 20 RMB to close my account!! I said to take the 20 RMB out of the 75 RMB in my account and was told that he couldn’t because that wasn’t the procedure and at that point it really was either laugh or cry. Where do you expect me to get the 20RMB from when I don’t have any money or cards and the only money I do have, you won’t give me?! I demanded. The whole situation really was unbelievable and we had been at the bank arguing my case for an hour by now and still hadn’t come to a solution. In the end the cashier must have felt sorry for me because he paid the 20 RMB out of his own pocket, as long as I paid him back when I came for my 75 RMB a week on Monday. Which I won’t be doing as I will be on a flight back to the UK by then. The final outcome was that I closed my account so that my wages won’t go in there on Thursday (because if they do there would be no way to get it out before I flew home) and I need to return to the bank a week on Monday to claim my 75 RMB (55 RMB now that I owe the cashier 20 RMB!) which I can’t do as I will have already left the country and no one else can do it as it has to be me and my passport ID. This whole thing took 90 minutes and I am never using that bank ever again!

We then went to the supermarket for Ashley to do her grocery shopping and met Doreenda there as they were treating me to lunch afterwards as I had no money. I borrowed a bit from Doreenda to buy my present for my secret santa for tomorrow and then we went to “the Swan with two necks” which was only next door. By this point it was almost 4pm so we got a taxi home and I caught up with a few people on skype. Overall a very frustrating day and I still need to sort out where to send my wages on Thursday. Not how I was expecting to spend my Sunday!

Saturday 10th December

I had a nice lie in this morning and then met up with Ashley, Doreenda and Amanda (who were a bit hung-over) at 2pm to get a taxi into the city to do some shopping. We went to the bank first so that they could transfer money home which took forever, I think we were there for about 90 minutes! We then went to a shopping mall that I hadn’t been to before but walked past lot’s of times, but never realised what it was. We went to H&M for Doreenda and Ashley to get outfits for tonight and by this point it was about 5.45pm so we walked to Shanna and Kristen’s apartment to drop off our shopping as we had reservations at an Italian restaurant “The Tree” at 6.30pm. We got a taxi to the restaurant and met Raena, Anna and Geoff there and had a really nice meal, all wearing our santa hats that we bought earlier that day at the Ya Show market. We went on a bit of a pub crawl and I had a really good night out with some great friends that I had made. I am really going to miss everyone when I leave!

Friday 9th December

Last night Doreenda, Amanda and Raena came round for a surprise visit to cheer me up and so we could order a takeaway for dinner which was really nice of them. I don’t know if the spicy food helped, but I felt much better this morning and only have toothache which is a bit of a relief as yesterday every time I blew my nose I got a nosebleed.

Today as I was getting ready for work disaster struck! I was putting my eyeshadow on and then knocked my favourite Barry M eyeshadow down the toilet! For a second I considered fishing it out, but it had gone round the bend and I did not want to go putting my hand round there! I am so upset that I was so clumsy.

When I got to school I had a secret santa gift waiting for me from yesterday, it looks like another tea thing and is sellotaped to a jasmine drink thing. Whatever it is, it does not look nice! But there were talks about going out for dinner and drinks after work to the new English bar we went to the other day as it is happy hour from 5pm-8pm which should be good. I had a few easy English lessons with grade 1A in the morning and then a easy English lesson with grade 2C in the afternoon, then maths with 1A and an ESL lesson at the end of the day with 3 of the lower level English children from 1A. Not a bad end to the week!

At 3.30pm we all met at the school gate and got a taxi to Pinnacle Plaza and went to “The swan with two necks”. We realised that it was the open party and that instead of happy hour it was going to be an open bar from 5-8pm. We all ordered food and at 5pm the place was packed and everyone was making the most of free drinks. I stayed on soft drinks as I am still not feeling 100% but there were a few people who were quite drunk by 8pm which was funny to watch. I shared a taxi home with Amanda at 9.30pm, after making plans to meet up with everyone for my leaving do tomorrow.

