I'm pretty sure it's been nearly a month since I wrote on here. The last thing I mentioned in my previous blog was a school trip to the aquarium, and I'm disappointed and sorry to announce that I haven't just been at the 'blue zoo' for the last three weeks. Although, if I'm being completely honest I wouldn't mind being there for an extensive period of time, as (lets face it) who wouldn't want to be surrounded by sharks and turtles all day every day? Also, there were mermaids there. Okay, so there were women dressed up as mermaids, but the kids couldn't tell the difference.

So the trip to the aquarium was pretty awesome, although it was pretty standard as far as they go. Obviously better than the Sea Life Centre, but still not really up there with Sydney aquarium. The best thing was that you had to stand on some sort of conveyer belt to go round and see the fish. It was bit surreal, but it helped us to control the kids, who were going slightly crazy every time a shark swam past (which was a lot, as there were at least 10 sharks) and trying to run away, screaming 'ahh shak shak'. It was the bus trip there and back that was the most eventful however. With all of the kids throwing up the peace sign for some pretty adorable photos, my Chinese teacher decided to show me some that she'd just taken. While we were flicking through the photos saying 'aww' and such, she accidentally showed me a photo of her and her boyfriend. In bed. She was mortified and went bright red, stuttering 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' as I had to really force myself to stop laughing. She couldn't look me in the eye for the rest of the day, which was probably more because of the fact that I kept laughing at her, than her initial embarrassment. I also managed create another awkward situation (I know, me, awkward? Never) by walking in on one of my heads of department, on the toilet. Yes squatting. It was sufficiently awkward, but I'm certain that I was more embarrassed by the situation than she was.

Because of my lack of awareness of most things on a daily basis, and indeed my memory loss when it comes to things of significant importance, it's going to be a struggle to note everything of interest, let alone in a chronological order. I'll try my best, but don't judge me if this blog kinda sounds like it's been written by a toddler (just as a side note, toddlers in China all wear these trousers that are kind of crotchless - not chaps like Xtina in her dirrrrty video, but with a big bum flap - so that they can go to the toilet. Anywhere. I've seen children going to the toilet in the middle of the Forbidden City (Google it), and even on a train).

Obviously I'm sure it goes without saying by now, that my students are hilarious. Every day they do something to make me laugh uncontrollably, and I should probably provide a few examples to explain. Firstly was the vomit incident, where a little girl in my class (who I have to point out was not remotely ill before, or even after the incident) decided to vomit all over the Chinese teacher in my class. It was funnier because the kids had just had 'yoghurt time', and also because it was pretty much projectile vomit. The child ran off and carried on playing, while the poor woman had to go and was the sick out of her hair and change her clothes.

The same week, we began to practice our class plays 'Three Little Pigs' and 'Little Red Hen'. There were several games of 'stone, paper, scissors' - nobody listens to me when I try and explain that it's 'rock' - followed by several children hitting each other, and most of the class crying when the three pigs were chosen. I obviously chose the best English speakers, which didn't include the number of children who identify a 'tomato' as a 'turtle' every lesson, despite the fact that we have a pet turtle in our class. It's been two weeks, and still the 'turtle' 'tomato' debate continues. Today I had to introduce the word 'parrot' and of course they keep saying 'carrot'. I'm just going to start teaching them words that they can't rhyme, and hope for the best. As for 'The three little pigs', it's going well, right up until the point where they have to say 'chinny chin chin'. I'll leave you to imagine just how hilarious that sounds when being said by 4 year olds.

The kids are also rehearsing for the big pop song dance, which we'll (Yes - We'll.) have to perform next week at the school sports day. They take it super seriously here, and have the kids practice their marching every day. It's a bit much, especially when I have to join in and practice the dance 50 times. The best thing is that the kids have to do the dance using dusters. You know, like the ones on QVC or something. They kinda look like pom poms, but they are in fact household cleaning products. The thing that makes me laugh about this is that this school is so prestigious, and expensive (like ridiculously expensive, even by British standards), yet they can't afford to buy each child a pair of pom poms to use during the dance. This is also true of the tracksuits that they provide the teachers, which are all fake Adidas. The worst part is, I don't even get my own tracksuit, I had to borrow one. I had to go through the mortifying experience of borrowing a tracksuit from the worlds thinnest Chinese teacher, despite my extensive pleas that it wouldn't fit me. When I told her it was too small, she was so shocked and replied that she thought it would be too big, because i'm a 'small blonde girl'. Why my hair makes me thinner, I don't know. Anyway, I ended up borrowing one from another teacher. I'm praying it fits. I'm also intending on completely chavving it up for my performance and donning a pair of hoop earrings and a side pony tail. Is it bad that I'm excited for this? Probably.

