A very quiet day doing nothing. Went to look for a new mobile phone with Hannah - I am surprised by how expensive electrical items are. Because everything in England is 'Made in China' I kind of expected there to be loads of cheap electical goods available but actually they are the same price as in the UK, and given the average wage here that makes them really expensive. We bought a couple of bottles of wine and stayed in tonight because we want to go to Beiji...

Meet Hannah for lunch and we tried a new local speciality today. It is a kind of pancake mixture which they make into a large disk shape then cook egg on top of it. Then a number of spices and herbs are spread on top along with a crunchy looking thing (which isn't crunchy when you eat it!) and it is all folded up. It was really nice and made change from the usual things we have. This afternoon we worked on stuff for the private lesson which was about 'crime a...

We finally got English Corner off the ground, but not without some last minute frustrations! Firstly, we had decided to run it from 4:30 on a Thursday because Grade 2 have a free period at this time. However, at the last minute, this got swapped around with one of their Friday lessons for this week, so no one could come along at 4:30 - except one boy who I think was skiving his lesson! Then, we went to the room and it was locked. One of the students took me t...

Lessons went okay today although the last class just wouldn't stop talking. I would wait several minutes for them all to shut up and then as soon as I started telling them what to do they started again. When the bell rang someone said "lesson over" and so I told them because they had talked through the lesson we would have to do it now! I have never had so many apologies - let's just see if they remember next week! Our Mandarin lesson was cancelled ...

Went into school this morning and was amused as I walked past the newly opened KFC to hear them playing Mika's 'Big Girls you are beautiful' - I'm sure that would be a no, no in England!!! Meet Hannah at lunchtime when we went to Jack Hut for a drink and then unsucessfully in search of a kettle we could buy - I have decided that I can't survive the winter without being able to have a hot drink at home. Spent the afternoon in the office catching up on emails - ...