Friday 23rd September

Today’s plan was to go straight to the markets after school and come 3.30pm we were just getting ready to leave when one of the other teachers told us that the market closed at 4pm. A few of the teachers were going straight from school to a beer festival so I decided that this was a good plan B. There were 10 of us going and we jumped into 3 taxis and were on our way, it was only then that I was informed that the beer festival costs 200 RMB entry fee which includes beer and food, which would be fine but I don’t drink beer. I was also told that it was almost a 2 hour taxi ride to get there! At this point I was thinking that I had made a big mistake as I wasn’t really bothered about going but one of the teachers, Mark, had talked me into it, at this point he was also thinking that it was a mistake, but we were in the taxi now so we just went with it.

The taxi ride actually only took 50 minutes which was a pleasant surprise and when we got there one of the teachers knew the host and as I wasn’t drinking beer, got me in for free! The venue was a posh hotel with gardens and a beer tent which had rows of long tables and a stage with a cat walk. There was a traditional German band playing with trumpets and trombone and a big screen behind them showing traditional German dancing. There was also a buffet of basically lot’s of sausages, roasted pig on a spit and mash which was quite nice and pretzels on all of the tables.

I thought it was just going to be the band for entertainment, but there was also a magician who was really good, a beer queen beauty pageant last round (they all did a specialist act like singing or dancing) and then the magician came back on again and the beauty pageant did a bikini round and then there was karaoke. In between all of this the band would do a few songs and did a sort of conga and other dancing, it was good fun.

Towards the end of the night, Doreenda (another teacher) and I decided that it would be a good idea to go backstage and meet the band, so we did and they are from Munich and were really friendly, so we had our picture taken with them and then they had to go back on stage. By 10pm we were pretty much the last ones there and 6 of us went into Beijing centre to a club called sensation and were dancing away when a few of the teachers wanted to go to a karaoke bar. There was one just across the road so we all went there and sang our hearts out (a few teachers were quite drunk by now so there were some sketchy performances) then we all shared a taxi home. That’s another first experience to add to my list!