Very, very many thanks to everyone for their kind birthday wishes, they are very much appreciated! Well, it's Labour Day today in The People's Republic, so we are all having 4 days holiday! I've taken myself off to Guilin to stay in a nice hotel and explore the surroundings. Bianca, my erstwhile fellow volunteer, had no such plans but found herself the only person remaining in the school with no food and someone's alarm clock going off in the room next door, so ...

Well, we spent this morning learning taichi. We learnt 6 steps to be exact! It took 2 hours and I doubt that any of us will remember them by tomorrow! Our teacher did tell us that she spent the whole day just learning one step when she first started. It looks so easy and yet is so exacting but an excellent exercise because it is low impact. We then spent the afternoon practicing calligraphy. This was less impressive but good fun and very relaxing. We we...

This is actually from a small town about 1 and a half hours by bus, south of Guilin, called Yangshao. The town itself is very pretty - by night at least, I haven't seen it in daylight yet - but very touristy and I'm staying in a school about a 20 minute walk away. The school is vast - it's like a small housing estate of flats, not houses. The pupils all board and are middle and secondary school age. The scenery is amazing - we are surrounded by fantastically shap...