To Nancy, Fay, Ella, Holly and Holly: I am currently listening to 'Rosie's Gone' and absolutely creasing with laughter, thank you so much, I LOVE it! I hope Outlook was amazing girls, I can't bring myself to properly scroll through all your photos because I'm so envious, I would have loved to be there with you all. Nance and Fay, you're in Amshterdam right now having a waffle and a crepe I assume.... hope its really good fun.

Meanwhile back in China.... We have begun teaching finally. I teach senior grade 1 (15-16 yr olds) and Matt teaches senior grade 2(16/18 yr olds). In each grade there are 30 classes of 80 students! We teach them all, and so only get to see each class once every fortnight which is such a shame because it means we will not be able to get to know students' names. Our lessons last 45 minutes and we are largely left to do whatever we want to teach them. When I walk into class they give a round of applause and gasp and even ask for my signature! Haha its so funny and most of them are really curious about English culture, as 90% of them have never even been to Beijing, let alone to the West. They love to sing songs so I think I will base most of my lessons on teaching them songs and then explaining any new vocabulary from the lyrics. They never fail to ask "Do you have a boyfriend?" and when I say yes its Matt, they exclaim "Ohh very he is very hansome and you are very beautiful!"I have also been showing them photos of my family, to which they cannot believe how good looking you all are, aww I'm so proud!

Yesterday Matt and I played badminton and then were invited out to dinner because it was National Teacher's day in China. We had a delicious meal, and were continually gan-bei-ing (downing) our shots of rice wine, the most foul and strong alcohol ever, 50%! The Chinese men get really carried away and become even more loud and seemingly aggressive when they get drunk. At one point after Matt had had about 5 shots in a row, he protested that he did not want another one and I also made gestures to say 'no please stop', and one of the most drunk men pushed my hand out the way, completely disregarding my input and continued to pour Matt's glass. Women are not seen as equal to men at all here. Matt is always being offered cigarettes by the men as a gesture of friendship, but it is highly looked down upon if women smoke. But there were many toasts to our happiness and health for the next year and the good will towards us was constantly articulated. We then went to a KTV bar (karaoke) with our headmaster and a few other important figures within the school, where they sang their hearts out in loud deep vibretto voices (is that the right word?), with the volume turned up enough to burst your eardrums!

The weather has thankfully cooled down a great deal in the last few days so we do not have to wash our clothes every single time we wear them anymore due to them being drenched in sweat. We often go out in the evenings, mumble our broken chinese to a motorbike taxi driver and get taken to the main square for dinner. The streets are so vibrant and lively in the evenings! The photo I have attached is when Gwendolyn and I joined in with other women dancing in the square one night. The cockroaches in our apartment appear to have gone too! We have not seen any for a good few nights so we hope our pesticide has killed them all.

Lots of love to everyone back home, I have been away in China now for one month today! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx