Sunday 23rd October

I am feeling a bit better today, although still feeling quite homesick. Matt had persuaded me that the best thing to do is to go out and do something I have wanted to do on my own, so at 10.30am I found myself on the subway making my way across the city to Beijing zoo market for a bit of retail therapy. As I got off the subway, the passage leading from the underground up to the street was full of traders, there were a few there with carrier bags full of puppies as well, they are so cute and I always feel so sad when I see them, animal rights really is another world right now.

Once inside the market it wasn’t long before I was feeding my jewellery addiction with a pair of earrings (real silver I am told, I doubt it for £1.50 but they are still very pretty snowflake earrings, great for Christmas) I also bought a few bits of make up for my zombie outfit and had a quick look at the clothes (I don’t know why I bother, I am repeatedly told the clothes here are “no good” for me, they really are quite small sizes) It is nice to get ideas though as if I see anything I really like, I can get it tailor made in my size at the silk market quite cheaply.

I am quite proud of myself really as I was only at the zoo market 30 minutes, then I was on my way to the destination I had planned for today. I passed through the subway passage again and even though it had only been 30 minutes, the passage was empty of traders and there were quite a few police there. I had come prepared as earlier this morning I had written Beijing botanical gardens on a piece of paper, then copied the Chinese symbols underneath it, desperately hoping they were close enough to actually mean the botanical gardens. GCSE Art had obviously paid off though as not long after showing it to the taxi driver, I arrived at the botanical gardens. Throughout the taxi journey it had been lightly raining (luckily I was wearing my coat as it looked a lot colder today) but the closer we got to the gardens the heavier the rain got, to the point that I almost told the taxi driver to turn around and take me back to the city! I got out at the gardens though and went to pay my 5 RMB (50p) to get in, hoping that the rain would ease off. Just my luck really, the day I decide to go and it’s freezing, windy and raining for the first time in weeks! I wished I had bought my gloves....

Beijing botanical gardens are not as modern as Shanghai botanical gardens or anywhere near as big. Beijing botanical gardens sort of feel like they have been forgotten by time, they are still in many ways how I imagine they were hundreds of years ago, apart from one small modern section near the entrance with big flower displays. The older part of the gardens reminded me a bit of the film sleepy hollow as it was that kind of style and it was kind of creepy, I went a whole hour without seeing anyone (so sorry mum, I know you wanted more pictures with me in but it just wasn’t possible). It was nice just to walk round on my own though and the rain stopped shortly after I got there.

When I had finished at the gardens I got a taxi back to the city and went to the tapas bar I went to a while ago and had a nice late lunch there which was nice, then I got the subway home and caught up with a few people on skype, quite a nice day really in the end.

Saturday 22nd October

Today I think it really hit home at just how far away from home I am, I felt really homesick and really missing everyone from home. China has such a different culture that sometimes it is quite frustrating and hard to deal with, especially with the language barrier! I was feeling quite mopey, lonely and sad so I stayed in bed later than I have been normally. I had planned to go to the markets in the city with Jodie and Milzie to get face paints and material to make a zombie outfit with for our Halloween day at school on Friday. When I text them to see what time they wanted to go they said they were leaving in 30 minutes and at this point I was still in bed so there was no way I was going to be showered, dried my hair and ready by then so I decided to go to the Houshayu market near the school today instead. I have never been to this market before so unless I can do anything more exciting, this is my new thing for the weekend.

I bought a big piece of black material, safety pins and makeup to use to make my zombie face and then I got a taxi to Pinnacle plaza where I had arranged to meet Doreenda, Amanda and Shanna for lunch (they had been doing their report cards which are due on Wednesday in Starbucks all morning). This evening we had been planning to go out in the city for a few drinks, which as I was missing my friends and family I had been looking forward to going out, but one by one people were dropping out as we were all going for a champagne brunch at bubbalicious tomorrow for one of the teachers, Kristens birthday. I was quite disappointed but seen as we were going out tomorrow instead it didn’t make much difference really. After lunch Amanda, Shanna and Doreenda went back to doing their report cards in Starbucks and I sat with them making my zombie outfit out of the black material. By 6pm everyone had had enough so we shared a taxi home. You can really notice a drop in temperature in the evenings and during the last few day’s it has been really smoggy, I am trying to pretend it is just fog and not a big mist of pollution but the smell is quite bad really, I am a bit worried about what it might be doing to my health as today it was 334 on the pollution metre which comes under “hazardous to health”. When it reaches 400 no one is allowed to go outside as it is too dangerous. Slightly worrying!

