'Life is what happens to you whilst you're busy making other plans' - John Lennon

Since my last blog its been a fair while, think i've now decided to put less pressure on myself (as it is so much..) to not update my blog as much but just tell you the MAJOR events in my China life.

Since i last updated my blog its been a fair while, i've taught nearly 2 more weeks of lessons with my students. I'm actually enjoying teaching them althogh the thought at 7o'clock in the morning to put my cheery face on and shout at 60 kids doesnt appeal straight away. I have quite a few laughs with them and have resorted to calling my kids funny English names (in which they dont understand) to the kids i hate including 'Gremlin' and 'Smurf'. They just all laughed and agreed to it, its nice having my own personal jokes (Yes it is sad but it keeps me going). One kid i called Lady GaGa (i dont know why) but it got alot of laughs from the kids so i was happy. My class 7 juniours are my last class of the whole week on a Friday period 4 and what a joy they are. I love how they insist on talking over and when i do tell them to shush they decided to imitate me and find it really funny.. hmm. So in my Chinese lesson (which i now have twice a week) i asked to learn what 'be quiet' is and when she asked if i wanted to know what 'please be quiet' is i dismissed it and said there was no need to be polite to them. AN JING! (be quiet in chinese). I'll test it out tomorrow on them but i honestly hate them all. When i saw some of my students in class 7 today i called them over just to say how annoying they are and how i do not like them (gotta be cruel to be kind) ....

Anyhoo, i didnt care after my lesson as we were off to the boys for the weekend WOOOOHOOHOHOHOHOOHOHO (Dan and Robs). So i made myself look my best (wore makeup which feels alien to me and straightend my hair :O shocker) and trotted off with my oversized backpack for just a weekend. We firstly arrived at the wrong school which was fun but soon arrivd at this amazingly big and modern school. I immediatly jumped out the car and hugged the boy, shaking from excitement (love my boys). They gave us a tour of their school which was uber modern compared to ours and V.NICE!!! Then we were taken for a meal which was pretty tasty and when we were given bijou i sipped it down, feeling my insides slowly erode away (its like 50% or something ridiculous). The best bit of the meal was when my waiban continuinly asked me to speak Chinese so she could laugh at me (the boys and catherine know much more than me) and then comment on how i eat so little (i dont) and that it makes her think i hate the food. Of course the boys played along making me eat more and then offering me beer .. knowing i would rather drink my own sick than have beer. After a few shots (yes shots of beer again, the daredevils) of beer i started to not mind it actually. I was ready to just chill at the boys after this but we were dragged to KTV. I underestimated it, we joined a room of policeman (why, i do not know) and sang a few english songs, slow danced with chinese men to chinese music and even had a rave with them.. crazy! It was soooo much fun and we all had a laugh, although one man insisting on grabbing my hands and swinging them like a windmill didnt impress me too much, especially when he did it for about 10 minutes.

The next day we headed down to a temple and were greeted by female monks. The temple was BEAUTIFUL and i was rather impressed until a monk pointed out Catherines shorts and we then walked about the rest of the time tugging on our shorts to make them longer. We enjoyed some lunch at the boys school then headed to the pingpong and basketball courts to play with some students. I have no victories to declare, beaten at pingpong by near enoughe everyone (although english boys were better than the chinese) and i just wandered around annoying people .. as i do best of course! At night we headed (apart from Dan who enjoyed a night on the toilet) to their town to enjoy some chicken nuggets and were soon greated by a large group of 10 year olds. Yelping Chinese at us they gathered round us at the restuarant, showing off their yoyo tricks and me and Rob were pretty impressed when they whacked out pokemon cards

It's weird how something like Pokemon united two groups of people from different sides of the world, but me shouting Pikatchu at them seemed to work pretty well at getting them excited. They then insisted on showing us about which involved us running round play parks letting them jump on us and us giving them piggy backs. To be fair Rob did get the full impact of them, having around 4 kids clinging to his neck as he attempted to walk about. We did let off a lantern though, writing our 'dreams' onto it. I wished for 'an amazing year with some amazing people' which i can happily say is already coming true.

The next day Rob and Dan introduced us to a chinese bacon sandwich which was pretty identical to an English one and i even got some cheeky ketchup in it.. woohooo!!! We then said our goodbyes and headed for the bus stop to catch our bus to Chongren, costing us a whole £1.10 for a 2 hour journey :D .. we soon realised why it was so cheap though. Firstly, arriving at the bus stop we were greeted by around 5 huge posters of bus crashes from previous years. Not just pictures of the crashed bus but pictures of piles of dead chinese people, blood and all... I DID NOT WANT TO GET ON THE BUS! Then the bus was like a rollercoaster. It would be illegal in Britain with the amount of potholes.. Catherine found it hilarious. I spend most the journey trying not to be sick but avoiding not falling off my seat .. oh no seatbelts too, of course. I began to get used to it until some crazy lazy walked infront of the bus causing us to break suddenly and nearly kill her! She continued on and the passengers didnt seem that affected.. LIKE WHAT!

When we arrived home i was ready to just chill and sleep but we were greeted by two chinese girls. Although i wasnt in the mood for it they did randomly buy us a nice sponge cake and some door decorations, i felt guilty when we asked them to leave, not offering them any cake! Our rest didnt last long as we were then invited out by students to walk around town which was nice, despite us getting told off for going off with students.. pfft.. so we were escorted by our waiban (who for future reference and my future moans prefers Catherine a lot more than me because of her chinese language skills)

Our week so far has been good though and we've been out for two meal for no reason, and been quite spoilt, being brought new chinese flask things (made of soil thing inside which is weird) which i've used for my hot water which i now love. OOO i also found popcorn in the shops which tastes identical to English popcorn and found some chocolate tea (not too bad for breakfast).

Tomorrow the boys are visiting us before we head to Nanchang in the morning to catch our 32 hour train to Lanzhou for our week language course. No, that isn't a typing error, the train really is 32 hours long! But we are then heading to Xi'an the week after which i am UUUBBBEERRR excited for and shall tell you all about in a few weeks. For now i'm more excited that there is a H&M, Starbucks, KFC and pizza hut in Nanchang :D eeee!! My next post will be even longer im sure as i will have so much to say about my 2 weeks away.. Keep reading, and thanks a lot!

<3

p.s. Read my friends in China blog if you want to look at more pictures and get an idea of what others are up to (all people in Jiangxi so similar to my blog and i may get a few mentions)

offexploring.com/catherines-china-challenge

offexploring.com/dan-in-china