Thursday 8th December

On Tuesday I started with what felt like really bad toothache on the upper right side of my mouth, it got progressively worse throughout the day which made me panic as the dentists here are even more expensive than the ones at home!
By Wednesday it had gotten so bad that during the night, every time I rolled onto that side the pain woke me up and I was wide awake from 5am. By this point the whole right side of my face was really painful to touch. When I got to school I googled my symptoms (apparently it could be a heart attack) but the most likely was that I had blocked Maxillary sinuses - affection of the maxillary sinuses causes an ache in the upper jaw (maxilla) and teeth. The cheeks become tender to touch. Apparently among others, this is brought on by persistent cold and flu symptoms, flights and high pollution.
Throughout the day this got worse until it felt like my right side of my face was throbbing. Painkillers made it a bit better but I felt awful being in lessons trying to be cheerful. I couldn’t face eating anything either at lunchtime so just sat at my desk feeling miserable. After school I went to Euro Plaza to try and get some antibiotics, but as no one speaks English (although I did find someone who spoke a little bit) and all of the medicine is in Chinese characters and the fact that I am allergic to penicillin, I didn’t want to risk it. Especially when the pharmacist said there was no penicillin in one of the antibiotics she was offering me, but there was the ingredients in English and I could see it said penicillin and the Pharmacist said “how allergic are you? It’s only a little bit”. The truth is, I have no idea how allergic I am to penicillin, but I sure don’t want to find out here in China, where I don’t even know where the nearest hospital is or how much of an allergic reaction to something I was told had no penicillin in I would have and how much that minor error would cost me in hospital bills!
Today (Thursday) I woke up with the right side of my face throbbing so decided to stay at home today and try and sleep it off. I have run out of Beechams and cold n flu stuff (and will be flying home before any parcels arrived if Matt posted more over) so I have just been taking painkillers which sort of helps. I just have to get through the next 11 days and then I will be able to go and see my own doctor back home. Looks like I am not going to be much fun on my leaving do on Saturday as well, when all I want to do is sleep!

Monday 5th December

Monday 5^th December

Today the smog was so bad that I could not see the ground from my fourth floor apartment, this is by far the worse that I have seen it, with the pollution level reportedly being 450.

API	Air Pollution Level	Health Implications
0 - 50	Excellent	No health implications
51 -100	Good	No health implications
101-150	Slightly Polluted	Slight irritations may occur, individuals with breathing or heart problems should reduce outdoor exercise.
151-200	Lightly Polluted	Slight irritations may occur, individuals with breathing or heart problems should reduce outdoor exercise.
201-250	Moderately Polluted	Healthy people will be noticeably affected. People with breathing or heart problems will experience reduced endurance in activities. These individuals and elders should remain indoors and restrict activities.
251-300	Heavily Polluted	Healthy people will be noticeably affected. People with breathing or heart problems will experience reduced endurance in activities. These individuals and elders should remain indoors and restrict activities.
300+	Severely Polluted	Healthy people will experience reduced endurance in activities. There may be strong irritations and symptoms and may trigger other illnesses. Elders and the sick should remain indoors and avoid exercise. Healthy individuals should avoid out door activities.

Beijing International Airport was also closed because of the smog.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16034087

Today was also the day I turned down the job offer of being kept on at Beijing International Bilingual Academy until the end of the school year in June. I have made a lot of really good friends here and I really enjoy the job (most of the time anyway) but I have to return to the UK for my PGCE interview, graduation and then a family holiday to Las Vegas so I would have to pay for flights back to China in February and for an extended Visa and I haven’t got anywhere near the money to do that.

Other than that, I had quite a good day today, despite sounding so hoarse and full of a cold. I had a few small gifts from my secret Santa waiting for me from the two days that I was off sick, a hot chocolate, a can of some kind of Chinese milk drink and a small bag of Chinese pick n mix candy. I had some productive lessons with grade 1 in the morning and again with grade 2 in the afternoon and the last lesson was spent making snowflakes for the display board which the children really enjoyed doing. Actually, I think I was into it the most, I love any opportunity to get creative!

After school I went for dinner with 4 other teachers to Michael's place, an Italian restaurant at Euro Plaza and then we went for homemade ice cream at another place in Euro Plaza which was nice. Then it was home and an early night to try and shift this cold before my leaving party on Saturday.

