Oh the joy of being back in my apartment! All I can think of right now is getting some sleep! I had been looking forward to a good night's sleep last night, but alas, it did not go to plan. After a stressful eight days at summer camp, followed by a non-stop whirlwind few days in Shanghai, finishing with the slowest train journey ever back to Nanjing (the train stopped at every station, and sometimes even stopped where there wasn't a station... Yawn!)... I arrived home to a flooded apartment... Aaarrghhh!!! I'm not talking about a puddle of water, or in fact 'a little bit of flooding', but a full -on couple of inches of stinky stagnant brown water. Gross! I won't go into huge detail about the mops, buckets, phone calls, police, workmen etc but I am pleased to say that everything was sorted surprisingly quickly and my apartment now smells lemon-fresh once more. But... I am skipping ahead somewhat... So let's go back a couple of weeks... About three weeks a go I accidently found out that I was expected to attend summer camp in Zhujiajiao, which is just outside Shanghai, with twenty-two screaming kids. The headteacher had forgotten to tell me and just expected me to know I was going and would happily comply. Not good! And, as if that wasn't bad enough, because I would be missing lessons whilst I was away, they expected me to work all my days off to make up the lesson hours. Really not good! Well... Despite being a little put out, I decided to use this to my advantage and blag some holiday in Shanghai after camp... Which they agreed to. So... Two weeks a go I set off for camp with sixteen twelve-year-old boys and six girls. The three-hour train journey was reasonably stress-free, if a little noisy, and we soon arrived in Shanghai and took a coach to our very picturesque camp. The first couple of days were extremely strange and very daunting. It was the first time since leaving England that I had actually felt lonely and wished I could go home. Imagine that horrible feeling when so many people are talking and shouting around you that you can't hear what anyone is saying and you have to leave the room. Now multiply that by one hundred and imagine being surrounded by that twenty-four hours a day! Despite being surrounded by so many people and so much noise, I could rarely comprehend what was happening and just felt very isolated... But luckily the feeling didn't last too long and I soon got into the swing of things. The camp was very different to anything that would ever be organised in the UK... For a start, in the UK, everything would actually be organised. Here, the organisers never knew what we were doing next, where any of the activities were, or what was involved... Which lead to many a long walk in circles in the midday blazing sun... I'm sure it bordered on child abuse. ... And of course... This being China... Nobody would ever admit to being lost or not knowing what they're doing... It drives me mad!!! Amongst the madness, a lot of fun was had by all. Every day we enjoyed adventure sport activities in the morning (rock climbing, assualt courses, kayaking, rope bridges etc) and in the afternoons I taught a two hour English class and played football with the boys... Who absolutely loved the fact that I was a girl and was better at football than most of them!!! On one of the days we went into Shanghai city and had a really fun day. We went up the Oriental Pearl Tower, visited a university (where we got lost and walked round in circles once again) and took the Maglev from Pudong Airport to Pudong Station. The Maglev (meaning 'magnetic levitation') is the world's fastest commercially operated train, and it travels at approximately 430km per hour (266mph)... I tried to take a photo as we reached maximum speed but it just came out as one big blur... It isn't easy keeping a camera steady at that speed! I then experienced another Chinese phenomenon!... Our coach driver skipped a red light at a crossing and manged to hit a man on a moped at quite a considerable speed. The man was injured and bleeding, and the scooter had bits falling off of it, but our driver shouted at the man until he got back on and rode off. Can you imagine that in the UK? We would have been there for hours dealing with the police and ambulances etc. Poor guy... I hope he got home alright?!? The final couple of days at camp flew by quickly, however, a number of incidents occured on the last day... Just as I thought things were going too well! Firstly, a girl broke her ankle when she kicked a piece of concrete that she thought was the football... Ouch! ... And then, when we got back to the room everyone found they had mobile phones and money missing. I was extremely lucky, as I had a mobile, i-Pod, money and camera in the room, but didn't have anything stolen... It seems that it was the maid who stole the items and she knew full well that the punishment for stealing from a foreigner is much, much higher that stealing from locals... So she left my stuff alone... Phew!!! The two highlights of the week at camp actually had nothing to do with the camp at all! The first highlight was getting to speak to my dad on his 70th birthday. The school very kindly bought me a phonecard to use and I got to speak to my dad, my mum, and my brother Michael, which was excellent. It is always nice to make contact with home, but even better when it is is a special occasion... Happy birthday dad! Secondly, I started and finished Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' in the space of a few days. What a book! So that's 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'Crime and Punishment' finished, and I'm now starting 'Notes From The Underground'... Dostoevsky is defintely my favourite writer of all times! I then disappeared off for a proper adults holiday in Shanghai!!!... Happy days!!!... ... However, I am rather tired, as I mentioned at the start of this entry, so I shall continue the update tomorrow. Good night peeps!