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你好,
So this weekend Lucie and I have spent cleaning our flat.
On Saturday we spent the entire afternoon cleaning the living room - we were on our hands and knees scrubbing the floor with scourers, it was amazing how much dirt we lifted. We also rearranged our living room as before it was quite 'waiting room' style, with all the furniture pushed up against the wall and lots of space at one end of the room. The seating is now all facing in a sort of circle, and we have moved the dining table away from the wall and into the middle of the space. We are much happier with the layout of the room now, and also with how much cleaner it is.
Some of Lucie's students (Bob, Crystal, Max and Leigh) had asked to spend the Saturday evening with us, and of course we had agreed when they had asked us during the week thinking that we might go out to the old town, or go and play basketball which they had mentioned. Unfortunately we couldn't foresee the weather, and all day on Saturday it absolutely chucked it down, so when the students turned up at our door, we couldn't do anything except invite them in. And then Lucie invited them to stay for dinner. That turned into a rather stressful experience as Lucie and I were trying to entertain them and cook for us all at the same time. I was attempting to teach chess to Max whilst Lucie was talking to the others, and then they all wanted to help us clean the kitchen (it was a state because we had put everything from the living room that we could fit into there) and so I talked them into taking me to the supermarket whilst Lucie cleaned the kitchen in a whirlwind. We sort of took turns talking to the students and cooking, and eventually we presented them with a version of what we eat every night - chicken and veegetables and rice all cooked together (after many attempts from them telling us we were cooking stuff wrong, and us telling them that's how we cook in the UK) and luckily they liked it. After 3 hours of them in our flat they told us they had to be going home (this was at 9pm) so we smiled and accepted their offer of teaching us how to make dumplings at some point in the future.
Completely drained we retreated to my room with our favourite chocolate cups (a really nice Chinese sweet we have found) and watched an epsiode of The Walking Dead.
Today we went to the English club at the community centre for primary and middle school students which is run by our calligraphy teacher, Ben. We were there for an hour talking to his pupils who were all aged around 12 years old. We were really surprised to discover how good their English was, and even more surprised when Ben informed us that they had been learning English for 7 years! Apparently their written English is much better (which we have found in all cases) because they have no environment to practice their speaking. Ben hopes we will go to the club more often, but looking at how much we have planned for the rest of this year, we might not get to go much more than once or twice a month.
After lunch of 包子 (baozi, a steamed, meat and veg filled bun) we started to clean the kitchen. We have cleaned all the crockery, pans and utensils, and they are now all piled up on the dining table. We cleaned the walls and have started to clean the door after accidentally discovering how dirty it was when one of our cloths wiped against it. We are planning on buying paint so we can redo the cabinets as there is ingrained dirt which we just cannot get off, but that will have to wait until after Shanghai.
On another note, we are off to Fuzhou tomorrow to sort a bit more stuff for a visas, and then off to Shanghai on Tuesday!! We are so excited :D
Until tomorrow,
再见 x
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