Sunday 4th December

I slept much better last night I had asked for softer pillows and I am feeling a bit better) and I got up at 7am to go have a look around. I went to the park round the corner at 7.30am and had a look around, I wanted to walk along the city wall but apparently that didn’t open until 9am. I then returned to the hostel for breakfast, pack my things and wait for Sam to say goodbye. I thought my flights were later than they actually were and because it’s an hour to get to the airport I had to leave at 9.15am to get my 12pm flight back to Beijing.

I got to the airport with no problems and it was only when I was about to board that I remembered the black terracotta warrior miniature statue and I realised just how naive I had been and how easy it could be to have been tricked into being a drugs mule! Mum, if you are reading this, I take it all back from that time that man gave you that green stuff that turned out to be seaweed in Rome as a present and you brought it home and we all thought you had been naive and it could have been weed you were smuggling into the country! Maybe it’s a family thing?! We just look (and are) gullible enough to fall for the “it’s a gift” routine! Luckily when I landed in Beijing there was no strange man at the baggage claim demanding his terracotta warrior statue back and no Chinese police ready to arrest me for drug trafficking, so I assume that after all my paranoia, the terracotta warrior miniature statue given to me by the tour guide was exactly as it seemed, a gift! Which is quite a relief really, as I don’t have time for a Chinese prison and the inconvenience of explaining my whole naivety to the Chinese police (through a translator I might add, which brings up the issue of things being lost in translation) and possibly a criminal record, what with my PGCE interview coming up and my graduation. That’s not to say that without those plans it would have been ok, but let’s face it, it would have made a funny story to tell the grand kids in years to come!

But anyway, none of this happened and I got through to the taxi rank and got a taxi back to my apartment where it felt good to be home again. I had a text off Jodie asking if her and Milzie could come and use my shower again as they still haven’t had their hot water fixed, and a text off Sam saying what a good weekend it had been.

Jodie and Milzie came round at 7.30pm with dumplings and fried rice from the dumpling restaurant round the corner and we caught up on each others weekends and they used the shower. Bit of an early night to catch up on sleep and so that I am in work bright and early tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what my secret Santa has left for me on my desk from Thursday and Friday.

Saturday 3rd December

Pit 1

Pit 3
Pit 2

I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 7.30am after what was probably the worst night’s sleep I have had since I arrived in China. It was a combination of having the hardest pillows I have ever seen and me still feeling ill with a cough, sore throat and cold, added with the fact that there was a light shining through my window directly onto my pillow. I felt so tired but needed to get up and ready to meet Sam for breakfast. We had the same waitress as the night before and ordered a cooked breakfast to start the day and were advised by staff to wrap up with lots of layers as it was going to be a cold day. At 9am we met the tour guide in reception and 27 of us piled onto the bus. 15 minutes into the journey the tour guide picked up her microphone and shouted at one of the guys who had fallen asleep to wake up. The tour guides name was Jaja and told us that her English name was Lady Jaja which had us all laughing, then she said that she was very single and raised her eyebrows at Sam which was hilarious as Sam is gay. The tour guide was very loud and over the top and Sam and I were in stitches saying that it was like the tv programme coach trip when she asked us all to introduce ourselves. It made the 90 minute bus drive go very quickly.

Our first stop was at the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s tomb which was a complete waste of time, all there was too see was a big mountain which you couldn’t climb or go round, just look at from a viewing deck. The tomb is underground surrounded by a moat of mercury so no one knows what’s in there as it is too dangerous to open up the tomb (I’d like to know HOW they know it’s a moat of mercury, if that’s the case). We walked 5 minutes from the bus to the viewing deck, were given a bit of information on the tomb and then 5mins to look around then back to the bus. Just something to pad out the tour and I suppose as Sam pointed out, to get an idea of how far away (1.5km) the tomb was from the terracotta warriors.