I had only been home a few hours and was on skype to Matt when I got a text saying that there had been a bit of a mix up and they hadn’t made a reservation for me at bubbalicious and now it was fully booked so I wasn’t able to go. I am actually really upset by this as I had needed a bit of time out with friends to take my mind off home, I had a bit of a cry and if I am honest, I just want to go home right now, I really do miss it that much.

Friday 21st October

Today is International day! I woke up very early to get into school with Doreenda for 7.30am as we both needed help with our costumes. Doreenda was dressing up in a toga and I was dressing up in a sari. One of the other teachers (whose sari I was borrowing) helped me into it and safety pinned it all together, then with a marker pen did a sort of henna tattoo design on my hands and head, with one design meaning that I was married (sorry Matt!) By 8am I was ready and went off to greet the children and their parents. All of the children had dressed in the colours of the Indian flag, or were dressed in traditional Indian clothes. We all went outside to sit on the field for the opening ceremony, every class was dressed up in outfits for the country they were doing projects on and all looked really good.

After the opening ceremony, grades 1 and 2 went to the auditorium to each give a presentation, grade 1A was first with the tiger poem we had been practicing all week and they all wore the tiger masks that I had bought in Shanghai. Other classes all did their presentations, including songs, readings and a hockey demonstration.

Each class had a schedule of things to do throughout the day including music, art, IT, a football match against the rest of their grade, food courts (where parents from each class had bought in food from that country) and a tour of the school looking at each classes displays.

It was a fun but exhausting day and the parents were sometimes more badly behaved than the kids. We had been given the schedule so that everyone got to see everything but parents would just take their kids off without telling us and then the teachers would think that they had lost a child, or interrupt a lesson because they think their child needed a snack and drink, even though in 10 minutes we had a scheduled snack break at the food court! The day was a bit chaotic. Then during the football match there were seven players on the pitch (we have 13 in the class which means rotating the children on and off the pitch throughout) One child refused to come off the pitch and his mum who was on the sideline just said “oh let him play” how is that setting a good example? Also, the amount of times I saw parents barging kids from other grades out of the way so that they could walk up the stairs next to their child was unbelievable! By 2pm I had had enough really so after dropping the kids off for their IT lesson I went downstairs and hid in the office for 20 minutes, no wonder most of these kids are spoilt and don’t know how to share when their parents behaved worse than them today.

The day ended at 3.20pm (a lot of parents had decided to just take their kids home before this time though so by 2.30pm we only had 7 kids left) after saying bye to everyone and then putting the classroom tables back where they should be we decided to all go out for dinner to celebrate that the stressful week was finally over. We went to a restaurant not far from the school called the Iron Horse, I had never been before (and I have no intention of going back, it was a very bad and limited menu of a cheeseburger, pepperoni pizza, hotdog or taco) I did have a nice evening but I was glad to go home at 7pm and I even had an early night after an enjoyable but exhausting day.

Wednesday 19th October

I got woken up again by a text at 6am asking if I could cover the days lessons again as the teacher was still off sick (I had set my alarm for 7am just in case) I got to school for 8am and the teacher had emailed me the lesson plans for double English, math, science and social studies. The day started off ok but there was one child who was acting up a bit (I thought there would be as this particular child needs structure and routine) the morning went ok although one child (the new student that started on Monday) was 15 minutes late to the lesson because they “didn’t feel like coming in” after playtime which was frustrating.

