The first destination in my summer itinerary was Hong Kong. This was to be a girls' mini-break for me, Beth and Cat, although we'd have more company in the form of the two PT volunteers we were staying with in Hong Kong, Callum and Jeremy. Despite the best efforts of my phone, which now freezes frequently for indefinite amounts of time, I managed to meet with the girls at Shenzhen station, the point from which we'd cross the border into Hong Kong. I've been very ...

The last few weeks in Jiujiang have shot by. The busy period of goodbyes and leaving-related jobs began at the end of May with an observed lesson each Nicole and I had to give for the other teachers in the lecture hall. We'd been given plenty of warning for this, and we could choose the grade and class we wanted to teach, so I wasn't too worried - until Winston rang me at 7pm the night before I was due to teach at 9am, to tell me that I couldn't teach the class I...

College entrance exams took place at the beginning of June and, as this is a huge mega-big deal for every school in the country, it meant three days break for all of us teaching in middle schools. In Jiangxi, we took advantage of the opportunity to have one final reunion for all of the PT volunteers in our province. The focus of the trip was meant to be climbing Lushan together, but as usual it ended with us just slobbing about together not doing much. Everyone ...

I don't think I mentioned this, but several weeks ago, on our way back from visiting Ned and Matt in Zixi, Nicole and I made a new friend called Bob on the train. Bob is the headteacher/owner of a private English primary school in Jiujiang and came to talk to us because he wanted to find some real-life white people to help out in lessons at his school at the weekends. We've since visited the school to check it out and been back to 'teach' several times, so I'll t...

On Saturday, Nicole and I visited Longhu Shan (Dragon Tiger Mountain) with Kaitlin, Mark and Sam. We had to travel up the night before, Nicole and I on a late train that didn't arrive until after 1am. Everyone else in our carriage was clearly stuck on the train for the duration of the night and desperately trying to sleep any way they could... all but one a******* who decided what everyone really needed was to listen to him blaring Pink "Get This Party Started" o...