Spent the morning planning my travels and catching up on emails. I had a really sweet one from my student Cameron who said he thought he had made me unhappy in our last lesson (the poo incident!) and that he was very sorry!! This made me laugh and I emailed back to say I actually thought it was quite funny! Went for a look around the shops this afternoon and then had a clear up. Hannah arrived back from Beijing this evening with cadburys and films so it was a...

Got up and decided to walk to Tian'an Men Square to see the embalmed body of Chairman Mao. It was a bitterly cold day mainly due to the wind, and I had to stop en route at a Macdonalds to warm up with a hot chocolate. Got to the square and I had to check my rucksack and handbag into the luggage store, then queue a short while to get into the Mausoleum. Once in, you are greated by a huge statue of Mao sitting in an armchair, and then you file around past the co...

A slow start but then got myself into gear and caught the bus to Beijing. The young children raced to get on the bus with me and then came and sat next to me. They were really sweet and spoke really good English as they informed me they had just been to school for an English lesson! Walked to the Sanitan area from Dongzhimen as I wanted to look for walking boots. I am hoping to go to Harbin in a couple of weeks time, and need to be properly equiped as it is -...

Last day at school - take 2!!! Spent the morning having a clear out of my room - I'm going to have to get rid of some stuff if I'm to get it all into my backpack! Then went to meet Hannah for lunch and spent the afternoon planning for our lesson this evening. Last lesson was at 4:30 with class 6 - they're a miserable bunch at the best of time and today was no exception. Hardly any of them bothered drawing pictures and those who did put hardly any effort in! ...

Woke up really early this morning excited about my last day as a teacher! Went in for my 11:15 lesson, and when I walked into Class 5's classroom, they were playing Jingle Bells on the PC and had decorated the board for me!! Then at the start of the lesson they all stood up and said 'Merry Christmas' to me and gave me a gift of a Chinese decoration made with Chinese knots. One of the boys also came up and gave me this 18 inch wooden knife which said 'Kill the ...