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Time has literally flown by since I last blogged, back in November. Even Christmas and New Year seem to be in the distant past now even though it's only been one month. Thinking about it an awful lot has happened despite the fact I haven't been teaching that much, so I'll try not to get carried away. Since I last wrote I feel like there hasn't really been much to say about teaching, I guess by now it seems natural. The first two weeks of December were spent teaching as normal, I think I did lessons on the weather and they went down a storm. I got the children to invent their own actions for each type of weather and I have to say they came up with some really wild ones. Around the 14th of December we visited the volunteers in Karamay (James and Callum), Karamay is famous for being rich, large oil deposits near the city make it one of the richest cities in China. Although when we visited it didn't really feel like it was super rich, despite some of the amazing street art. Following that we were given a week holiday; Adelina who looks after me at the middle school (essentially like a Chinese mother), is amazing and told the school that we were needed in Yili to redo our visas, she then let us travel and visit the other volunteers by ourselves, so essentially she just gave us the week off for no reason. We decided to first visit the volunteers in Fukang (Brian and Reece) and we visited their school and some of their classes which was really great, and at the weekend we then visited Bagang (Ben and Alastair). Luckily a happy ending to my last blog post in that Ben had recently returned to the UK for a Uni interview and was able to get me a new phone (not besides lots of other goodies for the other volunteers). The next week was also shortened to only two working days as a result of Christmas, and I also had to give a lesson to English teachers from schools all over Kuitun. I decided to give a lesson on Christmas, the entire lesson was photographed by the school photographer and luckily only 30 teachers turned up to watch. This did mean however that I had 80 people all in one class, and I did feel a bit overwhelmed. Anyway I was happy with how it went and I know the kids really enjoyed making decorations for the tree - I've added photos to this album - http://www.offexploring.com/hmskirby/albums/china-201415 For Christmas we returned to Fukang and spent a few days with all the volunteers. We tried to make it as Christmas like as possible, with an attempt at roast dinner which some would say was a team effort but mostly Ben daddy Dowdell. We also did a small secret Santa and I was the proud recipient of a portable charger, a teddy bear, a piggy bank, a mini globe and a knife.... Not besides the fantastic presents sent from home, thank you!! We then spent the next day in a spa hotel for 50 Kuai, it was an absolute bargain: Use of multiple swimming pools, sauna, theatre room for 12 hours as well as a meal for £5... China.. So it was great to have such a relaxing day. We then unfortunately had to go back to Kuitun where Callum was given another week off by his school and had only three days of teaching before my two month holiday. These three days I spent testing the students spoken English during lessons which proved to be very valuable in showing what areas the students needed improving in, in each class there was a vast range of results from flawless to the student only remembering the very basics- "hello" and "how are you". Xi Nian Kuai Le - it's a bit late but happy New Year! New Year's was spent celebrating with a dumpling party. Myself and all the teachers from the school got together and made dumplings together which is really fun. Then we had a huge party and there was lots of drinking etc. involved, after that we were then brave enough to venture out and celebrate with even more of our friends resulting in us setting off handheld fireworks at 12! Most of the next two weeks I spent doing absolutely nothing, a short visit from Laura in Shawan resulted in us going snowboarding just outside Dushenzi for a day which was great, but paled in comparison to the paradise resort we went to a week later near Urumqi. Travels in earnest started shortly after, we stayed for a week in Urumqi and went Ice skating and snowboarding which was pretty fun but then we began our epic journey to Xi'an. Ben, Alastair, Callum and I got a hard seat train for 32 hours from Urumqi to Xi'an. However it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be, I managed to get at least 5 hours sleep and we were only pestered by curious children for two or three hours, and at least none of them went to the toilet on the floor between our legs. Moving on we arrived in Xi'an at 8 in the morning, sleep deprived, hungry and really excited. Xi'an I have to say is really amazing, it's a different world to Xinjiang! Within the inner city walls everything is Chineseified, the architecture and the street stalls are all really pretty and much more Chinese than what you would see where I live. On our first day in Xi'an we walked around the perimeter of the wall just to see what was there, we then walked along a very tourist oriented stretch and bought some small souvenirs (after a lot of haggling). Most of the touristy items sold are only worth 1/3 of what they will try to sell it to you for, haggling is just a natural thing in China and I wouldn't be surprised if I come back to England and accidentally try and haggle in some of our stores. The next day we woke up early to go and see the terracotta warriors, arguably the most famous tourist attraction in China. It was really amazing to see and the surrounding museums and the mausoleum were really great to see. Unfortunately it turns out Peter Jackson (director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) was there on the same day as us but we must have walked right past him. We also visited the Bell tower which lies in the centre of Xi'an and ventured down one of the main food streets to try out Biang Biang Mian which is one of the famous foods that originated in Xi'an. On our last day we hired bikes and spent two hours cycling around the perimeter of the wall which was really great fun and allowed us to see a lot more of the city. Now all I have to look forward to for the next 33 hours is a standing train to Haerbin… wish me luck…
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Judith King I am sure I read this a long time ago...but enjoyed it again xx