We got back on the bus and drove 3minutes to where the terracotta warriors were and had to pass through two security gates, providing our ticket and form of I.D. at each one. The terracotta warriors are found in 3 pits and our tour guide said it was best to start with the least impressive first, so we started at pit 2. Pit 2 had 2000 terracotta warriors discovered in it by farmers digging a well in 1974. The story goes that the Emperor was so paranoid that he had workers dig this pit to put the army of warriors in, each facing the east, to protect him in the after life. The emperor then didn’t want anyone to know where his tomb was so while the workers were in the pits, he had them sealed with the workers still inside, like an underground bunker. Unfortunately over the years earthquakes have caused the ceiling of the pits to collapse and shattered all but 5 of the terracotta warriors in pit 2. The remaining 5 terracotta warriors are on display in glass cases round the sides of pit 2 for you to see. If I am honest, when I saw pit 2 I thought to myself “I have paid to come and see this?!” It was highly disappointing after the photos that I had seen.

The tour guide then took us through to pit 3, a much smaller pit but with 658 in tact terracotta warriors and horses, it was much better to see and there were much better photo opportunities. This was a bit more like it! We then walked round to pit 1 which looked the size of an air hanger and was much more impressive. This was more like what I had imagined and you could see rows upon rows of the 6000 terracotta warriors that were in this pit. Each Terracotta warrior was said to have a different face and detailing, making each warrior unique. It was amazing to see really as to how that was possible, I would have hated to have been the person with that job to check each one! The tour guide said that the area was still being excavated and in 40-60 years there could be far more pits uncovered. I am not quite sure as to why the whole area hasn’t been checked yet as you would think that they would have started looking for the rest straight away?

From entering pit 2 until we had come out of pit 1 took 2 hours and our tour guide informed us that it was now time to go to the cinema to watch a 20minute film about the terracotta warriors, which was interesting. The cinema was inside a big shop selling you all sorts of touristy terracotta warrior things, at extortionate prices. After the film was finished it was 2.30pm and our tour guide announced that it was lunch time and we were off to a restaurant near the entrance that had won awards for it’s food. On our way she stopped Sam and I and said that she had a gift for me and gave me a black terracotta warrior miniature statue. I felt really touched by that but it didn’t look like she had given anyone else one so Sam kept joking that it was full of cocaine and someone was going to stop me at Beijing airport and ask for it back!

We got to the restaurant and the room was freezing, the food was lukewarm and really wasn’t that nice, Sam and I barely ate anything. I am curious as to what kinds of awards they may have won. After lunch we piled back on the bus and headed back to the hostel.

We arrived back at the hostel at 5pm and a few of us went to the cafe for a coffee (mango juice for me, everyone was baffled by the fact that I am from England but don’t like tea or coffee). Then Sam and I decided to explore a bit and find somewhere for dinner as we were both quite hungry by this point. We wandered the streets for a while and stumbled upon what looked like a restaurant. We were escorted to the lifts and taken to the fourth floor, then entered the poshest looking restaurant I have seen in China. We got a bit giddy and were taking photos of us with the ipad menu and getting weird looks from the staff so we said that it was our anniversary and we wanted to remember every moment, which we were in fits of giggles over, but it did get us free drinks! At one point Sam even said to me “take a picture of me buttering the bread!” which at the time seemed the natural thing to do, but afterwards seemed a really bizarre thing to be taking a photo of! The food was amazing, we both had a beef steak with peppercorn sauce and it was delicious. It was one of those restaurants where the portions aren’t very big but they are well presented and the food is to a high standard and we both agreed that it was the best meal we have had in a long while. We had such a nice meal chatting away and giggling about pretending it was our 5^th anniversary, it was such a fun meal. We looked at desserts but couldn’t really justify spending that much on ice cream so we paid and left and went to McDonald's across the road for a mcflurry! We then wandered round Xi’an centre for a bit and then returned to the hostel to look at my photos from what turned out to be an amazingly fun day.

Pit 2 Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628295187183/

Pit 3 Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628295225033/

Pit 1 Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69851917@N06/sets/72157628295276709/

Friday 2nd December

Yesterday I was off sick from work and today I am off as well with this sore throat, cold, cough, pounding headache and everything aching. Luckily I have the hot water bottle that Matt brought over for me and I am on the last sachet of beechams. I am feeling very sorry for myself and wishing I was at home where it is easier to get medicine that I know what it is, everything here is in Chinese characters.

