HARBIN, Heilongjiang Province: Second day of TP. I didn't have to teach today though! Because there's five of us, a few of us have a day off - and I'm a lucky one Joakim started observing the groups' lessons now - it's our turn tomorrow! Because all five of us have to teach, it means unfortunately that Marte's lost her day off! We were given an extra student by one of the other groups - an incredibly hyper kid called Harry. I think he's really sweet (he jus...

HARBIN, Heilongjiang Province: The start of TP week! I was so nervous, and we had to meet in the hotel lobby at 7.45am, so I didn't really get much sleep! Our coach took ages to turn up - half the TTC group left to go to the other school, but everyone going to my school had to wait til about 8.15am before we even left. I sat next to Adrian on the bus, we chatted a lot of rubbish, which was great to take my mind off the nerves! When we got to the school we wer...

HARBIN, Heilongjiang Province: Today was supposed to be the first of two Public Welfare Days, but it was cancelled! Because this TEFL training part of the TTC programme is normally done in Beijing, (and it wasn't this year because of the Olympics), people in Harbin have been extra-helpful in working with TTC to organise our training and our trips, our accommodation and so on. So TTC set up these days to give us a chance to say thank you to the people of Ha...

HARBIN, Heilongjiang Province: Today was 'Visa Day'... There was a whole load of secrecy about Visa Day, but all we had to do was collect our passport from a big pile of 70 passports, and hand it back (with a form, already filled out for us) to some other people... easy peasy! Had the rest of the day free, so did a bit more TP prep.

HARBIN, Heilongjiang Province: We had another free day today, so after a loooong lie in, I headed out to Harbin City with Liz, Alexis, Adrian, Helen and Amy. We went to see the Church of Saint Sophia, which was a beautiful building. Very Russian architecture I thought! We didn't go inside as the church is now an art museum, and you had to pay to get in. We then went for a wander round Walking Street - bumped into Ali, Sarah and Ed (which Ali said would neve...