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Heylo everyone,

Been a pretty tough week as have been horribly ill all week. Got a bad cough which has been keeping me awake so am knaaaaaackered! Finally gave in and went to the pharmacy a few days ago, coughed and pointed at my throat. The woman working there handed me a box of something and I didn't have much choice but to trust her and buy it lol. I went home and googled the ingredients.... turns out they are just decongestants but strong nasty ones that the website suggested "should not be taken if there are available alternatives.... can cause anxiety and panic attacks" haaaa. I took them as I didn't have any 'alternatives' and so far so good. Haven't done much for the cough but I haven't had a breakdown yet! Nearly did today though when I saw a boy about five years old s***ting in the road.... no, not sitting, s***TING. He was in the ROAD s***ting on a white sheet- what makes it worse is that he was leaning forwards pulling his bum cheeks apart with his hands so that everyone walking in the unfortunate direction towards him got an extremely traumatising view. I was actually shocked to the core... I have seen some pretty strange things here but that was unbelievable!! I'm hoping that one day I will forget that I ever saw that happen! Anywaaaay.... now I have probably put you off your breakfast- i will tell you about mine. The other teachers from our school took us to breakfast to give us some advice about Hong Kong as we are going there tomorrow for our visa. We had Jiaozi (pronounced jowzer) which are little rice dumplings filled with pork meat. They were really tasty but here in Guiyang they insist on giving you this spicy sauce stuff with everything and it blows my head off. The guys were covering their jiaozi in the stuff but if I so much as dipped mine in a little bit I needed 10 minutes to cool my mouth down... I'm officially a spice wimp! After food Jack and Neil took us to a market where they were selling all kinds of stuff... have no idea what half of it was! They had the hugest carrots I have ever seen in my life, tons of live fish including ray fish and some things that looked suspiciously like sharks. There was animal innards hanging everywhere and one stall had a video playing of them and their happy pigs which prompted me to mutter "not so happy now are they?"as I gawped at their intestines hanging off of the table. After the market we went up to the "Castle" which Rich and I had never even noticed before as we live in a different part of town. To get there we had to walk up a steep alleyway where people were selling more animal guts. Something I would just like to mention quickly is the role reversal of dogs and cats in China. In China, cats are put on leads and tied to things whereas dogs are free to roam the streets as they please.... so any dogs out there, come to China (unless your huge as they will eat you) and any cats.... stay away! Anyway... back to the Castle. It's pretty cool, will definitely go back there as you can chill out in the grounds, dance with flags and drink some tea.... there are some awesome old people here in Guiyang. One man today, not old but at least 50ish was walking along the street wearing fluffy leopard print pyjamas. He didn't seem crazy... at all- he was just wearing them because he was cold, but the funniest thing was is that he was the one staring at US. It was like "dude...really? I might be foreign but you're the one wearing fluffy animal print pyjamas OUTSIDE!". So today has been pretty eventful and we also got our invitation letter from the Guiyang government to get our visa, and we received our health certificates. They look like little passports but have all our medical check results in. I found out that I have lost 5lbs since I have been in China... awweesome and that I am an inch taller than I thought. I also, more importantly don't have leprosy, HIV or Syphilis- all good news lol. Should tell you a little bit about my job... I am actually doing some work! My babies were super hyper this week and as it was my third class with them, they felt comfortable enough to use me as a bouncy castle for an hour. I quite enjoyed it and could probably just get away with playing for an hour each week as my teaching assistant for that class is really cool... buuut, I won't as I am supposed to be teaching them english- so I will... maybe lol. They are so polite here... I was teaching my babies the letter 'A' and took in some apple to give to them. I sang a song in which there is the line "one for you and one for me" so I sang the song with each kid and gave them a piece of apple. None of them were eating it and I felt bad as I thought maybe they didn't like apples and when they all handed their apples back I thought that my suspicions had been correct. However, one rebel child was eating his apple and all the other kids turned on him, pointing and shouting at him. I realised that they thought the apple was just a prop and that they weren't actually supposed to eat it. I laughed and told them that it was ok to eat it and they all quickly came and reclaimed their apple from me..... bless. My other classes went ok except one cover class that I took for Dave gave me attitude because I can't speak chinese. They basically thought because they are 7 and can speak chinese and english and I am 23 and can only speak english that I am a complete moron. They might well be right! My teenagers were even quite well behaved this week. Am a little bit concerned about one student who is clearly in the wrong level class as he constantly gets things wrong and is the source of entertainment for the other students. He doesn't do it on purpose as he is obviously embarrassed. I need to speak to someone about him but here they are placed in classes based on tests which are essentially memory tests so are no way a clear indication of how much a student can actually speak english. It's a shame as the poor kid probably dreads coming to english class. I started a new class this week with a 'VIP'. His name is Jerry and he is the son of the owner of the school... pressure! He is only 13 and already knows that he wants to go to Harvard or Yale and eventually be a CEO of a company on Wall Street. He is pretty demanding and seems to want me to teach him history and culture rather than english. I enjoyed talking to him but when he said "I would like you to teach me how to become a CEO" I thought.... if I knew how to become a CEO I would not be sitting in a classroom in China being bossed around by a 13 year old lol. He is a good kid though... scarily ambitious which is good as he is using his family's wealth to do good things... rather than just sponge off of them and party his life away.

I am going to have to head off. I am going to go out and buy another duvet as me and Rich have been sharing one midget duvet for far too long and it's starting to get chilly at night. Am off to Hong Kong tomorrow for a few days and will be working at the weekend so will probably update you on HK this time next week. Byeee

xkx