On a brighter note, I was woken up by a text this morning from one of the other teachers saying that my wish had come true. I didn’t have a clue what she was on about until she text me back saying that it was snowing! I had kept saying that I wish it would snow so I can get some photos of the great wall in the snow. Unfortunately I am not going to be in Beijing this weekend as I am flying to Xi’an tonight until Sunday to see the terracotta warriors. Although the way I am feeling right now, the last thing I feel like doing is getting on a flight!

The flight actually wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I expected it to be, it was 566 miles from Beijing to Xi’an and it took 2 hours, although at one point I didn’t think it was going to happen at all as a lot of flights had been delayed by the snow! Luckily my flight was only delayed by 30 minutes and I landed at Xi’an at 8.30pm. I had arranged an airport pick up by emailing the hostel and as I came through arrivals there was a sign saying Sam Evans (my friend who had booked the hostel on his card) I spent the 40 minute journey to the hostel trying to explain to the driver that my name wasn’t Sam, but the driver kept saying “look Sam” and pointing to buildings and saying a load of stuff in Chinese. I gave up in the end. Then when I got to the hostel they greeted me with “Hello Sam!” and I had to try to explain all over again, they finally got it when they took a copy of my passport and my friend, the real Sam, arrived 30 minutes later. In between this time I realised that I didn’t have enough cash on me and they don’t take cards so I had to go and find a cash machine (luckily there were a few just around the corner) and managed to get my first proper glimpse of Xi’an. The buildings were beautiful and from what I have seen so far, this is what I imagined China to look like.

I went to the restaurant at the hostel to wait for Sam to arrive for food as I realised that I hadn’t eaten anything all day, but was told that the restaurant closed at 11pm. By 10.55pm Sam still hadn’t arrived but was nearly at the hostel so I ordered for us with 2 minutes to spare! The waitress wasn’t happy and to say that the chef wasn’t happy would be an understatement, he stormed through the restaurant to the kitchen and the waitress looked at me like “now look what you have done”. When Sam arrived a minute later we fell about laughing at the whole thing. After dinner we went to reception and booked the tour for the terracotta warriors tomorrow and then spent what was left of the evening catching up on what we have been up to. We decided to call it a night by midnight as we had to be ready for breakfast at 8am and ready to leave at 9am.

Wednesday 30th November

Even though I was in bed by 7pm, I barely slept last night I felt so rough. I have a sore throat that feels like it is closing up and everything aches. I seriously considered calling in sick today but forced myself to get out of bed. When I got to school I found out that the second grade teacher that I teach English for had called in sick so it was a good job I had gone in to cover her classes.

I started the day with grade 2C with reading, I didn’t really know what the morning routine was and only had a outline of what I was supposed to do in each lesson. I found the register and realised that there were 4 children missing, even though I had seen them earlier that day, not the best start to the day! I went to report it to the office and then left them to find the missing kids as I had to be straight into the grade 1 classroom as we had an open day at parents who wanted their children to come to the school were observing the lesson. After the lesson I took the class for lunch and then I had my lunch and tried to catch up on some of my marking of the grade 1A homework. Before I knew it, it was 12.45pm and I had to go and collect grade 2C from the playground and take them up to their lesson. I find this class quite a challenging class anyway but today they were bouncing off the walls and before the lesson had even begun another teacher came to tell me that 4 of the boys had been messing about in the bathroom. The lesson I was covering for didn’t go very well as not many children were on task as the parent that was supposed to come in and read with two groups and me to read with the other two groups didn’t turn up so the lesson didn’t go according to the plan I had been given. The lesson I would have usually taken went well until the spelling section as the children had handed in their spelling books to the teacher that was off sick and I couldn’t find them, but by this point a lot of children were completely off task, behaviour really was not up to standard today and I had had enough. I made the children sit in silence completing the work that I had set and said that for every person that talked I would put a mark next to their name and every mark would mean a minute knocked off their playtime. After the 5 minutes, 3 of the children had marks next to their name so I let everyone else go and kept those children in to make up the minute. I think this really shocked the kids as they are not used to me doing that! It really was a bad lesson but when I was going through their work they had completed more in the 5 minutes of silence than in the whole lesson so it had paid off! I had a quick break then I was back with grade 1A and as it was the last lesson of the month we watched Mr Bean and ate popcorn which the children loved, a much better end to the day!

