(Another late one)

HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2013

Unlike christmas, new year is celebrated in China too with a big meal with your family and maybe a small party which some of the classes had. We were invited to 2 classes for new year but could only attend 1 for half an hour as we had to run off to catch a bus to go to Yihuang and see the boys. We were welcomed with screams into the senior 3 class (Year 11) and given lots of food, taken photos with and made to sing (yet again) Taylor Swift - Love Story .. maybe my new favourite song .. I ended up having some sword fights with some kids and getting ballooned popped into my face, quite fun really. We then quickly ran to the other class to just wish them a Happy New Year but we were greeted by sad faces when they heard we couldn't stay .. it's a hard life you know.

We hurried off to get our bus and jumped into the nearest tuc tuc.. 5 minutes late! The bus had already left and we were sat looking like idiots, our only other choice was to get a taxi which would be about 100yuan more expensive (still only costing £13 between us for an hour ride). We managed to haggle to guy down from 150Yuan to 130Yuan but did somehow share a lift with a women who wasn't even going to the same place and insisted on having her window open the whole journey... i don't think so! The journey was much smoother than the bus but did take a little longer because of dropping the women off too. This meant we had to go through toll gates on an abondoned motorway which the driver then tried to make us pay extra for. Now my friend.. i may speak no English but i was raised to argue, i shouted what i could at him that he was ridiculous and we weren't paying more and made our waiban call up and put shame upon the driver.. which she did. The driver passed the phone back to me and my waiban explained that he was now going to let us out .. WAIT, he wasn't going to let us out before, that worried me just a tad!

We soon arrived in Yihuang to see the boys and headed out to get some fast food.. VERY bad fast food at that, not thrilled with my final meal of 2012! Then we grabbed some more drinks and headed back to theirs. Me and Cat had some vodka left from christmas so enjoyed that and did some shots of bijou to get us drunk into the new year. We set up a little clock countdown on the computer and counted down into the year, hugging each other as we entered 2013 and singing songs. Me, being a little drunk, then proceeded to shout at whoever walked by outside the window, and resulting in me breaking the boys window... hope their house doesn't get too cold! We decided then to go explore outside. Running along the streets with Dan my drunkness caught up on me and i faceplanted the floor. I laughed it off as a concerned Dan tried to help me out whilst Cat cackled in the background .. i didn't even bruise but I did wake up hurting. We then decided to jump on a circus tent statue thing (labelled do not jump on) and climbed to the top .. stealing the lightbulb haha! That caused more injuries and a v.funny picture of Cat (see picture). We then ran along the river front and climbed onto more things before heading home, a little more sober and ready for bed.

The morning was then a late one and we enjoyed some rice for lunch. Me and Dan then headed for a walk which was suprisingly warm for January, ended with me even taking my coat off. We went to their local market which was cool and ended up buying some pretty chopsticks. As we explored more we went to the food area which we thought should be interesting .. oh it was. We were first shown to pools of bloog along the floor and animal guts all across a table. As i turned my head away i saw what resembled a dogs jaw on the floor. Further along more meat was hung up and bones about the place. One seller had cages of geese of which she would grab one, twist its neck and then start to pluck it there and cut it up.... Yet there was more, turtle has been cut in half down the shell and sat with the guts hanging out, many still alive with their heads still moving about in the shell ... ok the thought of it is even turning my stomach now! On the plus side, i did see some cute earmuffs.

Again, it was another home time and me and Cat headed back on the bus, which we didn't miss this time, but did have a fun bumpy ride along with a curing hangover! Overalll it was a really fun weekend and despite loosing my phone, it was all worth it! Now it's back to teaching for around 3 weeks until we are let off for travelling YAY!!! However we did have Ella and Nicole over from Tuesday - Thursday. It's very different here to Jiujiang, which is much more modern, so it was good giving them a tour and having some girl time playing big fat quiz of the year on Ellas computer

<3