Half way through my stay at the academy now!~ Still doing the goon form but going to start doing some Sand Da (shaolin kick boxing) at some point over the next few weeks. Had a 'test' on Wednesday and had to perform my first form to the rest of the academy. Went fine, but some of the "older brothers" as they call them here did some amazing forms, got some on video. Wednesday night was also an interesting 1, just as I went to bed I noticed a commotion at the other end of the corridor. When this developed into a total ruckus I ventured out of my room to see a small crowd around two people, 1 of them the student representative who is built better than panzer tank, and the other an ageing t'ai chi enthusiast who comes across as an arrogant toss@r. Each was waiting for the other to make the first move but eventually things cooled down and the commotion developed into a full blown debate over who holds power in the student body and some extremely petty complaints about the rules they have here. I tried to go back to sleep but couldnt until the student rep got bored of going around in circles, explaining why there are rules and why they cant be changed and he went to bed. On Friday, a group of around 30 of us got on a bus to Changchun (3 hours drive away). Some of us spent the morning searching high and low for sparring equipment and then went back to the 'entertainment complex' that we were using as a base, for lunch. 3 of us decided to have a cold pint to relax a little and so we ordered 3 da (big) beers thinking that it was either half or full pint. After checking with us several times, the waiter accepted the order and came back 10 minutes later with twice as many cokes as we had ordered and 3 pitchers of beer! The pizzas that we had also came with peanuts as a topping which was certainly different, but I wouldn't suggest it.... Needless to say, we each finished our pitcher and played some fairly lightheaded games in the bowling alleys after (5 weeks with no beer, a pitcher was bound to have side-effects!). Having missed the lunch buffet at the shangri la hotel, we decided that the slightly more expensive dinner buffet wold be a good plan and I proceeded to demolish 2 plates of noodles, a steak with veg, a bowl of salad and seafood, several slices of bread and of course a large serving of chocolate ice cream complete with peanut M&Ms. Unfortunately I had also been craving ginger beer that day (for no apparent reason) and ordered two cans of that. When the bill came i was outraged to find out that soft drinks werent included and that 2 cans cost a third of the price of a buffet in a 5 star hotel!!! Still it only came to about 15 quid, so I'll survive. We then piled back on the bus (I managed to find a seat with a little more leg room after my legs went dead after only half an hour on the way in..... Once we found out that the toll road was closed, the journey became a 4 hour cross country trek back to the academy. Visited SiPing on saturday to pick up some boxing gloves and a [hahem, taylor made] wu shu outfit. Chilled out for the rest of the day and watched a fantastic film called Tom-Yun-Goong.