After school I went for dinner with a few other teachers, even though I had been feeling ill all day and then came back to my apartment where I was in bed by 7pm again.

Tuesday 29th November

I thought that I would do today’s blog post a little differently so that you could see what I do in a typical day, although it was a bit of an effort to remember to write everything down so I won’t be doing it again!

7am alarm went off, still have a sore throat and feel yuck today, thank you whoever invented the snooze button!

7.15am alarm went off again and I had to force myself to get up and go for a shower

7.26am got out the shower and got dressed

7.30am took some eccinacea and vitamin C, fingers crossed that it helps

7.32am dried my hair in the bathroom where the socket is next to the sink!

7.55am made myself a lemsip to help get me through the day

7.59am packed stuff for work

8am checked emails

8.10am left for school, its a dull grey day and it looks like it is going to rain. It’s cold and still smoggy.

8.20am finally found a taxi, took longer than usual today.

8.22am arrived at school

8.23am went to the middle school building to pick my secret Santa person out of a hat, luckily I have someone who I know which makes it a bit easier

8.30am greeted teachers in the grade 1 office

8.35am started my lesson plan for grade 1A

8.55am did a load of photocopying on the third floor.

9.07am picked up children's homework folders from the 1A classroom

9.10am marked the homework

9.20am finished marking but the folders are a bit grimy so used my hand sanitiser

9.21am started marking 2C classwork from yesterday

9.30am went in search of missing classwork from grade 2C’s classroom

9.38am finished marking the rest of grade 2C’s work

10am checked emails

10.05am went in search of the rest of 1A’s homework folders

10.09am marked the rest of 1A’s homework

10.11am chatted with the grade 1 teachers

10.15am checked facebook

10.20am went to the office to get a new lunch card and submit my claim form for after school activity

10.30am went to teach the grade 1A English class

11.55am took 1A for a toilet trip before lunch

12pm lunch duty in the grade 1 and 2 lunchroom (I hate this duty!)

12.20pm finished lunch duty and went for my own lunch

12.30pm returned to grade 1 office and updated grade 2C star reward chart spreadsheet

12.40pm planned grade 2C lesson plan

12.50pm sat chatting to teachers in grade 1 office, noticed the new toilet sign!

1.15pm checked emails

1.20pm replied to a text off TTC

1.21pm finished grade 2C all about me checklist

1.30pm taught grade 2C English lesson

2.15pm lesson ended, came back to grade 1 office, chatted with other teachers and wrote homework in 1A homework folders

2.35pm went to observe grade 3C class to see the differences

3.20pm came back to grade 1 office and marked 2C’s books

3.50pm put homework folders on top of lockers

3.55pm packed up my stuff

4.05pm left school

4.10pm got taxi to Euro Plaza and the bank

4.36pm left the bank and walked to Pinnacle Plaza

4.45pm went to the supermarket

4.55pm withdrew money from the cash machine

5pm text Doreenda about dinner plans, went to the hungry horse for a mango madness smoothie while I waited for Doreenda.

5.05pm Dinner plans fell through, ordered food at the hungry horse

5.40pm got a taxi home

5.50pm arrived home

5.55pm got changed and finished reading my book.

Monday 28th November

It is 3 weeks today until I fly back home and today I feel like I can not wait! The air in Beijing today is thick with smog, I have started with a sore throat and wheezing a bit today, I can’t wait to get home where there is fresh clean air! It seems such a silly thing that you take fresh air for granted but on day’s like this I really worry about what effect it is having on my health.

My day started off ok with teaching English to grade 1A, there were 4 children off sick today as there’s a bug going round so the class seemed quite small. After the double English lesson it was lunch time and my chance to finish prepping for the afternoon lessons. After lunch I had grade 2C to work on their “all about me” booklets which we started last week. I then had a maths lesson with grade 1A where they had a maths test and then an ESL lesson with 3 of the lower level students to try and improve their level of English.

