A really lazy day at home catching up on sleep and planning for the private lesson this evening. Then, an hour before the lesson was due to begin, Tony's mum phoned to say he had an exam tomorrow and could we move the lesson to tomorrow evening! A little annoying but at least we had done all the prep. Went for noodles tonight and then watched series one of Greys Anatomy - Hannah had managed to pick up the DVD's for 50p on her trip to Shenyang.

Got back to Beijing at 5 this morning having had a reasonable amount of sleep all things considered. I wanted to pop into a couple of shops in Beijing, and so in order to fill the time, I decided to go to the raising of the flag at Tian'an Men Square which happens at sunrise. I arrived there at 6 to find the crowd was already 4 people deep. By the time the flag finally went up, there were thousands of people there. I guess it was the equivalent of our changin...

Got up early to get to the showers before anyone else could make them dirty - the accomodation actually wasn't too bad considering it was only 3 pound a night - the bed was reasonably comfortable and whilst I was cold with just the blanket on top of my sheet sleeping bag, I did find out later that there was a duvet in one of the cupboards! The shower was okay but there was only one of them so I wouldn't like to be there in the busy season. Went to meet for the to...

Woke up very excited this morning as our students have exams for the next 3 days and therefore I get some time off! Got up early and caught the bus to Beijing, then headed to the bookstore to try and pick up a lonely planet guide to South East Asia. I could get every country going, except unfortuantely for South East Asia or surprisingly, China. I still had an hour before my train and so as we didn't really trust the train Hannah and myself decided to treat ourse...

Just one day of teaching this week as the students have exams, and so I decided to do a lesson of games revising the vocab they have learnt so far this term. It seemed to go down well. Went to see Miss Cao just before lunch to see how she was doing with the list of things we gave her last week to sort out, and to pass on the gas bill. She had done quite a lot for us - got agreement on the school paying our bills, sorted out a room for English corner and agreed...