Blogs from Chengdu, Sichuan, China, Asia - page 92

My Christmas in China was pretty good. My flat was all nicely decorated and I was suitably in the Christmasy mood when the Christmas weekend came along. Normally I am a bit of a ba humbug because the Christmas preparations in the U.K start stupidly early. Luckily I didn't have to deal with all that here. Christmas eve and my flat mate Claire and I had a party in our flat. We provided Mulled wine and snacks for the party goers and the mulled wine went down a treat. We even bought buijio but not even a drop was touched. Two Chinese friends turned up to the party with a Christmas tree, very thoughtful but I have never been given one of those at a Christmas party before. It is certainly a gift that won't be ... read more

Perhaps I should have mentioned huoguo, meaning 'hotpot' ('huo' means 'fire') before as it's arguably Sichuan's (the province I'm in) most famous dish (if you can call it a dish). Yesterday I taught my Senior 1s from 8:50 until 16:15 as per most Mondays. After my lessons we all went up to this ginormous hall which I had never seen before, to judge the yearly Senior 1 karaoke competition! Every class it seemed had a representative to sing an English language song....of course this consisted largely of Westlife/Boyzone/Avril Lavigne songs, but what can you do? It was part hilarious, part excruciating as we were right by the loudspeakers and what can I say, some of the kids' voices weren't the best! The hilarious moments came when halfway through a singer's performance, someone rushed on stage which ... read more

At last, after a few weekends of doing not much, we went on a wee adventure today.... Luodai apprarently gets its name from a bloke called Liu Adou who lost his jade belt in a well here (however I didn't manage to find out why Liu Adou was so important to warrant a town being named after him). Luodai Ancient Town is the largest Hakka Ancient town in west China, with over 90% of its inhabitants being descendants from Guangdong, Jianxi and Fujian. We (my flatmate and I) heard about this place from a laowei laoshi friend of ours who had been here before with her students. To get here, take a bus to Wuguiqiao Bus Station which is near the Tazishan Park which has a very tall pagoda like structure which looks like it's ready ... read more

I am in a funny mood and was amused by my gigantic deformed strawberry (amongst many) that I picked up at the local supermarket, so here's a picture....! Had my day off today so that was nice, but it goes all too quickly as usual.... I counted that I have 20 more lessons to teach of the Senior 1s before I finish my contract (they are 16 year olds and are a nightmare, have no respect and think our lessons are dossing lessons, well except for a few good students) and am planning my Spring Festival trip to Tibet and Xian, as well as Bangladesh....just over a month to go, BRING IT ON!!!... read more

So we headed to Qingyang Taoist Temple a couple of weekends ago. It looked like a pretty small complex on the outside but it was quite a big area inside. It was a really nice place to take a walk, look at some Taoist temples and spend a lazy afternoon. I don't really know much about Taoism so it would of been useful to have an English speaking guide with us. I did however enjoy it anyway as the grounds were beautiful and it was really relaxing. There was quite a few temples representing the gods of Taoism (Dao ism), lots of places to send blessings (incense burners) and a beautiful Pagoda surrounded by autumn tree's in the middle. There was also the nicest old lady walking round each Taoist God doing her three posture's. ... read more