The day went quite quickly and after school finished I went for dinner with 4 of the other teachers to a Chinese restaurant called Yao’s. I’m not particularly fond of Yao’s, but it beat eating dinner alone and it was good company. I heard a bit of a horror story about the market food stalls as well, there was a report released not long ago that when restaurants have finished with the oil they cook the food with, they pour it down the drains into the sewers, then the stall holders from the Houshayu market were reported to be getting their oil for frying the food on the market stalls from the sewers! I felt sick when I heard that and thanked my lucky stars that I have never eaten food from the Houshayu market stalls! You hear stories like this all the time in China but nothing ever gets done, if that report had been released back home the markets would have been shut down straight away and the public would have been outraged, but over here the attitude is very much “oh well” and carry on as normal. As I have said before, hygiene leaves a lot to be desired here in China.

Sunday 27th November

I had a lie in this morning and then got ready to go to Bubbalicious with the girls at 10.45am. I shared a taxi with Raena, Doreenda and Amanda to the Hilton hotel near the airport and we met Shanna and Kristin there for the 11.30am brunch.

Bubbalicious is a brunch that you pay a set price for the buffet and a choice of either unlimited juice and coffee, unlimited juice, coffee, beers and wine or unlimited juice, beer, coffee, wine, cocktails and champagne. We went for the latter! The buffet is 11.30am- 3.30pm and you can eat as much and drink as much as you want. There are different sections, one section is where you pick crab or shrimp from a tank and they fish it out and boil it for you in front of you (although it takes a while so you can also let them just bring it over to you when it’s ready) a pizza section where you can make your own pizzas and they make it, a sort of English breakfast section with sausages, bacon, pancakes, eggs etc. There is also an Indian section with curries, samosas, poppadoms, then a vegetable teppanyaki area where they cook all kinds of vegetables for you. There’s a sushi section, a roast turkey section, a Chinese section with Chinese food, duck pancakes and BBQ meats. A cheese and cold meat section, a bakery section with all kinds of breads and pastrys, a seafood section with oysters, salmon, steamed fish and other seafood bits. Then there’s the dessert section with a candyfloss machine, popcorn machine, all sorts of cakes, mousse, jelly desserts, it really was incredible. There was also a fruit section and fruit juice bar where you could pour your own juice from a range of 5 different juices, or you could pick a range of fruits and put them in the juicer yourself and make your own!

When we arrived they asked us if we would like lobster as it was made to order, of course we all said yes! Then we could go round the buffet as many times as we wanted and our champagne glasses were kept full all morning/afternoon. It was like Christmas, and with it being at the Hilton hotel the food was to a really good standard, especially the lobster! Everything really was delicious and the champagne that I had mixed with orange and pineapple juice was also really good. It was such a fun atmosphere and really good company that the time flew by and by the time the brunch had ended at 3.30pm we were all completely full and a little bit drunk. The girls decided that it was a good idea to go into the city to do some shopping, apart from Raena who hadn’t been drinking as she had a hockey game later that afternoon and had left a little bit early. I decided that there was no way that I could think clearly enough to barter properly and decided to go home for a nap.

Saturday 26th November

I woke up really early this morning at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep. By 8am I decided to get up and go to the supermarket to get phone credit and some other essentials, if you run out of phone credit it is as if you have been cut off, you don’t receive any messages or phonecalls until you have credit again which can be frustrating.I got ready to go out for the Thanksgiving staff meal and met two of the teachers to get a taxi together at 1.30pm to be at the Green cap in plenty of time for the meal at 2pm. There were 8 of us ready at 2pm (there were supposed to be 27 in total) by 2.30pm 8 more had arrived but we were still missing 11 people. By 3pm 5 more teachers arrived and we decided to eat without the others as they were now an hour late and we were so hungry. The starter was pumpkin soup which was a very welcome change from the watery “soup” the Chinese have, this was a thick creamy soup with proper bread, it was delicious. The next course was a turkey lunch, there was roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potato, carrots, green beans, corn on the cob, stuffing and turkey and it was yummy. I had been looking forward to roast potatoes all week as nowhere does them! To finish off the meal we had a pecan pie with ice cream which was also nice, by this point 4 other people had arrived for the meal. We stayed until about 6pm chatting and there was also an engagement announcement so there were lot’s of toasts and generally a really nice day.

