Dang, it's been a while since I updated this thing. To be fair though everything has just kind of happened at once, this is the first time I've really had time to myself where I didn't just collapse and sleep! Currently chilling out with Muse's Absolution playing out of my beautiful fake beats pill (I also managed to snag some fake beats headphones and a portable charger; the total for all 3 was about 120 yuan which is only £12) . Thank you China for ripping off all manner of things.

So, where to begin? Callum and I arrived in Karamay 2 weeks ago on Sunday after a 4 hour car journey from Urumqi and it's just been all systems go since then. Karamay is such a beautiful -and clean - city. It all looks synthetic and manmade, but none of it looks cold or built for the sake of being built (at least the parts I've seen so far), it also looks a little unfinished however, as there is still tons of construction going on. There is a massive park which has a skatepark in it just a bike ride away from where we are staying which got me really excited. I haven't skated since I was about 8 or 9 and the thought of taking it up again fills me with a childlike happiness.

Our hosts, Mr Pang and Mr Ding are very nice, but perhaps too nice as they both said on many occasions that they wish they could pay for everything that we need whilst we're in Karamay. Not to mention the amount of banquets Mr. Pang keeps taking us to. As wonderful as it is, I swear that in that week alone, at least 10 years were taken off our lives due the ridiculous quantities of food we were forced to eat. Hopefully many more years will be taken by the end of this project.

Anyway, I'll skip through a lot of the shenanigans that happened to prevent you lovely readers from falling asleep from boredom. J

We were stuck in a hotel for 4 nights when we arrived because the apartment hadn't actually been rented at that point which scared us a little bit. Luckily Mr. Ding was fantastic and managed to get it rented very quickly. So we moved in to the place we would be living for a year with great anticipation; whistling a tune to ourselves and repeatedly commenting on how fortunate we were to have an entire apartment to ourselves. Upon entering the building our beady little eyes filled with wonder.

"Wow, we have our own rooms! Big rooms! Big AIR CONDITIONED rooms!" I noted excitedly.

"We even have a living room with a comfy couch and a sexy TV!" I also noted.

"Look at this monstrous kitchen!" exclaimed Callum. "We have 2 gas stoves and a bunch of pots and pans to cook with! This is going to be such a good year!"

Unfortunately, in our excitement and enthusiasm to christen the apartment as our home, we had failed to notice that there was an overpowering smell of must coming from every cupboard, the beds were both harder than granite and the floor had quite obviously been serving as a temporary toilet as the actual toilet was being used to store some form of radioactive waste. I still don't know what was stewing away in there, but the remnants have yet to disappear. In short, the apartment was - and still is - a crap-hole, despite the cumbersome cleaning job Callum and I made, but it's our crap-hole. We have our own crap-hole! It's awesome, I freaking love it! :D

After getting settled in (I still have to decorate my room, but that's kind of irrelevant and I don't even know why I mentioned that…ok), the apartment owners son came over to sort out our internet and he actually spoke a little bit of English. We chatted to him for a bit and really seemed to hit it off with him, apart from the odd communication error and a few trips to the saviour that is baidu translate. It was a little confusing to be honest, we talked for about 2 hours and then he just declared to the two of us that we were now best friends. Seriously though, if I had to be best friends with anybody in Karamay, it would have to be him - he's just the nicest guy. We have known him for the total time of a week and a bit and he has given us his old moped. Yep. A freaking moped. All he asks in return is that we teach him a bit of English. Of course that's not enough, Callum and I are going to repay the crap out of him (although we don't really know how yet).

After having a good chat with our new Chinese buddy, whom we would later dub Willard, he decided on the spot that he, his brother (Sunny), his brother's friend (possibly Michael) and his brother's friend's girlfriend (got no freaking clue) would all go out to dinner with us. Did I mention that Callum and I paid for not one meal during our first week in Karamay and this meal was no exception. That night was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, and for all the right reasons, nobody at the table really spoke good English when we arrived as it was only Willard, Sunny and Maybe Michael. We were assured by Willard that Maybe Michael's girlfriend spoke very good English and would be able to translate between Chinese and English. So Callum and I just chatted with each other while occasionally attempting loose conversation with the others. Most attempts were unsuccessful, but I still revel in the fact that I managed to say that the food was delicious in Chinese. I'm just amazing, I know. So after the first course (of about 8) was over, Willard broke out the beers. Now, I don't know how many of you readers know about Chinese drinking culture, but I'm Scottish and I struggled to keep up. It's not like in the UK where people sip their beer gradually and progress at their own speed. No man. In China, when one person takes a drink, they are expected to toast everybody and then everybody proceeds to down their drink. Every. Single. Time. Well Callum and I managed to dodge out of this on account of being white foreigners.

This is where things got incredibly strange: Callum and I somehow always ended up talking about faecal matter and other bodily fluids while Willard had taken a habit of calling everything from schools to chopsticks "Pieces of s***!" At one point I was persuaded to start beatboxing very badly while Willard freestyled in Chinese, also very badly. It was very evident that Maybe Michael's girlfriend was getting quite sick of the company she had surrounded herself with towards half way through the night though because her face had an expression which said 'I give up. I just give up.' At another point both Callum and myself were convinced that going to KTV, that's a karaoke club which is very popular throughout China, which we might be doing tonight. It should be fun. Horribly embarrassing and butterflies-in-the-stomach awkward, but good fun anyway.

Now, I must stress that so far I've not just been screwing around and having a good time with newly found Chinese buddies. Let me talk a little bit about teaching here. Last Monday was a day off because of the moon festival, but on Tuesday Callum and I had our first lesson. The both of us had been stressing out about what to plan and how to plan it in the days prior, but eventually we decided to just start with greetings. Hello, Goodbye, 'twas nice to know you. There you go Jill, there's a reference for you. When I began, I'll just come out and say it, I hated it. The kids wouldn't stop staring and they kept saying things I couldn't understand and laughing and I felt so insecure and scared. Then I had my second class and something in my brain just sort of clicked. I liked the enthusiastic, curious grins they were sporting, I figured out that if the class were getting noisy, it was possible to discipline them. By the way, disciplining a single pupil is so much fun. It is so satisfying to just get the little devil to stand up in front of the whole class while telling them off and making them feel as uncomfortable and awkward as possible. I have to suppress my evil laughter every single time. Anyway, I enjoyed talking to the ones who spoke enough English to have a conversation. I ended up letting them all choose English names. Some of the results were rather amusing. I have a John Connor in one of my classes as well as a Peter Parker and a Usain Bolt in another.

So yeah, everything is pretty great here so far. I have my next lesson planned for this week, I'm going out for dinner, and maybe singing like a madman, with Willard and company at about 8 o'clock and I'm living in a beautiful, s***-hole apartment in a gorgeous city. I'll update this blog the next time something interesting happens. See you next time and remember to stay beautiful, you cool cats. Yeah, that's a thing now. Cool cats. Because I'm a cool cat. Bye.