HUAIROU, Beijing Province: Had a lie-in, nursing two days worth of hangover, and then we went to Jing Bei to find a gift for Tony's parents, as we were going to theirs for dinner. Couldn't find any flowers or reasonably priced chocolates, and after asking cultural advice for what-not-to-get, clocks were off the list too.. Instead, we settled for some tasty looking cookies from a local bakery. We were picked up by Tony and his Mum, who also picked up Rick and hi...

HUAIROU & BEIJING CITY, Beijing Province: Korean school today, and I've finally got my usual class back! I've been given the entire script of Love Actually, so all I had to do was shout out the scene numbers, and watch them perform! Well, they're still just reading off the scripts, so there wasn't much acting, but it was still good to see. Was badgered by John and MinJi to help them with their English accent - it's really hard to teach accents! They did qu...

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: My students got well excited when I told them it was Hallowe'en today! The classes went well again today, definately on to a winning lesson plan! It gets them listening, reading and speaking too! Had our tuition session tonight - the activities we'd organised were successful. However, about half an hour before the end our doorbell went, and Sarah answered it - I half expected it to be one of the boys' Mothers, but it was a woman wi...

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: More Hallowe'en classes - I think this is the first lesson plan that's been successful in every class so far! Brilliant! In the afternoon I did some prep for the boys coming on Friday night. We decided to do a Hallowe'en theme for them as well, considering they'd be here on the night of Hallowe'en! I made a Hallowe'en version of 'Cluedo' - was so much fun! I replaced the characters (i.e. Mrs White, Miss Scarlett etc.) with Hallowe'e...

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: My busiest day today, with who are normally my most disruptive classes! But, they all really got into my Hallowe'en themed lesson, and I managed to keep most of the class interested throughout! For dinner we went for noodles at Woman Love - it'd been a while!