Last blog of the rat....bring on the ox!

Gong xi fa cai...as they say over here. We are sitting here in our apartment drinking strong tea trying to stay awake for the Chinese New Year to arrive. It is an amazing thing and we are really excited about being here.....the fireworks alone are just an experience. It has been building up for a while but this week especially. At school we have been preparing for the celebration and the children have been making all sorts of things. There are all sorts of interesting things to read about why the celebrations are as they are but the main things are that you have to wear red, make lots of noise and set off fireworks to scare off the demons (apparently!). There are red lanterns everywhere and at school the decorations have been going up....you have to put this square sign up on your door with a chinese character, and it has to be upside down. So we bought one for our door....our token decoration!

On Friday, the last day of the semester, our school had all day celebrations and William's had a morning full of fun. Ian joined William where they made signs out of red paper with gold speckles and painted chinese characters in calligraphy, made dumplings, made spring rolls and made an origami fish. They also sang a new year song and dance and had a bit of a fashion show by the parents and children. They were supposed to wear chinese clothes but didn't have any so decided on matching man utd shirts as they are red! After a lunch at school, they came and joined me and sophie at our school.

Our celebrations started with a dumpling making competition....we had asked our ayi to teach sophie therefore earlier in the week but she didn't win sadly! We then had a class party which was a bit mad but afterwards we all went to the gym for the most amazing dragon dance by some grade 3 students. It was fantastic to see them doing so well. For lunch, we were given McDonald's burgers, which was good but very bizarre to me, then we were all on duty doing some kind of event around school. My chinese colleague and I were on duty in the cantenn supervising the giving out of snacks which was a bit of a waste of time, and absolutely freezing! The weather has been really cold again, not getting much above -1 all week. After we managed to round up our students, we flocked to the auditorium for an afternoon of fun! Ian and William had joined the audience to watch their lovely lady-folk in the school fashion show! First, sophie took part in the students' one, then together we did a very short performance together which was fun, then I was part of the teacher's fashion show. We were in pairs and Karen and I had practised a fun performance of running to meet each other in the middle of the stage, doing a hi-5, then fanning ourselves all coyly. I was worried about the hi-5, but that was fine, sadly I got the fan the wrong way round and it wouldn't open! We will try and upload the video for you all to see the fun, but it could be subject to technical difficulties.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my day started with even more performing, I think someone somewhere decided friday 23rd January was the day for me to make a total fool of myself. I have definitely realised that part of a teacher's job description should involve: 'Willingness to make a fool of oneself and perform in front of several hundred people regularly!' So, you all saw the pictures of us bellydancing at Nazli's house last week, and stupidly we made some silly pact to belly dance in the middle of our morning briefing on friday as it was nazli's last day. Fran and I both hoped that everyone had forgotten by Monday......and could not believe what we had agreed to do....and the worse bit was, we weren't even drunk!! Anyway, lo and behold, Chu had been and bought us all belly dancing belts and we were on. So, after a quick practice on Thursday lunchtime, in Friday morning's briefing after all the usual notices, Nazli stood up and said "I just have one final thing to say".....on went the music, up stood the 7 of us, dropped our coats to reveal our belt things and we wibble wobbled our way to the front! Now, I do have to mention at this point that there are about 60 members of staff that we did this in front of....all with their jaws on the floor as to what we were doing! It was a bit of a laugh though actually and it was a fun way to start Friday's events.

After work on Friday I went out with the teachers to celebrate Nazli's leaving and we ended up dancing some more...this time the men folk got involved and I have to say it is amazing how good men are at belly dancing! It was a bit of giggle but we started drinking at 3pm so I was home by 7.30pm a little sozzled! Yesterday was very relaxing....we chilled at home and then played Monopoly, the Chinese edition in the afternoon. It was nice to just relax at home, it was so cold anyway. Ian and the kids went to the play park for about half an hour but all came home with red cheeks and noses. Last night I went out for a couple of drinks and a chat with my friend Suzanne. We have both been having a bit of a rough week and it was lovely to just sit down and chill and be able to talk without children around! And we were home by 10.30pm, after only a couple of drinks and "apps"...very civilised!

Today is New Year's Eve, and we had arranged to meet some friends to go and see the fireworks. To be honest you don't actually need to go anywhere to see the fireworks but we thought we should venture out! We went to Xintiandi with Mr Kevin and Ms Victoria, and met up with Ms Maddi and Ms Keisha, then Mr Andreas. We headed over to YuYuan Gardens hoping to see some dragon dancing, but to no avail. We all agreed we have never seen Shanghai so quiet, it was eerie. Apparently Shanghai is full of migrants so they all go to their hometowns for this festival.....this week coming is a national holiday so they stay for a week. It is traditional to go to where you were born and visit family and friends. Some people don't see their family for a whole year until this time. We moved on to the Bund to see if we could find some more action, but were again disappointed. However, it was just turning dusk and we got some amazing pictures. We wandered along and got a bit chilly so headed down into the Sightseeing Tunnel which runs under the river over to the other side, called Lujiazui. We had heard about the tunnel but none of us had been...it was great fun. Willima had started feeling poorly but perked up a bit at this, we entered a kind of cable car type thing...Ian described it as something out fo a James Bond movie and it was! We whizzed along with all different kinds of lights, it was great. We were all cold and hungry by this point so headed for dinner at a local Blue Frog, they are all over Shanghai. We had a lovely time but William got worse and fell asleep on my knee so we came home at 8pm. It wasn;t exactly early but we had to come home. As a treat and to console her, we let Sophie stay up til 10pm! She had hot chocolate and watched the fireworks with Ian on the balcony. It is now 11pm and we are nearly there! We have been told the real fireworks start at 11.30pm and they just go mad...the sky becomes white and it's like being in a war zone. Well, we shall try and report back on that tomorrow. For now, xin nian kuai le...Happy New Year to you all!

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