I had to be up early as Teacher Shi was supposed to be coming to collect me from the apartment at 7am.I was ready before 7am and sat on the sofa waiting but accidentally fell asleep.I was woken by my phone ringing at 7:30am so I answered it to the sound of Chinese.I tried saying I didn't understand, but Teacher Shi didn't understand me either.Then I heard an English voice; Teacher Shi had put Debbie on the phone.But Debbie didn't understand Teacher Shi either so she didn't know what she was supposed to be telling me.Then Teacher Shi took the phone back from Debbie, said some more Chinese at me and hung up.I sat there for a moment still trying to get my senses back after just being woken from my doze on the sofa, and then decided to start walking and try to find them.Just as I started walking I got a text from Miss Wang saying Teacher Shi would meet me at the yard gate so I headed in that direction and the taxi pulled up.So much for picking me up at 7am!I got in the taxi and we went to the coach station.

I was a little concerned as to why we were at the coach station, as in my experience a coach journey is usually for longer distances.Teacher Shi offered me some strange bean soup for my breakfast, I politely (well in English I was being polite) declined her offer.She pointed at the shop so I went to buy something slightly less soupy.When I got back to the waiting area, Echo arrived.Hooray someone who speaks both languages!I asked her if we were going a long way and she said no, but she wasn't being very forthcoming with any details.She also told me we were 'job hunters' so that's what all the public shows have been about.I wish someone had been clearer about that sooner.I thought that I had a school in Liaocheng and that we were just giving public shows to fill the time until term started.But no, I've travelled all the way to this city without there actually being a job here for me.Brilliant.

In the end we spent one hour and thirty minutes on the coach to another town.The school felt more rural and I didn't like it.I did another public show and it seemed to go ok, the children learnt some new animal words very quickly, I counted and there were 43 children in the class.One girl remembered all the words during the exercises and she wanted to hold my hand which was sweet.

I decided to brave going to the toilet, expecting a long journey back home.I was shown where the toilet was and I almost changed my mind but didn't want to look stupid.It was in the corner of the playground, a concrete structure with a left wall, a back wall and a right wall.It smelt of … well you know.And it was just three holes in the ground, separated by a concrete divide with nothing in front to conceal the squatter.So there I was feeling as though I was having a wee in the middle of the playground, with people walking past to access the next hole in the ground, when Echo walked past and waved.Possibly my worst toilet experience so far… except perhaps for unblocking Miss Wang's disgusting loo every lunchtime?

After all that we were only taken up the road to a local restaurant.As we were waiting to be shown out seats I heard a funny noise and looked to my right.I realised I was looking into the kitchen.And the man stood in there was holding a massive knife in one hand, and a live chicken in the other.Needless to say, the chicken wasn't a live one for very long.Nobody else noticed and I didn't really want to tell Debbie as it may have put her off her lunch.I felt a bit funny but took a few deep breaths and then I was ok because I knew I wouldn't have to eat it.By the time we sat at our table and my vegetables were brought to the table I had forgotten all about it.

Then the 'speciality' dish was arrived- a big soup bowl with every part of the chicken floating in it.I saw a liver, both feet with toenails (or claws? I'm not sure what it's called in chicken) the head and all sorts of bones and bits were bobbing around.I'm not usually too squeamish about meat as long as I haven't eaten any by mistake, I don't mind seeing other people cooking and eating it.But this didn't look like food; it looked like a biology dissection!Every time someone ladled some more, the feet moved in the liquid like they were swimming.I felt very unhappy and worried I'd be placed at that school far from Liaocheng with chopped-chicken-soup the local speciality

Back at Liaocheng we were left without our interpreter as Echo had to return to school.Somehow Teacher Shi communicated enough with us that we were able to get a pedi-cab thing home. This mode of transport turned out to be quite fun but still didn't lift my mood.A pedi-cab is like a motorised scooter thing on the front with a trailer behind and you sit on the trailer with your back to the driver, facing the traffic which is driving towards you.If I thought being in a taxi or bus was tense enough on these Liaocheng roads, being out in the open like that was pretty scary- but somehow in a good way!

As I was walking back to the apartment I found Ruth and stupidly got a bit upset telling her about my horrible day with the remote school and the squat loo and the dead chicken.We decided to get some dinner to take my mind off things and we found a nice restaurant with very friendly staff even though they didn't understand a word we were saying.Ruth has a Mandarin phrase book so we managed to communicate with each other by pointing at words.

Afterwards I went to the supermarket- some of the Genius Baby staff were doing their shopping and recognised me (well I do stand out in this town somewhat) but I also recognised them and we said hello to each other and on my way back to the apartment the security guys said hello and I felt like Liaocheng is slowly becoming home now and I really really don't want to move to the town I went to earlier today.The close-community feeling isn't one I am familiar with, having only ever lived in Cities back in England.I don't think it is something I would like too much on a long term basis, as I quite like being anonymous most of the time, but for now it is a nice and novel experience for me.

As I got back to entrance to the apartment, I noticed a little kitten pacing in the doorway, I tried to shoo it nicely as I didn't want to scare it and make it leap at me or something.It looked kind of stray and I suddenly thought about rabies.It started walking towards me so I jumped back and clapped my hands and then it ran off to one side to I jumped to the other side of the path to let it past.If anyone could have seen me and not seen the kitten, I would have looked like the crazy English girl doing a little coming home dance and clapping her hands before entering the apartment block.

I felt like I needed a wash so I braved another "shower" with the kettle and bucket.It actually wouldn't be too bad having a bucket wash if I didn't have to stand next to the poopy toilet.Seriously, if I went into detail about the toilet so you knew how bad it really is, you would not want to read any more of my blogs.So I will leave the vileness to your imaginations, and however bad you imagine it (the sights, the sounds, the smells), multiply that vileness by about 10 and you might be getting close.It's the only place I have ever washed where I have to clean my feet with an antiseptic wipe afterwards, and the wipe goes black with filth despite having just showered.Nasty stuff.