Friday 25th November

This week has flown by but today has really dragged on. All of the teachers seemed to have no energy today and everyone can’t wait for the day to be over as we have our staff Thanksgiving meal at the Green Cap tomorrow. All everyone can talk about is how much they are looking forward to a proper roast turkey dinner with real roast potatoes! It will make a welcome change from rice everyday.

Today is also the deadline to submit a form to take part in secret Santa which I am so excited about, I love things like that. The school is so big though, it will be hard to know who everyone is. The way the school are doing it is from the 1^st December until 12^th December you put a small gift (like a chocolate) on the persons desk each day, then on the 12^th December (the day of the staff Christmas dinner) you put a big present under the tree. We are drawing the names on Monday, I am hoping I get someone I know!

After we finished school a few of us were going to another teachers apartment to play the board game risk. I love this game and we had been talking about doing it for a while and we finally got round to it today. When we got to the apartment it turned out that there was 11 of us! We split into 5 teams and it all got a bit competitive, but was so much fun. We also got an Indian takeaway and it was a really good, relaxing evening. After playing for 4 hours though with still no clear winner, we decided to call it a night and we all went home at about 1am, global domination will have to wait for another day!

Thursday 24th November

Happy thanksgiving! Today I celebrated my first ever Thanksgiving with a few of the teachers from school. Unfortunately most places that were offering a traditional thanksgiving meal in Houshayu had been booked up for weeks, so we went to a place called the Iron Horse, not far from school for dinner. The only criteria that a few of the teachers had was “as long as they have pie” so we had a not so traditional meal of cheeseburgers and then apple pie to celebrate thanksgiving and we all made a toast of what we are thankful for.

We had a really nice evening but when it came to leave the drop in temperature was unbelievable, I was glad I was wearing my new Ugg boots because it was freezing! Later found out that it had been -6 degrees Celsius so no wonder I was so cold. Apparently it get’s to -20 degrees in January so I am kind of glad that I won’t be here then!

Saturday 19th November

Today I had agreed to be a judge for a speaking English competition. I had to get the subway at 10am to Wukesong, the other side of the city which took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to. I met the other 9 judges and David from TTC and we then drove to the school that it was held at. We were given criteria of how to judge the contestants (voice, body language, grammar, eye contact) and were split into pairs. I was judging the seniors (16 years old) and I was with another guy from TTC called James and with us we had a Chinese University student graduating in English with us.

It was a bit of a shambles as we hadn’t really been told what to do or what the contestants would be doing and it appeared that the contestants hadn’t been told what to do either. We were told under no circumstances were we to laugh when the contestant was in the room, but for some of them it was really hard not to! The contestants had 3 minutes to give an introduction and to then do a talent show and we had all sorts, from singing Westlife to readings, rapping and even break dancing. It was good fun and the Chinese students English was really good so we had fun with him too, his name was Mike and he laughed at every contestant, he got the giggles so much that he was constantly having to leave the room! This made me and James want to laugh but I felt bad for the contestants as they could see and hear him laughing at them, it must of put some of them off! We had to mark the contestants out of 5 and it was quite hard sometimes as some of them had a really bad introduction but their talent was really good, or vice versa. There was one girl who had a really good introduction and then said she was going to sing for us and had we heard of “Dohrayme”? James and I looked at each other, “Dohrayme”? No we hadn’t heard of that! The girl put her headphones in so she could hear the music from her Ipod and sang us Doh Ray Me from the sound of music! She was awful though as she didn’t know the words and kept only singing the bit she knew so she didn’t get a good score! There was also a guy who came in and kept talking about his passion for “bricking” which we had no idea what he was talking about, then he said he was going to “brick” for us, he was talking about break dancing! He was actually really good though and was spinning on his head and everything.

The second round was the contestants were given a picture before they came into the judging room that they had been given 1 minute to prepare for then they had to speak for 2 minutes about that picture. Each round we were to mark them out of 5.

We were there until 6pm and then we were driven back to Wukesong subway station where I got the subway to Sanlitun to meet up with Doreenda and Kristen, then we got a taxi to a bar where 3 of the teachers are part of a band and everyone had gone to see them play. The food was ok but it was quite expensive and I had had enough by 11pm and came home.