We woke up on Sunday feeling soo hungover from the unlimited amount of alcohol we were provided and the last thing that we wanted to do was plan our lessons after an amazing week in Shanghai.

Wanting one last get together before our lessons started we all met up in Changsha, the capital of the province we all teach in. We were not prepared for this night to be so messy but I suppose those are the nights that are always the messiest. We went to a German restaurant that was all you can eat and drink beer. A few of us decided to go clubbing afterwards and we got speaking to a group of Chinese people who bought us endless amounts of alcohol. They then took the 5 of us to a really good club where the owner could speak really good English. She asked us if we would work there on Halloween, so the both of us along with 4 other friends get to dress up scary and basically be freak shows which should be a laugh.

We decided that this week we would meet up with our Chinese friend who can speak English and go to the local club to get ourself another job. It wasn't until we text her to arrange to meet up with us on Wednesday night that we found out that she lives at university in the next city which is an hour away. She still insisted on meeting us on the evening and her mother would drive her home on the night ready for lessons the next day. We told her not to worry about it as it is really out of her way, but Chinese people see it rude to turn down their help. Chinese people are sooo friendly! You would never get an English person go out of their way to help a clueless foreigner. We went up to the club managers office where we asked for a job. We were asked if we did anything interesting i.e. play guitar, sing. After it was established that we weren't interesting he said that we could have a job and basically get paid to turn up party, chat will the clubbers and drink all their alcohol so they buy more…so basically what we normally do on a night out.

After our 6 McDonald meals we consumed within 5 days during the holiday last week we thought we would start taking our evening jogs more seriously. Having a running track on our doorstep is quite handy, although we use going for a jog as an excuse for eating more McDonald's.

Mid week Evan (one of the middle kingdom teachers) invited us to a dinner with Alex and his contact person would be the host who wanted us to go for dinner and then to KTV; a karaoke bar where Chinese people go to socialise. After dinner which consisted of a whole duck in a bowel and cost us £5:50 each (which we could have bought 2 McDonald meals with) we hired out a ktv room and sang (shouted) numerous karaoke classics.

Our Chinese friend Johnson also invited us out this week so we arranged to go out on Friday evening after English corner. When asking what we were doing we were told 'it was a surprise' we were picked up by him and his friend Jim, who we had met before and was through Jim that we knew Johnson. They both drove their own cars which was weird because we could have all fitted in one. We arrived at 'Mo's bar' and soon realised that it would just be the 4 of us and not a big group of people that we thought it may have been, it was quite clear that to them we were on a double date pahahahaha. When previously asking him what we would be doing we were told 'Drinking, music and delicious food'. We both had a small dinner to make room for this 'delicious' food to find that when at the bar we would be eating a variety of ridiculously spicy ducks body parts i.e. ducks tongue, neck, wings. A little tipsy we started talking about bike riding and thought it would be a good idea if we went for a bike ride in the middle of the night. A little miscommunication; mainly because we were communicating through a translation app the majority of the time, we arrived at the river side where they had the 4 wheeled cycling karts that seat 4 people and also play music. It was the most random thing ever but so much fun. Jim drove in his car while we cycled and Niki wanted to drive his shiny white BMW, before long we were both in a car each driving..in China..on the wrong side of the road. It was a funny site when Emily saw Niki with her head out of the sun roof from the other car. Niki told Jim she wanted a Mcdonalds so we ended the night in with a chicken nugget meal to take home with us..scoreeee! not having to pay for anything because 'In China the gentleman pays'

The next day we went for a pizza hut, we received a txt off Johnson asking if we wanted to climb the local mountain, this would have been a great thing to do but figured if we said yes it would be leading him on to thinking we fancied him. Avril invited us to play badminton with her 'brothers' Saturday evening so after English corner we met them at the gym. It was a massive gym with loads of badminton courts. She brought around 10 rackets with her so we had one each and played singles tournaments and double matches. It was lots of fun and we have asked Mr Lui to sort us out with some badminton rackets so that we can play on the courts at the school.

On Monday evening we stared our new job. But before we started working there at 9pm we were invited by one of mr Lui's girlfriends to have dinner at her home. Their apartment was soo nice and so was the food! We really liked it because it wasn't spicy but I don't think the Chinese people liked it as much. Then we went to 'work' at a place called 'gossip bar'. It was really fun and didn't feel like work. All the other people who work there are really friendly too and just like to have lots of fun. We also met two South African girls who regularly work there. So we turned up and got given our own table with bottles of beer on before long we were chatting with a group of business people who could speak a little bit of English because of going to America for business. They were buying us 'wine' which was really orange squash so that we didn't get drunk; but of course the people buying it us did not know this. The more 'expensive' drinks they buy the more we get paid. A bottle of very expensive and really nice tasting Champaign was then bought over to the table. So all in all everyone was happy!

On Tuesday we had arranged to meet up with the professor of Xiangtan University to discuss having some Chinese lessons. Jim had put us in contact with him so we all met up and went to a bar where very minimal discussion of taking Chinese lessons took place. We then went for a meal with about 20 other Chinese people. Jim had organised a reunion for all of his old class mates to get back together. They must have went to a good school because we were sat with doctors, business people and even a member of the government who was in charge of a city that we don't remember the name of. As guests we toasted to each person around the table having to down our half pints of beer every time. Doing this 20 times in a row made us feel very sick but that soon passed and we were on our way to the bar with them all. Coming straight from lessons we didn't expect that we would be going out and getting this drunk, but we have arranged to meet with the professor again on Sunday and hopefully we will be having Chinese lesson very soon.

We have decided not to blog every week but just when we have enough interesting stuff to talk about, this Friday we are going to Changsha as it is the Birthday of the expat bar 'hooligans' so free pizza and beer whoop we are definitely there!!

Over and Out!!!

Emily and Niki