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I woke up on Tuesday fairly early, even though I had no lessons, and did some more Yoga before sitting down to learn some Chinese characters. I made a list of characters for food that I would be likely to find on a menu, it it getting very frustrating not being able to read anything.
That took up most of my morning and Rich was with Peter trying to sort out his computer, but when he was finished we decided to go shopping.
We caught the bus into the centre of town, then walked down the road towards KFC, Rich wasn't feeling very well and just wanted something familiar. We stopped at a cake stall on the way and I bought a cake which turned out to be very much like an eccles cakes, was some kind of bean pie (thanks to my list of characters I made that morning!).
When we made it to KFC Rich ordered his dinner. I had already eaten and I wasn't going to buy anything, but I spotted "fish fingers" in the snacks section. This was a far too good opportunity to miss! So I had fish and chips for my second lunch mmm! We went for a walk around the Better Life Mall again (which is like a department store), before deciding it was definitely waaaay too expensive and started to walk back into town.
We stopped at the new supermarket and had a very English shopping trip, just buying things we could not get on campus. I bought an iron, some nescafe gold(!) and some instant tea (really wasn't very nice).
When we left the supermarket we had to cross the road to catch the bus back to campus. We thought about it for about 15 seconds... then flagged down a taxi! Lisa had written down where a taxi should take us in Chinese and left it for me on a bit of paper and this worked perfectly. Was 10rmb but much less hassle than crossing the road and walking to the bus stop!
It was quite late when we got back to the apartment and Peter and the technician had just finished installing the English version of XP on my computer, yay! And lucklily they hadn't wiped all my lesson plans that I had typed up the day before.
I had a quiet night since Richard wasn't feeling well. I had an email from Lisa telling me that it was teachers day the following day, and Yiyang TV wanted to interview me after my class! I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter!
Peter came a bit later with some workers to put up the clothes rails for me to dry my clothes. They finished quite late and left their equipment in my apartment, ready to do Richard's the next morning.
Afterwards, I finished writing up my lesson plan and ended up having a late night with not a lot of sleep.
This morning I woke up far too early, and got ready for my TV debut! I got to lesson and taught my class how to cook spag bol before learning how to cook various Chinese dishes by demonstrations from my students. We finished a little bit early and were having a short game of 20 Questions when a camera appeared at the back of the classroom! Followed by Lisa and Mr. Liu.
Once the cameras arrived in class it got quite confusing, and after the bell went the students were asked to stick around. They all wrote me some notes and sang me "Happy teacher's day to you" to the tune of happy birthday. I then did a short interview withe Lisa translating, before they interviewed Rick and Jenny, two of my students. And I was given a sweet :)
After class I went back to my apartment and a little later Lisa and Mr. Liu came to visit. Lisa brought me and Richard a present of some pancake things that were actually quite nice but a bit greasy.
Richard stayed in his room because he wasn't feeling very well, I have a good quote from hom this morning though, when he met the men trying to put up his clothes rails.
"Richard was surprised to discover a small Chinese man clinging to the outside of his 5th floor bedroom window this morning desperately indicating that I should open it.
I was in bed ill and some idiot kept banging my bedroom window with a stick. I finally managed to drag my carcass out of bed and glare at him and he stopped and I went backed to bed. A while latter I was woken up by him knock on the window form the outside... so i thought I best open the window and find out what he wanted before he fell. He the... Read Moren points to peter who's head was sticking out of your window and he asked me to open to door to let the window in as apparantly he had being trying to ring my mobile which was in the other room.
So I got up staggered around for a while trying to find my door key, while the little chinese man (who had climbed through a different window) and was looking terrified at me and kept saying sorry.
I eventually opened the door the little chinese man ran out and then peter walked in saying the workers needed to put up the washing line and that he had been worried. So i just left the door open grunted, said I was ill and went back to bed."
After Lisa dn Mr. Liu left I had a bit of a rest before I had a phonecall from one of my students, Darcy. She came to my apartment with Juilia and Debbie and had a lovely bunch of flowers for me for teachers day! They didn't stay long just had a bit of a look around the apartment and a chat before they went back to class, and I made myself some dinner out of the pancakes that lisa left me, and some tomatoes.
After dinner I was reeeeally tired so I had a short nap, which left me asleep until 6pm! I had a text from Richard who was feeling a bit better and we went to the canteen to get some food.
When we got back to my apartment we ate our tea and Peter turned up with a computer chair for me. Both him and Richard hung around to watch my TV debut, which didn't look as stupid as I thought it would. Afterwards they left, I think Richard was still suffering, and I am just checking up on the internet before getting an early night!
Over and out.
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