I still can't get used to the national holiday system in China.I had to go back to school today and would also need to work Saturday and Sunday to make up the days I'd had off during this week, which means working eight consecutive days with no break. It is no fun having to make up the hours AFTER the holiday!I think it would be easier to accept if you worked a few weekends and then had the week off afterwards as a reward for all that work.

I don't think I have yet explained the way babies are toilet trained in China?Well this is what I have witnessed in this part of China anyway.The young children in my town mostly wear these specially designed trousers with a large gap between the legs.There is no nappy, so without wanting to be too descriptive here I will just say that absolutely everything is on show.If the child is a baby, the mother will just hold a rag or a tissue under the relevant parts if the child starts to wee or poo.If the child is able to walk, they can just squat wherever they like to wee or poo… the playground, the street, the yard, wherever they get the urge.I noticed a child of about 3 years old squatting in the street near the Flower Garden having a poo.Although I've seen lots of them weeing it was the first of this I had seen and it was a bit of a shock!I would also like to acknowledge that my previous blog entry of Thursday 16th September 2010 I said the school road is on "a back street which is full of rotten fruit and animal excrement" but now know this is not completely accurate, as it is also human too… Gross!!!

After work I went to Ruth's and we found somewhere to have dinner.We told them I'm vegetarian and they pointed at something on the menu so I decided to take the risk.When it came to the table it turned out to be celery and the weird sea mushroom, both of which are my least favourite vegetables in the whole world!Celery is just bitter and disgusting, and the mushroom is squishy and wrong.I ate as much as I could because I was hungry but it was hard work.When we got back to Ruth's she made us both a plate of crackers and cheese!She had been able to get some cheddar in Shanghai.This completely made up for the horrible dinner I had.It was just more wonderful than I can describe to be tasting real cheese again (in fact just writing this is making my mouth water!!)and Tuc crackers too.We watched a movie and drank a few beers and then I walked home.