A good day at school - one where I actually feel this teaching lark isn't that bad after all!! The students really seem to like the activities which are based around listening to the music, although it is exhausting trying to second guess all of the inventive ways they can think of to cheat!! Still, I'm thinking it is good that they care enough to try and think of them! Class 3 was particuarly manic - I had to replace both my copies of the lyrics at the end because they had got torn and I though we might have injuries the way they were scrambling to get to them. This evening we went to check out hotels for Hannah's family to stay in when they come to Huairou for Christmas. We never imagined you would have to book here - it's such a quiet district and we rarely see tourists - but we were shocked to discover (through a mixture of sign language, book pointing, broken English and broken Chinese) that there is a Government meeting in Huairou Christmas week and most of the hotels are fully booked. In fact, of the 7 we tried, 4 are definately full, 1 says it has spaces but is very expensive and we are not convinced they understood us and 1 is not sure but will call us tomorrow to let us know. The 7th one was a very interesting experience. The sign on the door said 'Hotel', but when we got in, a reception on one side of the room said 'VIP Bar' and one on the opposite side suggested it was a spa. We asked some people if it was a hotel and they said yes and insisted we sit down in the waiting area whilst they found someone to help us. A few minutes later, another man appeared and so again Hannah used her best Chinese (aided by the Chinese-English dictionary) to ask if this was a hotel and if we could book some rooms. This conversation struggled along for a few minutes until the man said to us "Please can you speak English"! I got the giggles at this point and couldn't continue the conversation but Hannah persevered and the man guestered us to follow him. We assumed that he was taking us to the hotel reception and were surprised when he took us to a clockroom, gave us some flipflops and indicated for us to give him our shoes. We thought it a little odd but since he was adament this was a hotel we did as we were told. Then he took us back to where we had been sitting and told us to wait. He brought us some warm water to drink and then a woman appeared, sat down next to me and asked me if I wanted to have a bath!!! We explained once again that we thought we were in a hotel and we wanted to book some rooms and she told us we could live there if we wanted to. I'm not sure how much of the language was lost in translation, but we were seriously concerned by what kind of place we were in at that point, made our excuses, said we would come back and fled to find our shoes again!