For the first time, I've had to wear a jumper to work - hope this is not the end of summer!! The good news today was that after 5 days pf struggling suddenly everyone wanted to help me get a train ticket today! Charlie has offered to take me to the train station tomorrow, Mrs Wu was phoning around travel agents (although I don't think she was really on track with my budget as she came back with a 5* luxury trip!) and Cecilia told me her brother works for the ra...

I asked Mrs Wu today if they could tell me where I could find a travel agent and then armed with several Chinese / English phrase books I went on a mission to buy a train ticket! I found the shop they had told me about, but it seems that they only sell flights not train journeys. They told me to take the second left down the road, so I did, but after asking several people no one could tell me where it was! Another failed attempt! I explained what had happened...

Had a phone call from Casey this morning to say that she had been to the train station to try and get the tickets. She had queued for a hour at the tickets for foreigners counter, then been told she needed to go to a different desk. She went to the other desk, queued for another half an hour only to find no one could understand what she wanted! So we still don't have tickets for Xi'an!! It was a miserable day here so I stayed in and sorted out all my pictures...

Early start for our new job at the Korean school - lessons started at 8:30 so we had to be there at 8:00 for last minute preparation. I took the first 2 lessons, and then went home and waited whilst Hannah did the 3rd and 4th periods. We decided this afternoon to take a trip to the Great Wall at Mutianyu which is only about 20 minutes from Huairou. We set off to the place where we are normally inundated with minibus drivers hassling us to take us, but they must n...

Got told I needed to be in school this morning at 8:30 for a meeting, but when we got there is was just to meet with the Koreans to discuss the Saturday classes - which we had already done! Ended up getting stuck there until 11:00 and then I had got the bus into Beijing. I had arranged to meet Casey at 5:00 to try and buy train tickets to go to Xi'an for the mid term break next week. As I arrived quite early I thought I would take advantage of being in Beijing an...