A lot happened today and most of it was completely unexpected. For example, in China you need only three students to form a class, to teach to international students you don't necessarily have to speak English and if you're not careful you'll end up making pictures with about 30 people.

The day started with a four-hour class called 'Design and Development of Programmable Logic Controller'. When I arrived in the classroom there was still nobody. I was just waiting for a while and then Roman and Victoria also came. When the class was supposed to start there was no one else but us. It appeared to be that we are actually the only three exchange students from Mechanical Engineering. So we will probably have all the classes with just the three of us.

The teacher of this subject's English wasn't very good. Very often it was difficult to understand and sometimes not even possible to follow what he was saying. Luckily this subject is a project and it seems like we will not have many lectures, just working on the project. The lab where we are working in is very new though. It is also a lot bigger than the lab we had in Finland. It looks like a nice environment to work on the project.

After class we had about four hours to eat lunch. We went to one of the restaurants on the campus and bought some food there. It is very cheap because the prices from what we have seen vary between 2 and 7 yuan, which is about 25 to 95 eurocents for a meal. The restaurant is pretty large and has about 30 kinds of 'small shops' where you can buy food. Each little shop has some other food and you can choose what you want to eat. I will add a photo to show how it looks. Some of the food is served on these metal trays which look like the ones they have in prison.

The second class was 'Engineering Economic Technology', again with just the three of us. This teacher's English was better luckily. Of course everyone who's not native English has a different accent and I should be getting used to the accent (sometimes very strong) that they have here. But also that will get better over time.

When this class ended and we were just walking back home something very unexpected happened. Out of the blue a Chinese student came to us and asked if we are exchange students. We started to talk a bit and she was very interested in us. She told us that a friend of her is an English teacher and that it would be great if we would come to her class and talk to the students. Meanwhile when we were waiting we spotted some Chinese girls taking photos of us and trying to hide that. They held their books in front of them and with their phones (just above their books) they were taking photos. That was again an interesting experience.

So eventually we went to this English pronunciation's class and we were meeting the students. At first we were all standing in a circle and they were asking us questions. Then all of a sudden one girl asked if she could take a photo with us, and then another and another. So in the end we made quite some photos and group photos and mini group photos…. Not really the everyday class, but very funny.

The questions, of course, got more and more personal and at some point they were asking if I have a girlfriend. When I said yes I had to show them a photo and the whole group was like: 'Wooow'. That was great and making me feel proud.

When the photoshoots were over the teacher ended the class and took the three of us out for dinner. We went to get some street food and that was very good. Some kind of dough ball, not really bread yet, with meat, egg, sauce and some kind of vegetable. Tasty, large and cheap.

She then took us to a place called 'the English corner'. This is a room in some office building where local students meet to learn English. She was teaching there together with some other teachers from China and one from the US. We came with here to meet some more English speaking people and the meet with some local students. It is a place where classes are given in English language and where people can just walk in and speak to each other in English. The conversations may be about anything as long as it is in English.

There are many people interested in this way of learning English. Most students are about my age, but speak English on a beginner's or intermediate's level. It was nice to meet local students there and to talk with them about basically everything, but they were mostly interested in The Netherlands and how things are over there. Of course, drugs are a main point on the agenda.

On my way back I was asked if I wanted to become a part-time English teacher. That seems like a very nice thing to do and I will attend some classes to see how everything is going and if I would actually like to do that. So let's see what's going to happen this week and what other challenges will appear on my path. This was certainly something unexpected. Planning on walking home we met some student, attended a class, made many photos, went to an English school and I was asked to teach. I wonder what's next…