Beijing Part II

Not a lot to say really, first of all, if you've ever wanted to or thought about visiting Beijing - DO IT! The Forbidden City, Tian'an Men Square are all must-sees, and they are tourist traps but, walking around you are (well I was) pretty mesmerised by these places, their size and most of all their history. You can use all of the cliches to describe them - 'Once in a lifetime experience' etc but it is true! Especially when some of us also went to the Great Wall: it is amazing to think how long it's been there and that you can still visit it today, and the views from the top are spectacular. It's not called the 'Great' wall for nothing.

So, yes, those 2 days spent sight-seeing really added to the all-round amazing time that was Beijing! The pic is some of us out on the town in Shunyi, as we found this bar/club called J9 and next door to it was a tiny off-licence someone fondly named 'The Shack.' So, we pre-drank outside at the Shack, where a bottle of beer was about 50p then tripped next door to J9! The club remix of YMCA we heard was v.interesting but the music on the whole was v.good - good R&B dancey tunes, needless to say (and as those of you back home who know me can probably imagine) I loved it!

A visit to J9 was definately a good way to relax from a long day's teaching. On the last day we were in Beijing, we arranged a talent show for our school which took up most of the afternoon but they absolutely loved it! One thing that I found during my time at the middle school was that not only were the kids all very intelligent but, they were all very creative as well. They could all draw brilliantly, and some from the other classes performed plays they had written themselves. They performed them in English which was pretty impressive, as at their age, I doubt I would have been able to be in a play, speaking French or Spanish to the same level as their English!

The last day also turned out to be quite an emotional one, as at the end of the day when we were saying goodbye there were quite a few tears, which to me was a massive surprise, as I gradually got to know my class over the 10 days and so wasn't expecting that level of emotion! It was really quite humbling to know that we'd made such an impact.

The next day we all left Beijing for our placements at various cities around China - now the proper teaching began! There were 5 of us on our train, as we had all been placed in cities fairly close to each other in the Jiangxi Province; Yichun, Xinyu and Pingxiang. Whole journey took about 20 hours but we were on a sleeper train, and being the only westerners in our carriage made it an interesting journey for us all! We arrived in Pingxiang and were met at the station, taken to the college and shown our accommodation, followed by us all crashing out for the afternoon!

xx