I had the rest of my subway sandwich with me today for lunch which made a nice change from rice and slop! After lunch I had math and science, but the project of making a book about tigers for International Day (this Friday) wasn't finished so we spent the lesson finishing that and then social studies was spent practising the tiger poem that they are performing on International day. It was a very long day and I have barely had a minute to do anything so I will be so glad when the teacher returns tomorrow as I haven’t done any planning for my own lessons on Thursday!

After school Doreenda and I went for dumplings and back to my apartment to make her a toga out of a bedsheet as her classes country is Greece. I have borrowed a sari off one of the teachers as my class has got India although I haven’t decided what to wear under it yet! I am quite excited about International day, I love fancy dress!

Tuesday 18th October

I got woken up at 6.30am by a text asking me to cover for one of the teachers who was off sick today, which meant coming in an hour earlier and teaching grade 1 all day (and getting paid for it). I got to school at 8am and the teacher who was ill had emailed me the lesson plans for the day. It was pretty straight forward but a bit nerve racking teaching subjects that I don’t really know much about, like science, social studies and maths as well as English. There was also the added panic factor that I don’t know how to use the smart board and I don’t know where anything is kept! Little things like that and the fact that I kept having to look at the lesson plan to check what to do next made me feel like the lesson didn’t really flow properly, but the kids probably didn’t even notice!

The day went quite smoothly and for one of the lessons I got the children to help with my display board for the project they are doing on tigers. One tiger looks like a sabre tooth tiger and the other looks like a giraffe! It was good fun though and the kids were quite imaginative over what to put in the jungle, such as nests in the trees, flowers and apples in the trees.

At the end of the day I was pretty exhausted and glad to get out of the school and go home to chill out, even treating myself to a subway melt for tea.

Sunday 16th October

Today is mine and Matt’s 3 year anniversary so I started the day with a text to him. The sun was shining which matched my good mood, I got ready and left for the subway at 10am as I was off to Beihei park as my new thing that I am doing this weekend. Jodie and Doreenda were supposed to be going with me but they both had other stuff to do instead. I planned to get to Beihei park for 11am and then I was meeting my friend Sam, who was in Beijing for the weekend, at 2pm for a late lunch.

I got to the subway station that was sort of near Beihei park and got a little chariot thing attached to a bike to take me to Beihei park. After 10 minutes I realised that the man was lost and peddling round in circles, but it was a gorgeous day and I was too preoccupied taking photos of the area (we were on a street where there are red lanterns hung outside every restaurant) it looked so pretty I didn’t really care. After 20 minutes the poor (old) man looked exhausted from peddling round so I asked a Chinese couple on bikes when we stopped at the traffic lights where it was and they happened to be going there so we just followed them.

Beihei park is a lot of temple buildings, gardens and trees surrounding a lake and it was really pretty. I wandered round for an hour and it was nice to relax and spend the day by myself when I got a text from Sam saying he couldn’t make lunch, which was disappointing as I had been looking forward to seeing him. I wandered round for a bit longer and then took a boat to the island in the middle of the lake. By 2pm I had had enough so I left the park and wandered the streets outside looking at the little stalls of touristy souvenirs (most of it was tat), I was just wandering aimlessly as I had no idea where I was, but it was kind of nice just exploring. I then got a taxi to the ya show market to have a look around, had a chicken wrap at O’Briens and then at 5pm decided I had had enough and took the subway home.

Doreenda and Jodie had both text me to see what I was up to so I got a taxi home from the subway and they both came round for a takeaway and to play poker. I had a really good chilled out evening just gossiping, listening to music and treating myself to calamari as an anniversary treat. Overall it has been a very good, relaxing day with good company in the evening.

For more pics click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627939448092/

Saturday 15th October

Woke up this morning a bit worse for wear, Jodie had stayed at my apartment as her apartment has had its water shut off again, so we decided to go out for breakfast as it was such a lovely sunny day (22 degrees today) We went to Pinnacle plaza and stumbled upon a flea market there which was just like a small car boot, but nothing really of interest.

