Okay.. hold on a second.. Im already over 3 months into this year away?! Cray how fast time is flying by here.. but Im still having the time of my life...

So I left you all at the idea of us finally being able to spend one week in Shawan.. Well we actually successfully completed this... Recently I've been so drained and shattered, working everyday, tutoring after school, playing with the kids... its just non stop work at the minute.. not that I'm complaining!

The past couple of weeks teaching have been brilliant, teaching my grade 6's about different festivals has been a highlight.. especially when I show them how to "bob for apples" on Halloween, and they end up trying to drown eachother.. typical.. My grade 4's have also been insistant on games every period, thus resulting in me having to make up random games for different english words.. so long as the kids love it !

We've met alot more people now in Shawan, especially highschool kids who love to attempt to use their english to "flirt" with us.. or so they call it..

Laura and I also managed to spend our first night away from eachother in 3 months.. I decided to stay in Shawan after some friends invited me to a birthday party, while she went to Kuytun.. This resulted in me going out dancing at Shawans club (Tanghui) (YES WE HAVE A CLUB IN SHAWAN.. ONLY TOOK US 3 MONTHS TO FIND IT)with a bunch of highschool folk.. this proved to be interesting as everyone here does "technotik" dancing.. so its nothing like the clubs back home.. and everyone seems to be amazing at dancing.. then you have me!!

On the weekend of the 21st of November we all headed to Urumqi to meet with all 10 volunteers and celebrate Lauras 19th Birthday. On the firday we went to our favourite place, Fubar ( they have real cocktails!!) and met Mark and Azmat. Sam had been kind enough to get Laura two birthday cakes (seeing as Brian is allergic to almost everything..) And whilst trying to enjoy this cake.. Reece decides to start a cake fight.. This ended in broken glasses, cake being thrown about the street, me being ambushed when I thought id be smart and move inside, and a massive mess.. best fun ever! On the saturday night, we did the weirdest thing yet.. Its called Room Escape.. Basically we split into teams of 6/7 ( I was with Mark, Laura, Ben, Alastair and Harrison) and you get locked into a room and you have to solve all the clues to move through the rooms and collect a code to escape.. Obviously it was all in Chineses, and mark was surprisingly not that helpful.. So we ended up trappend in different tunnels and rooms for about 2 hours.. was far too fun though! Best Urumqi weekend yet!

The past week has been my busiest week yet, we had to teach, continue tutoring "the ugly duckling" for a competition, help out some kids get ready for a school show, judge an English competition and take part in a school show ( and no there is no embarrassing video evidence of me dancing to "Xiaopingguo" or singing along to "You Are my Sunshine" with my pupils..) So its fair to say I needed a relaxing weekend..

However, on Saturday morning one of the highschool English teachers invited us to come and see her english lesson in the highschool and speak to all her pupils to help with their conversational english.. Now bearing in mind shawan hasnt had foreigners for about 5 years, walking into the highschool made people literally gasp.. ( definitely weird to still have intense stares and photos and gasps when people see us, even though weve been here for 3 months..) Anyway, walking into the class I was so nervous, and we got greeted by 40 18/19 years olds clapping and wooping at us.. We were then to introduce ourselves and speak about our countries.. before they asked us questions.. and of course all the boys questions would be "do you have a boyfriend?" " do you like chinese boys?" EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. In the end it proved to be a great morning, and we met some more people who im sure well keep in contact with all year... Including Daniel, Darcy, Dreaming Dragon John??? and many more..

Theyre even that kind that they took us out for zhua fan for lunch and took us dancing in the evening.. Now I still cant get over the weirdness of clubs in China.. we were all happily dancing away, and suddenly a Thai Qi expert comes out.. swallows a sword.. and then manages to lift a bucket full of water with just his "male parts" (excuse me..) Only in China..

The weather has taken a durastic change from the lovely sunhine.. its been about -9/-13 for the past few days.. with a lot of snow.. more than I've ever seen in Scotland.. and this is just the start of winter! Of course teaching in a Primary School there is an unwritten rule of snowball fights with all the kids.. this has become intense the past few days, with laura and I preparing ourselves every morning to be bombarded by about 40/50 pupils all throwing snowballs at once.. we will get our revenge.. On the note of snowball fights.. we ended up in one with a complete sstranger in the middle of the street ( just why?) as well as with our friends from 8090... now that was an intense fight..

Anyway... things are going amazing, and I havent even had a chance to get bored yet.. heres hoping the next few weeks ( WITH CHRISTMAS) will be just as good!

Until next time,

See ya!