hey everyone! i've got some very chinese things to tell you all today. things that i love about being in china, but make me miss the normality of home! yesterday i walked down my street to meet jimmy to go and get a phone card. i saw: -a family playing cards in the back of a pick-up truck -a man holding a baby over a gutter so it could have a wee (they dont have nappies here) -a man having his feet picked by another man in a shop -a woman setting up a very smelly street-side bbq -lots of girls sitting and laughing on the phone in empty shops -a man giving away fags for free from a shop that sells only ciggies -a shop playing really loud music with 3 people stood outside clapping and shouting trying to encourage ppl in -a shop that fixes bikes and cuts keys, where, behind a load of shelves was their bed with the woman doing the washing up -taxi drivers entirely ignoring all traffic lights/pedestrians/motorbikes -scooters riding along the pavement and beeping at pedestrians -all traffic beeping at anyone at all -most cars slowing down to look at us -women sitting in front of their shops eating their lunch- when u go in the shop you see the ingrediants they used to make it sitting on the floor (yes this is in clothes shops) isn't china funny?! i really like it here. the people are great too. Faiths 'whats mean?', Faiths "oh no no no no", Tom's 'No thanks', Faiths (and me n rom's) totally blank faces whenever Jimmy speaks too quickly, the little girl at our exercise class who is so interested in us and certain that we speak chinese, the teashop man with his lovely smile (he gave us a little chinese thing with our chinese year made of tea), the students here who always shout hello wherever we go... it all makes me smile. The students here are sweet, i'm tired of teaching the same lesson 4 times a day, but the kids always find a way to make me happy while im doing it. the moment you let them do anything fun, they all start smiling and laughing and shouting- today junior 1 got so excited by the alphabet bingo that i did with them, and then REALLY excited when i gave sweets to the winners! even 17 year olds get really into 'red lorry yellow lorry'. But its amazing how disciplined they are, at the end of 3rd period (finishing at 10 to 10!!!!!) some music starts to play and they all look down and start rubbing their temples and stuff- its their facial exercise session! then they go outside and do their exercises, then chinese pop music plays for 10 minutes! except on monday when there is the raising of the flag. There are even class leaders who often aid me in my lesson (shouting for the kids to stand up at the start of the lesson which kind of freaks me out!), and monitor the exercises. We're going to our exercise class again tonight. we went on tuesday with our yoga mat things (we were told it was yoga after) but the yoga turned out to be a laying down muscular torture session! my tummy still hurts! But we're getting better at the dancing bit. If only we could go out dancing properly- our 10.30 curfew still stands and has been re-emphasised by the headmaster! miss you all lots. lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx