Buffet Breakfast

---

The early part of the week was quiet. We worked on resources etc in preparation for repeating the English pronunciation training. As a treat on Wednesday morning, we and a national volunteer, went for a buffet breakfast, eat all you can for £1 each! This restaurant seems to specialize in this style. They offer three meals a day although lunch and dinner are more expensive than zao fan. Apparently it’s quite popular with the more wealthy people in the town.

Thursday saw us and several of our Chinese colleagues travel to a local middle school, about 15 minutes by bus, to observe English lessons before feeding back and giving general advice about how to improve the effectiveness of learning.

Xing qi wu (Friday) saw me and a national volunteer visit a primary school on the edge of town to meet with the headmaster. The idea was for us to discuss a possible text book for use by grade 1 and 2 students (normally primary students don’t begin to learn English until grade 3) and offer some advice with regard to English lessons as this school only opened in September and the teachers are relatively young and inexperienced. Following this we went for spicy noodles in a local chain restaurant.

On Saturday morning we got up early to catch a bus to Xi’an from the new south bus station. We missed an early bus by 5 minutes so had to wait an hour and a half for the next! We walked to the nearest crossroads to try to intercept a Xi’an bus from another station without luck. Six hours later we arrived in Xi’an and after bussing across the city found out that the hostel we’d booked had moved! No info or new address offered. Brilliant. We went around the back (as you do) and asked the lady on a reception desk to call the new address for us: they would send someone in five minutes. Half an hour later a girl from the hostel arrived and ‘walked’ us to the new place. Thankfully the new place was much improved and after our free chilled beer and a pizza we felt less aggrieved. The next day we showered and caught a bus to Metro, our favourite western supermarket in Xi’an to buy things unavailable in Xifeng. We then bussed back, checked out and went to the long distance bus station for a bus to Xifeng. We arrived at about 2.40. The next bus, 3pm, was full so we had to buy tickets for the 4pm bus (although when we were actually led to the bus bay the driver said it wasn’t full but we couldn’t board it as our tickets were for the 4pm service). We got on the 4pm bus at about 3.40. The bus eventually left at 5pm! Go figure. The redeeming feature was, the journey was short, at just 4 hours.

---