Had a really early start today as I had been asked to judge the Korean department end of term sentence bee and performance of Love Actually. For the sentence bee, a sentence was put up on the projector in Korean and the students had to translate it into English. I was asked to say if it was correct or not, but as I couldn't read the Korean I had absolutely no idea!! Then the intermediate students had made a film of scenes from the film Love Actually. We watched t...

Got up early and went into Beijing to buy my train ticket for Shanghai for Sunday night. I decided on a soft seat to save myself some money - being able to sleep absolutely anywhere definately helps sometimes! Was really pleased with myself being able to put a dodgy 100 yuan note I had picked up onto my IC card (like an oyster card) - it had a corner missing and I was getting embarrased about having it declined and so I thought I wasn't going to be able to use ...

Christmas Day!! Hannah and I waited up until midnight last night so that we could see Christmas Day in and open our presents!! I was really happy to get some English magazines as I can't get these anywhere in Beijing. Went for a Macdonalds hot chocolate for breakfast and then for a wander around the shops. It was weird that everyone else was carrying on as if it was any other day. Finally bought a coat as I figure I will definately need one to go to Harbin, ...

Spent the day preparing for Christmas - wrapping Hannah's presents and cleaning the flat - whilst Hannah went into Beijing to bring her parents to Huairou. Then went to meet Hannah's family this evening and we all went to the Hotpot restaurant for dinner. I have never seen the place so busy, but we were put into a private room just off of the main restaurant. We had a lovely meal of tofu, potato and vegetable with a spicy broth to cook it in and a really good ...

Got up early for our Mandarin lesson then we both realised that we had missed calls from Miss Cao and so called her to find out that the lesson had been cancelled. She also told us that the school wanted to invite us and Hannah's family for a Christmas Dinner meal as a previous English teacher was also in Huairou today. Hannah explained that her family weren't coming to Huairou until tomorrow and so Miss Cao said she would ask them to change it to tomorrow, We...