Time for another update...

Been a busy couple of weeks with all our lessons and the start of teaching practice. Myself and four others were given a class at Beijing No 7 Middle School for a week to teach them a short course of English lesson. Although it was hard work at the beginning, by the end of it we were all pros and the kids we taught were so willing to learn (a nice change from England). On Friday we had to say goodbye and a couple of us (5) ended our time their by taking on some of the pupils (15) in a game of basketball, needless to say we lost! There were of course massive celebrations to mark the end of the week! The TTC guys had orgnised to take us to a Sichuan Mask show where there was also acrobatics, kung fu and Chinese Opera (if you've never heard it before, I wouldn't recommend it! It's worse than nails on a blackboard).

On the weekend we all tried to cram in as much as possible as we still didn't know where our placement would be. Off to the Zoo to see the Pandas but couldn't face looking at many other animals due to the state they were in. So in order to cheer ourselves up we headed to Xidan market to practice our bargaining skills.

On Sunday TTC had another excersion planned for us and this time we went to see the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square and an acrobatic show. We also got taken around the hutons of Beijing in a rickshaw which was pretty incredible.

Finally on Monday the wait was over nd we all got to hear whereabouts we'd be placed. I'm off to Yangzhen middle school which is just a little to the East of Beijing. So although the atmosphere is quite electric here at UIBE at the moment were all pretty gutted that we're being seperated by the end of this week but of course we will finish this month of training in true style with another party and an open bar....