Had a lazy day really just chilling out at my apartment and then we went out for dinner with Milzie to a place called Mama Johns round the corner, a dingy looking cafe that does dumplings and is really cheap. We have been there a lot recently and to be honest, I am sick of dumplings and only ate a few. I had an early night as I have a day out planned for tomorrow and need to catch up on my sleep.

Friday 14th October

There was quite an excited feeling at work today as it was one of the teachers birthday and we were all going out to celebrate that night. It has been a really long week, every day seems to have dragged so I think everyone was in need of a night out and I had been looking forward to it all week. It was also a warm sunny day so everyone was in a good mood today which was nice.

I had end of week assessments to do with grade 1A which took me all morning and then after lunch I had an assessment to do on a new student that was joining the class next week and then prep time for the rest of the day because all of the classes had a rehearsal for International day. This is a day where each class picks a country and does a project on that country, then on International day they each do a presentation on that country, it can be a song, dance, poem anything that represents that country really. All of the parents come to watch and it is quite a big deal, then the classes do a parade around the school. There are no lessons on this day, it is sort of like a big fete from what I can gather.

After school Jodie and I hurried home for a quick change and then meeting 7 of the other teachers at the subway to go to a restaurant called the tree in Sanlitun (about an hour away on the subway). We got to Sanlitun after a very funny subway journey where not everyone made it onto the same train a few times so we had to wait at the next station. The train was packed like sardines so there were also a few hygiene incidents where the people we were packed in next to didn’t always have a good deodorant on! It was a bit of a walk to the tree but when we got there (down a few alleyways, how anyone found it in the first place is beyond me) but when we got there and met up with the other teachers, we ordered 8 pizzas between 17 of us and they were really nice. Jodie and I were also ordering fruit punch cocktails (orange and pineapple juice, vodka and Malibu) which were really nice and it was fun to just unwind after a hectic week. After the meal we went to a bar round the corner called smugglers that we go to quite often and had drinks in there to toast the teachers birthday and Jodie and I met up with our friend Kirsty from TTC which was fun. We had a really good evening and I don’t even know what time we made it back to my apartment.

Thursday 13th October

I was getting ready for work this morning when I heard my roommate, Analisa, leaving, as she closed the door the door handle fell off! I carried on getting ready and when it came for me to leave at 8.30am to meet Jodie and Milzie, I realised that I was locked in my apartment! I was trying for ages to get out and in the end I had to ring Jodie and get her to tell the school that I was going to be late. I was supposed to be at school at 9am as we had an open day where the parents come into school to observe the lessons until lunchtime at 12pm. I had to wait until 9.30am when the school handyman turned up at my apartment with Mavis from the office and Analisa’s keys to get me out. He put the handle back on the door and told me it was fixed (it wasn’t, he had just slotted it back on but the bolt that keeps the handle in place was missing) I didn’t have time to argue though as I needed to get to school and settled for Mavis calling the maintenance company to come and fix the door handle properly. Then on the way to the school, after I told Mavis I needed to get there quickly, we stopped at the market for Mavis to pick up a few things! Unbelievable. Then as I arrived at the school (it had been raining in the night but the sun was out now) there was a group of the schools cleaners on the playground HOOVERING up the puddles! Can you believe that? Water and electricity! Sometimes I just think where is the common sense in this country.

I arrived at the school and had to go in and do phonics with grade 1A with all of the parents sat at the back o the classroom which was a bit nerve racking, a lot of parents were taking photos and videoing the lesson as well. The lesson went really well and the children were all really well behaved so overall it was a success!

After lunch I had English with grade 2C where I have been trying to get them to write their own fable about an animal with a moral to the story (yesterday I had the principal observing my lesson so it has been a stressful few days). Today’s lesson was about finishing their stories, editing and illustrating their work and it was a nice easy lesson to end the day on!

Wednesday 12th October

Since coming back from Shanghai I haven’t really done much. I have a cold and it was a real struggle going back to work on the Monday after a week off. Everyone just seems so tired (including myself) I think we could all do with another holiday!

