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20th April
Monday's classes were uneventful and in the evening me and Rich met John and went to his brother's (cousin's) for tea. He lives with his brother, sister-in-law and their son in the centre of the city. His family were really nice and his nephew was the coolest swearing beer drinking 4 year old I've ever met! After tea we went for a walk around the park before heading home.
Tuesday was quite busy. I had class and did some marking in the morning and we had Chinese class in the afternoon. We finished early and I was going to meet John but on my way I managed to drop my phone in a toilet :( Chinese toilets don't have u-bends, only a hole. I heard my phone go *splash, gloop, splodge* and decided not to try to fish it out...
So John came to campus and helped me get a new phone. First we went to China Mobile to get a SIM card and the staff in the shop were laughing because it was my fourth one... Then we went into town to find a cheaper phone. After a lot of walking around, John did some wheeling and dealing and we went to a friend of his brothers and bought a decent phone for not too much money. When we had sorted all of that it was getting late so we went to his brother's again for supper and then just hung out until it was time to go home.
I had a bad week for classes this week, for various reasons. My first problem came on Wednesday morning when I just totally forgot I had organised a catch up class first thing. I apologised to my students and made it to my second class. In the afternoon I had a rest and organised some things before going to John's house again for tea, and to help him with some work.
After we had done some work we met Rich and went for some coffee at a bar. It was very good and we chatted there for a while until Rich had to go back to carry on with his work. Me and John stayed out and went for a walk around the park. After a while we sat under a tree to have a rest. We were a little out of the way because I was getting tired of being stared at all the time and it was nice to hide from all of the attention for a little bit. In retrospect this didn't work out very well. About 11pm some guys came to us and tried to take my bag. When John tried to stop them, they pulled out a knife, so I stopped John. They luckily went through my bag and took out the money and my phone(!!) but left my students work, passport and bank card. After they had left and it was safe, me and John left the park and called the police. The police came to pick us up then in true Chinese style we spent over two hours reporting the crime and writing a statement.
Eventually at about 2:30am I got home.
John had leant me his phone because I didn't have an alarm clock. I managed to get up for my 8am class and luckily we were just watching a movie. When class was over I went straight home for a sleep and I was pretty knackered for the rest of my classes that afternoon.
On Friday I overslept. John's alarm on his phone was some woman singing softly and it is well known that anything short of a nuclear siren doesn't get me out of bed in the morning, so I missed my first class. I had no phone number for my students and I had to call Lisa to pass on the message. I arrived at my second class to find that had also been cancelled so I did some marking before meeting Lisa after class. We went to buy a new SIM card (/sigh) and then I met John in the afternoon to get a new phone.
I bought the same phone from the same place so it was very quick, and then we caught a bus to Changde to meet some of John's classmates. It was a busy evening but it was really good to see another city in Hunan. It was about 2 hours on the bus through the countryside and it was interesting to see some of the small villages and to talk to John about growing up in rural China.
When we arrived in Changde we met John's best friend and went for a meal with him and some other friends. John was being traditionally Chinese, and was very drunk after 2 bottles of spirits, some beer and many toasts! After the meal we went to KTV, then for some BBQ before bedtime, it had been a looong day.
On Saturday we got up waaaay too early (out by 10am!) and had an early lunch. We had a walk around John's friend's campus for a little bit and then took a taxi to a big lake. Changde was a very green city, much nicer than Yiyang, and the lake was very beautiful and relaxing.
A few ice creams later we went back to the campus and had some food. After eating we went back on campus to watch a "Battle of the Bands" type competition organised by a tea company. It was fun to watch, although it went on pretty late and some school students attached themselves to us.
On Sunday we managed to have a little lie in and didn't have to leave until 11am... We went for a larger lunch with many of John's classmates to say goodbye to them. After filling up on food and beer we went to relax in the sunshine under willow trees next to a small lake, it was very pleasant!
After a while the boys went to play basketball. John didn't play for long though because he really sucked, bless.
At about 4pm we went to catch a train home. When I finally made it back to campus, I met Rich for some fried noodles and had a bit of a catch up before getting an early night. I was sooooo tired, it had been a very very long week.
27th April
On Monday my classes were uneventful. John was getting a lot of hassle from his family because he was out a lot and not working hard but he had to take me to the Police station again in the evening. The incredibly intelligent thief had been using my mobile phone to text and call friends and use QQ so I had to go and confirm my usage to the police.
On Tuesday I had class then spent the rest of my morning planning my lessons. In the afternoon me and Rich had our Chinese class then we took Adelle (our teacher) out for tea, she is lovely, but very keen!!11!!!11!
In the evening I was planning to get an early night, but Rich was lamenting pizza so at about 8pm we went on a trip to Wall Mart to see if we could find any, John also joined us. We couldn't find pizza but I bought some Heinz ketchup, cornflakes and stale French stick (I threw the latter away after Rich was laughing at me...).
Still on the hunt for pizza we took a taxi to Cafe Milo. They were open but didn't have any pizza left so we just ordered some beers and chips. They didn't seem very happy, and John was gabbling away to them but me and Rich just sat and drank our beer in blissful ignorance. It turned out they wanted us to buy 50RMB's worth of food, even though we'd spent over that with the beer, and they didn't have any pizza, but there wasn't much they could do about it since they'd already given us the beers, so we just ignored them.
After we'd finished we called it a night. Poor ol' John spent the night sleeping on a bench in his brother's shop because he got home too late and they were angry he was out too much instead of working, so had moved his bed.
On Wednesday morning I watched Shaun of the Dead with my writing class, but they didn't seem to see the funny side. I had 6 classes again instead of my usual 2, but managed to have a nap in the middle of the day. In the evening I took it easy and had an early night, I was still pretty tired.
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