The strangest and most brilliant thing happened to me today. The weather has brightened up considerably after days of rain and cold, so I decided to take a stroll around the zoo and find a nice, quiet spot to read my book and listen to some music. On my way, I met an old Chinese man who was very keen to shake my hand and talk to me excitedly in Mandarin, which was fine. Once I had settled down on a wall to peruse my trashy book, he kept coming back up to me to shake my hand again, and eventually asked for a picture on his phone; I was pleased to oblige though I was beginning to feel like the biggest attraction in the zoo. As I sat and read, I attracted the obligatory stares from passers by who have never seen blonde hair before, and soon an old woman was approaching me, offering me some flowers she'd picked, which was very nice indeed. I returned to my book and with the Ke$ha album blaring in my ears, it was a while before I noticed the crowd I had attracted. In no time, I was surrounded by a mass of people, I'd guess about 40 Chinese tourists visiting the zoo, who were all shouting out their best English - a lot of "hallo" and "nice to meet you" and "have nice day"s. Suddenly, they were all queuing up to take pictures with me, especially those with kids, and a guy was crouched down in front of me with his camera phone, seemingly recording the moment for posterity. I wished I'd had my camera so that I could show you all how bizarre it was! China has given me an insight into fame and I'm not entirely sure I like it ...

Anyway, I've had spare time aplenty since my last blog entry, because the local festival has meant that the school has been closed since Wednesday and my teaching skills, or lack thereof, have not been required. Instead, I have had to fill my time with a combination of sleeping, reading, listening to music, eating more Chinese food, and sleeping again. I've also seen a lot of the festival obviously, some of it good, some bad. Today was the biggest day and it brought thronging crowds to the usually desolate village, which certainly livened the place up, but also broadened my insight into some of the more unpalatable habits of the Chinese. Cleanliness isn't really a great priority here, and now the festival is packing up the streets absolutely stink and there covered in litter and probably much worse besides. There are a lot of stalls selling food, a lot of which looks highly dodgy and I wouldn't dare try, but I've had some nice pinapple, some very greasy bread thing and a lot of cakes which are like French madelines and really delicious - it's wonderful to have something that tastes vaguely European. There are also some games (the boys won me a bracelet and a really scary-looking cuddly toy) and pool tables set up, as well as a little funfair, where I braved one of those boat rides which swings from side to side, like the Banana one in Thorpe Park apart from probably a lot less safe! I was screaming whilst a Chinese man stood at one end, with nothing to hold him there, as blase as could be. There are also a lot of cruel animal shows which were pretty upsetting to see, although even the animals at the zoo here aren't kept that well, apart from the pandas who seem to have a nice life.

The free time has allowed me to see more of the animals, though the leopard has yet to appear for me. Apparently he has psychological issues and hides in the sheltered part of the cage! The big black bears are hilarious though they have very little space to move around, so it's probably no wonder they fill their time putting tyres on their heads and spinning around. We wondered if maybe they were rescued from a circus, so they're used to performing, but even the cub is very playful so maybe that's just the way they are. There's also this really paranoid goat who keeps eyeing us up from the corner of his enclosure, looking very shady. The monkey is another suspicious character, who I wouldn't want to get too close to, since I've heard he has a propensity to swipe or nip at anyone he doesn't like the look of. Other attractions include some emaciated swans, a few very smelly warthogs, a lot of noisy birds, a magestic looking vulture and eagle, caged with some less imperious buzzards, and some wild dogs who I really pity, since they are tethered in a cage and unable to get any exercise at all.

I think that after lunch tomorrow we will get the bus back to the city, but we will not be able to stay there long. We will return to the village on Saturday night as we have said we will teach on Sunday (the school is open at the weekend because of the festival), but it will be nice to get out of the village for a little while at least and stock up on essentials like butter which they don't sell here! I also plan to eat at Subway or Starbucks or maybe even McDonalds before six more days at Mr Deng's restaurant, which is nice really, but I've given up on eating rice now. It's just so dull!

Anyway, hope all is well with you at home and thank you if you're still reading - it's now more than a week since I left England! Keep me updated on your lives please, [email protected] or sophiejamieson all one word on skype since I still face more than four weeks in this facebookless country!!