When I returned to the apartment I found out that Analisa had broken the toilet while I was away, it wouldn’t flush at all so we couldn’t flush the toilet all weekend! I reported it on Monday morning at the school and a maintenance person was supposed to come on Monday but they didn’t so on Tuesday Analisa stayed in for someone to come and fix our toilet!

It was one of the children’s birthdays today so we had cake at afternoon snack time that her mum had bought in for the class, there were goodie bags for all of the children as well and David and I both got a gift bag with a coffee and sandwich in which was nice!

Nothing else to say really as I have been so tired I haven’t been or done anything. The internet in our apartment is also playing up a lot and I can’t always get onto email when I am at home which is a pain.

Friday 7th October

I think I had food poisoning from the Peking duck last night as I was really ill all night and then I had to Check out of the hostel at 7am to get a taxi to the airport. I pretty much slept through the flight and landed in Beijing at 12pm. I got a taxi back to my apartment and had to heave my suitcase up 4 flights of stairs and went straight back to bed and slept until 5pm.

I met up with Doreenda and Amanda at 7pm and we got a taxi into Beijing to meet Kristen for Tapas at a Spanish restaurant she had found. The food was really good and I tried shrimp and ox tail for the first time (and liked them both). There were two men on the stage with guitars playing Spanish music which gave a really nice atmosphere and the restaurant had a real traditional Spanish feel. After the meal we went out for cocktails and it was a nice chilled evening catching up with the girls.

Thursday 6th October

Today is my last full day in shanghai so I decided to take a walk along the Bund, As I left the hostel it is a 2 minute walk to East Nanjing Road, the main pedestrian street. The walk is along two blocks and there are food stalls along it and restaurants with buckets outside full of live fish, crabs, frogs etc. There are also fruit stalls and this part in particular smells really bad, a mixture of rotting food and urine, this is actually quite a common smell on the streets of China and I have become an expert on breathing through my mouth and not my nose in these areas. As I reached East Nanjing Road it was then a few minutes’ walk to the bund, which is the water front with huge buildings on my side of the river which are all banks or fancy hotels and then across the river is Pudong, the financial district and area of the Oriental Pearl tower, Jinmao tower and Expo tower. While walking along the Bund I can tell the difference as the air is much cleaner than Beijing. As I reached the end of the Bund I realised I wasn’t far from the Yu yuan Bazaar and Yu gardens, so I carried on walking and browsing the market stalls on the way. As I reached the yu yuan Bazaar I sat and had ice cream and people watched for a while, this area is definitely the busiest and is also the old part of Shanghai.

I had a very pleasant afternoon and I returned to the hostel to shower and change ready for meeting Sam for dinner. We found a restaurant in the Pudong area and I had Peking duck pancakes, then we went to the Expo Observation tower and Hyatt hotel (same standard as the Jinmao Tower and the Ritz). We went up to the 87^th floor and had drinks in the restaurant, the view was amazing and it was a lovely relaxing atmosphere, the perfect end to our week in Shanghai.

Wednesday 5th October

Today I met Heather at the subway and we went to Shanghai zoo. It wasn’t as nicely landscaped as Beijing zoo, but the animals had bigger enclosures. We went on the big Ferris wheel to get a birds eye view of the zoo and then took a sort of golf buggy vehicle that took us around the zoo (it was huge, we never would have been able to walk it, especially as it was quite hot again today).

After the zoo we took the subway to West Nanjing Road to do some shopping and had lunch at Marks and Spencers! I had a chicken salad and it was amazing, nowhere in China seems to have salad at all so it was a welcome change. I then returned to the hostel before we met up with Sam at 6pm to go out for dinner. We took the subway to Pudong (across the river from the Bund) it is a posh finance district and we had seen an Italian while going past on the open top bus. It was a bit more expensive, but the food was amazingly good and it was a really nice atmosphere just me, Heather and Sam, catching up properly.

