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So it's been quite a while since I last posted... It's gotten to the point where I cant really remember where I left off, i'll try my best..
Pizza, in Urumqi... mm havent had any since and I've got a real craving right now. Although there are places in Kuitun that you can go for western style food, (youngpai cafe, kfc and best food) they arent quite able to do pizza like in pizza hut. Anyway...
Since I last blogged I've been really busy, I think... Teaching as usual is really fun, although I've found that over the past few weeks I've had to crack down on some of the bad behaviour. Classes here in China really arent what they're made out to be, 50 12/13 year olds sitting silently and obediently eager to learn.. haha not a chance. Throughout all of the 12 classes I teach, there are always troublemakers, and in one of the classes (I dont want to name and shame...cough class 12) they're just don't listen. Despite this I feel I have made a lot of progress, the spoken english of a lot of them has vastly improved from a very limited vocab to actually being able to hold a very short conversation.
Besides the teaching I have found myself to be reeeeaaally busy, university applications, meeting up with all the friends I've made here and the other volunteers has been exhausting. Student teacher relationships here are vastly different to the UK, I mean, hugs, high 5's and ringing shouts of 'hello teacher' pretty much sum up my walk to school, because the kids are so friendly. That and what I feel is an attempt at bribery, because the children keep giving me presents... sweets, staplers, drawings. Not besides the constant demand for attention out of school; playing ping pong and basketball is something that I'm regularly dragged into, and regularly humiliated at ping pong. No word of a lie, some of these kids are bosses at ping pong.
For Halloween we had all the volunteers over to Kuitun. Brian and Reece arrived a day early and we went and had lunch at the Youngpai cafe (mentioned earlier). We treated ourselves to an extremely expensive three course meal (about £13) which was delicious, but i'm starting to regret it as the money in my wallet is stretching thin.. Halloween was amazing, we spent a lot of time out in Kuitun and had a pretty cool week. Then the weekend before last we visited Shawan where Lauras are living. It was a really boring place, hahaha so glad I live in Kuitun! After that we had a visit from Tom (our desk officer from Project Trust) to check up on us. We had a nice banquet with the school leaders, and luckily I dodged the Baiju drinking (Baiju is the Chinese white wine, about 57% by volume - liquid death). Thats another thing I really didnt expect, the drinking culture here... It's unbelieveable how much some of these people drink, and I thought asians couldnt handle alcohol, I was soooo wrong. After the banquet we went out with James and Callum in Kuitun, who are the volunteers from Karamay. Luckily they had the week off so they came and stayed with us. We had a great week with them, possibly one of the best in Kuitun so far.
After they left on Sunday I was allowed a beautiful 13 hours sleep before we had to depart for Yi li. Unfortunately our 90 day entry visa expires (today) and so we had to travel to the county capital Yili for renewal. The 6 hour journey was dominated by sandy desert, with a pleasant couple of hours spent on windy roads through the mountains passing by lakes and lots of nomadic sheep herders on horses. We arrived and thanks to a chance meeting were able to get a discount for a room at one of the nicer hotels. It's so swanky infact that there is a window from the room to see into the bathroom..? Anyway on tuesday we went to the police station to sort our visas, but unfortunately there was a problem with the type of visa we had entered on.. so we were told to come back today. Anyway our host Adelina decided to take us to visit some of her friends in a nearby town (I say nearby). The two hour journey to this remote town was really just some dodgy driver driving at breakneck speeds on windy dirt roads through some foothills, with the occaisonal emergency break as we turn the corner into a herd of sheep. It was terrifying, we drove so close through one herd of cows that the wingmirrors were knocked back. Anyway we arrived and were greeted by 6 hours of food and drink at an extreme banquet, followed by Ktv, my third and probably worst time. (ktv is Karaoke tv, very big in china, basically you stand in a room with your friends and humiliate yourself trying to sing michael Jackson). Anyway today we are back in Yili for another attempt at sorting out our visas, unfortunately we have only been allowed a two month extension, and we now have to go elsewhere to try and get it sorted.
I believe I also forgot to mention the stunning find of the month in Kuitun. We found cheese!! Irish Kerrygold Cheddar. It's extremely expensive, but after what seemed like an age without it the price doesnt matter.
Next thing I need to find is a nice beefburger..... mmmmm
Love to you all! Harrison
- comments
Judith King Extremely funny, and entertaining! Umm cheese, pizza, burgers you could end up a roly-poly when you return. How are your language skills doing? Glad the teaching is going well apart from the troublemakers who no doubt are testing you for your reaction. Good luck with that. Your karaoke skills will be so good by now. What an adventure. Love G'pa and G'ma xx
Guess SHOUT OUT TO SHAWANNNNNN!!!!!!