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Published: March 20th 2007
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The West Lake
Hangzhou has some really beautiful areas, this is where we stopped for lunch. I'm tired and cold as I write this, I've got a cup of tea at least and I might break open the biscuits in a moment, but that's not important. I went cycling today with Christine which is where most of the photos are from but I'll wrack my brains first for any other news that people might find interesting. I've been out more with the guys from work seen most of the best bars that Xiaoshan has to offer (which is three). There will hopefully be a couple of photos from a night when we for Trudie and Patrick's birthdays a couple of nights ago. It was pretty good but the only problem here is that whenever we go somewhere we get a lot of looks and you can't talk to anyone who's not with you unless you speak Chinese, which I still don't so we get drunk together, dance together and then go home together. Mike (the only guy not in the photos) is good at chatting to randoms so I'm going to follow his lead when I can. Although I make it sound like it's boring or something going out with the others, it's not it was
Birthday bunch
R-L it's Patrick, Chris, Tania, Carol, Philip, Tessa, Trudie and Richard sat next to her a cool night we were downing Kahula by the end which is always a good sign.
I've been doing more varied lessons at school, I taught at a normal Chinese school which employs EF to send a teacher over a couple of times a week. I was only there for two hours but it was interesting teaching at a normal school, the kids that come to ours tend to be less bothered about learning English and can be a little spoilt as it costs a lot for the kids to enrol. But the students at this other school were excellent at English and even though they only got to practise once a week with an English person they were much better then many of their counterparts at EF. The class sizes were much larger too, I taught 30 students and although each lesson was only 40 minutes they were attentive throughout which for teenagers was so good, but then maybe it's just my great teaching technique.
The other thing I've been doing at EF is what's called VIP classes, where I teach one on one lessons, last week was my first one and again I really enjoyed it,
Bar
The originally named Bar. It's a bar and serves drinks and snacks of the bar variety. the lesson even overran by half an hour without me noticing. It was interesting speaking to a Chinese person about the world and their view of England. The kid I was teaching was 15 and really smart, he knew all about Napoleon. More than I did although I think I managed to bluff ok. So I'm enjoying the teaching lark a lot at the moment, it's just really tiring I don't usually finish till about 9pm so I have time for some dinner and then bed. But at least it's interesting.
I did my first sports day with the rest of the gang at EF last week, we played badmington, which actually wasn't too bad. Today, like I said earlier, I went cycling. I met up with Christine in Hangzhou near my old apartment where Christine had taken my bike then slowly made our way down to the river that seperates Hangzhou and Xiaoshan, Christine had an accident and fell off her bike within five minutes of us setting off, hence the fat lip and bruise under her eye (nothing to do with me I'd like to point out). But we finally crossed the bridge (the wrong one it
Christine
Christine had a kitty top which is pretty popular in China, which she wore. turned out) and began what we thought would be a pleasent hour cycle to my new place. Four hours later I'm ready to set up and just live in one of the many empty and half built apartment blocks that we had been passing since getting off the bridge. We were possibly being a bit optimistic in the first place as we didn't have a map, Christine had never been south of the river and I'm always oblivious to my surroundings. Finally as desperation was setting in we saw a faded looking map advertised in a small news kiosk and discovered that we were only about 10 minutes from my place. My body's already beginning to ache from the unaccostomed exertion and Christine's bike fell apart when we stuffed it into a taxi so she could go home. It was a good ride though and the weather was perfect thank God and I got to see a lot of Hangzhou/Xiaoshan, possibly a little more than I would have wished for.
That's about it, I should be getting a new flatmate soon but no-one knows when exactly. Also I'm going to have to go to Hong Kong to get my
Me
I wish I had a kitty top too at this point. visa in a couple of weeks which will be cool.
Hope you like the photos...
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Christine
non-member comment
kitty;)
"Christine as the devil" - I loved that! And very nice of you, but actually I'm 20;) In anycase, the trekk was cool:) Thanks for that! And I approve - you have nothing to do with the bike accident!