My friend Mark (who is a teacher at Beijing International school) arrived in Shanghai today and text me to see if I wanted to meet for a drink, so after dinner myself and Sam said our goodbyes to Heather who was leaving tomorrow and took a taxi to go and meet Mark. We picked him up on the Bund and took the taxi to Big Bamboo, a bar I had read about in my lonely planet guide. We had passed a few bars on the way so we decided to try a few of them and went to the red dragon across the road. There were two women stood in the doorway and they were shouting hello and telling Sam and Mark that they had fuseball and to come in. I sat at the bar next to the fuseball table where Sam and Mark had been challenged to a 2 Vs 2 game of fuseball with these two women. I started to look around the bar and realised that there were 8 waitresses for only us 3 customers. Then 3 men walked in, picked a “waitress” each and went through a curtain into a back room, which I thought was a bit odd. Then two more western men walked in and I asked one of them if it was just a bar (I had a feeling we had stumbled across something more) The man said he didn’t know so I returned to my stool at the bar, a few minutes later he came over and said that it wasn’t just a bar, we had stumbled on a brothel!!! I have never felt so uncomfortable and I was trying to catch Mark and Sam’s eyes but they were too engrossed in their game of fuseball (which they lost painfully to these two prostitutes) They finally came over and we very quickly finished our drinks and left! We had a drink in a bar around the corner and Sam and Mark wanted to go to a club nearby, as soon as we got there though I decided that I had had enough and left them to it.

Tuesday 4th October

At 10.30am I met Heather at the subway station to get the open top tour bus on the route we didn’t have time to do yesterday. We then got a taxi to the Shanghai Botanical gardens which were so beautiful. We started to walk around and realised that it was huge so we decided to hire a boat and see if we could see more from the small river that ran through it. The boat was a small speed boat size with a motor, I got in first so I was steering and we went off along the river. We turned a corner and realised that the river went through a low tunnel that was too narrow for us to go through so we had to turn around, trouble was it was actually a really narrow part of the river! We ended up trying to bounce the boat off the rocks to try and get it to turn around as there was literally no where else to go, we were killing ourselves laughing and a crowd of Chinese people had gathered on the bridge watching us and taking pictures of us, stuck on the rocks trying to turn the boat around, which just made us laugh even more! I finally turned the boat around and almost tipped the boat over climbing into the back so that Heather could have a go at steering the boat. We went the other way down the river and came to another dead end, so Heather had to try and turn the boat around and got us stuck on the rocks! I had to push us off the rocks and nearly fell in doing it, which made us laugh even more! While I was doing that a big frog (the size of a toad) came swimming up next to us and I honestly thought it was going to jump into the boat it was that close (anyone who knows me will know that frogs really freak me out) I was trying to judge if I could jump from the boat onto the bank if the frog jumped onto the boat! We finally got moving again and returned the boat to the docking area and as I was pulling myself up onto the dock, the boat started floating away and I nearly fell in, much to Heathers amusement!

After the excitement of the boat ride we were a bit tired so we jumped onto the sightseeing tour (a 12 seater golf buggy driven by a Chinese woman who kept stopping and pointing to trees!) and we were glad we did as we realised that we had only covered a quarter of the gardens, there was still a lot more to see! We went back to the entrance of the gardens and took a taxi back into the city to have lunch on the Bund which was nice.

For all the photos click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627699974215/

Monday 3rd October

Today I met up with my friend Heather, who is staying at a different hostel and we went to the Yuyuan gardens. No one else was awake when I left at 10.30am (a lot of people were out the night before) We took the subway and walked through the Yu Yuan Bazaar, an old style shopping street that all of the buildings are an old style called Ming-Dynasty. The streets were so busy with people pushing and shoving to get through so it took a while to get through the crowds. The Yu Yuan gardens were really pretty and it wasn’t anywhere near as busy as the streets outside it. The Yu gardens are apparently the best example of a traditional Suzhou garden to be found in Shanghai.