The most blog worthy part of my last few weeks really has to be my trip to Inner Mongolia. I realise it says that the entire blog is about Inner Monglia, but in all honesty I just wanted to update my location from Beijing for once! So, we decided mid-week to book our tickets, and ended up paying just 200Y (twenty pounds) for a return ticket, 10 hours each way. They were only cheap because we booked 'hard seats' as opposed to a sleeper. In other words, we were sitting in cramped seats for 10 hours, with a large amount of Chinese people, as opposed to sleeping in a private bed - which is what most westerners do. We found this out pretty much as soon as we boarded the train, with everyone in the carriage looking confused as to why we were there. Then came the questions from the people around us 'what do you do?' 'how much money do you earn?'. I wish I was joking. Once we'd convinced them that we were indeed quite poor by Western standards, they chatted away to us for the majority of the journey. We didn't understand much of what each other was saying, but they were so friendly that it didn't really matter. So, after not much sleep for more than 24 hours, we arrive in Mongolia. We were in Hohhot which we soon realised was pretty similar to our local town. Pretty much a big building site. They even spray painted the grass green. That's not to say we didn't have an awesome time, because we definitely did.

So, after getting there at 7am, we spent the day sight seeing and exploring the city. First, as strange as it sounds we went roller skating. It was inside some games arcade, and I'm pretty sure it was actually under construction, but they let us on. There were multiple holes and cracks in the floor, and we had an audience of excitable Chinese men watching us for a good hour. I did feel like I was in an 80s movie for a while, with the retro music. It was surprisingly fun, and none of us got any injuries. Except perhaps my dignity, after realising how truly awful I am at skating. In all fairness, I haven't done it since I was about 11, when we used to skate down Yarmouth Seafront. I had Goosebumps Rollerblades at the time.. So anyway, we caught a bus across town after skating, and saw an amazing temple that quite frankly put most of what I've seen in Beijing to shame. It was so colourful and, well it was just beautiful. After the templ, we had some pretty amazing food, explored some more, and headed back to get ready and have some drinks. Our night out was pretty awesome, we went to a gay bar where there was a drag show, a weird incident involving several men dressed as Mario and Luigi grinding against poles, to the theme of Super Mario, and lots of lady boys. It was ridiculously funny, and awesome to be out of Beijing and partying somewhere other than Propaganda. We spent the rest of the weekend chilling out with everyone, playing some football and eating some more awesome food - including the best fried mushrooms of all time. Before we knew it, it was Monday morning and we were making our way back to Beijing. On the way back I must have posed for at least 10 photos, with more excitable Chinese girls. My favourite was a girl who tried to stealthily take a photo of me, using the flash.. I still just don't get it.

I've been at my school for around two months now, which is pretty crazy. The teaching is going really well, and I think that I might actually cry when I leave the kids at the end of June - I know, who would've thought it, the ice queen really does have a heart. They're all pretty awesome, and never fail to make me smile. Everyone in my department is really cool, and they all go out of their way to help me. Although the Chinese assistant in my class keeps joking that the other Chinese teacher loves me, which is a tad worrying. The school is still pretty much the same. Still prison-esque, still really bleak, and still unnecessarily strict. Although I've made friends with the guards recently, so they don't seem to care about when we leave/return anymore, which is awesome. Still, we had to scale a wall the other day so that we could get a friend to our apartment. It was a little like the scene from the Great Escape. We usually have holes in the fence, but they've all been repaired. The more I think about it, and tell people about it, the more I realise that I am actually probably in a Chinese prison, for smuggling those PG tips.

Apologies for the lack of content this time; as I said, I've been so busy and I never get a chance to stop and write this. I'm actually using my office time effectively recently, and doing work instead of procrastinating. I feel like a grown up. I've definitely missed about a million things, and will probably remember them when it comes to writing next weeks blog. I've been pretty sick over the past few days, after I got food poisoning at the weekend. Note to self: Don't eat dirty street food. Only joking, I love the stuff, a little bit of food poisoning isn't going to stop me. On a final note, I experienced my second hair sniffing incident this weekend. I was getting something from the bottom shelf at the supermarket, and a woman bent down to smell my hair. She made the effort to actually bend down and get a good sniff.. I'm starting to wonder exactly what it smells of. I'm guessing unicorns.