After the gardens we took an open top tour bus around the finance district which was good to get our bearings of the city, it was really cold and windy. It was one of the girls Lindsay birthday today so we then returned to the hostel to meet everyone else to go on the Huangpu river cruise at 6pm (it’s dark by then so we could see the city illuminated which was good). There wasn’t anywhere to sit down though and my feet were already hurting after the long day I had had with Heather so having to stand up for 90 minutes didn’t help. After the cruise we then all (17 of us) went to pizza hut to celebrate Lindsay's birthday. It was 10.30pm by this point and everyone wanted to go on to do KTV (karaoke) but myself and Heather and a few others were too tired so we returned to the hostel then. There are a few people who got really drunk last night and spent the day in bed today, getting up at 5pm to do the river cruise and then going out drinking at KTV tonight they are probably going to be getting up late tomorrow which to me feels like a complete waste of the week in Shanghai, I want to be getting up every morning giving me enough time to do the sightseeing and getting as much in as I can as I am only here until Friday morning!

To see all the pics click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627824096086/

Sunday 2nd October

I woke up today in my room at the hostel and I didn’t have a clue where I was! It took me a while to realise, the hostel was actually quite noisy last night, I am just down the hall from the bar so I could hear people talking until 2am (the walls are quite thin) but the bed was really comfy and I then had a good nights sleep.

There are 10 of us from TTC staying at the hostel and we had arranged to meet in the bar at 10am to go to the markets with a Chinese friend of one of the group who is from Shanghai and offered to take us to the markets. As soon as we got there Sam, Heather, Lindsay and I realised it was a mistake, the market was packed (the whole city is as it’s golden week, but the markets especially) so we made our excuses and left. I wanted to see the Oriental Pearl tower so we got the subway there, the tower is 468 metres high and is the highest TV tower in Asia. The tower has a revolving restaurant at the top, an observation deck at 263 metres and a roller coaster inside the tower at 90metres which was really good. The views were amazing and the observation deck had a glass floor so you could see below you.

After the Oriental Pearl tower it started pouring down with rain so we went back to the hostel to chill out before everyone was meeting up again for food and to go out for the night in Shanghai. There is definitely a temperature difference between Shanghai and Beijing, Beijing is much warmer, but there is also the feeling that Shanghai is so much more advanced and modern.

For more pics click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66580104@N06/sets/72157627824081284/

Saturday 1st October

Today was the first day of the “Golden week” holiday and I got a taxi to the airport at 3pm. When I arrived at 3.30pm at the check in desk I was asked if I wanted to change to an earlier flight (my flight wasn’t supposed to be until 5.40pm) and I was put onto the 4pm flight so I had to rush through the airport. I boarded the plane and there were empty rows of seats and no one sat next to me so I could stretch out which was nice! The flight was 1 hour 40 minutes and I arrived in Shanghai at 6pm. I got a taxi to the hostel and practised my Chinese on the taxi driver (it is a standing joke amongst a few of the teachers that every taxi we get into I try to practice my Chinese, but I only know how to say hello, how are you, my name is Pippa, what’s your name, and I would like a taxi to the restaurant) So every time I get in a taxi I say these phrases, but then the taxi drivers usually think I can speak Chinese and start talking to me and have no idea what they are saying.

Shanghai is said to be the New York of China and I can understand why, it was dark (and raining heavily)as I was driving from the airport to the hostel and every building is lit up by coloured lights and looks so pretty. The city itself is really busy and the hostel is about a 5 minute walk from “the Bund” the famous area of Shanghai. The hostel is actually really nice (although I paid extra for a private room and en suite rather than stay in the dorms with communal showers and toilets!) There are 10 of us so far staying at this hostel and another group of people in a hostel down the road and then 10 more people staying somewhere else nearby so it will be nice to catch up with everyone.

Friday 30th September

Today was the last day of school and everyone was looking forward to the week off, it has been a bit of a shock to the system working 9-5pm again! The weather has been nice this week, it’s been 35 degrees and since all the pollution has cleared a bit from the beginning o the week there has been blue skies.

After school all of the teachers were going to the Irish bar nearby for food and drinks so we all went and had a really good evening. A few of us went into Beijing centre and danced the night away which was really fun and we bumped into a few people that we knew from TTC so it was nice to catch up.