Hey all!!

So this is my last entry from Haikou (for now at last!) I really can't believe that my months teacher training is up.

After 3 hours sleep i woke up to my roomate doing the last of her packing (she's the first one leaving today - off to her new accomodation abut 20mins away from here - but is coming back to see the rest of us off later - and some others who will stay in Interschool accomodation.) So yeh... felt really surreal up until this point and now is just a little strange, however we very much intend to be back at some point and all get together...

I am moving to Wenchang this afternoon which is about an hour and a half away from the city... There is also Sarah - who trained with me, who is going to be teaching at the same school (apparantly it is a HUGE middle school!) - she is absolutely barmy and so, we get on well!! (- which is good as we will be sharing our own flat as of tonight! And also will be 2 of 3 foreigners in the whole town. ) Last night was our last night here - and as everyone else has been placed in or around Haikou then it was kinda a farewell thing more for us(we had a farewell party night out a couple of nights ago too...) at a chilled out bar/lounge (that had sofas!! - haven't seen those for a while!) which was nice... And then had motorbike taxi races home which is always fun!

Met the other guy who is the only other foreigner in Wenchang - he started off as a volunteer here like me and then ended up staying on and gets paid to teach [in a different school to where we will be placed] and that as 18months ago! - He now has a Chinese girlfriend and when i was speaking to him last night he said of everywhere he has travelled (in his 30s) that since teaching on hainan in Wenchang he has not wanted to be anywhere else - which is promising. But he did reconfirm some things - not to have any expectations about our accomodation was one!! - I am sure it'll all be just more stories to tell when i get back home and as it is just Sarah and me living wherever, together, then at least we can keep it clean. The other thing? - Our school doesn't have a syllabus - which should make it interesting - teaching classes of 40-50 children, at different abilities as the school has no ability-grouping system... That slightly makes me feel unprepared, however all the more exciting and here goes!!!

So anything else i can think of to tell you people...
Um theres a bar here that we have gone to once sometimes twice a week, and as they dont really do the dancefloor thing then a bar/club is kinda all the same here in China, except Allens [sometimes] plays good music... But we love the atmosphere and instead of a dancefloor they have these like raised platforms... and last week when we went, Sarah and me were up there [after a couple] and after the initial excitement over the playing of something we recognised (there's a lot of chinese kareoke etc...) - We Will Rock You came on. If anyone could have seen us it would have been one hell of a picture - we pretty much had the whole place doing the clap-clap-hands in the air thing (that night it was packed out i might add!) And that is probably one of my most memorable instances yet here on Hainan - it was crazy!!

Since being here i also got my haircut ... it got shorter... and shorter and now its like 'where's all my hair gone?!' - but i was ready for a change and the only thing i was concerned about is the being able to get it back in a pony tail - which i can just about make a paintbrush so its ok!! And hey for 20 kuai i cant really complain!!

So yesterday after dinner, my roomie Laura, Ellie and me all went out to a hotel/spa round the corner and went for full body massages (didnt want to go to a dodgy place as maybe they would have been unsure what sort of 'massage' we would have wanted - i've heard the stories!!). And pretty brutal are these Chinese folk were too! We bartered them down from 198 to 38kuai... but we did have to get Martin (our chinese co-ordinator) on the phone when these workers pointed to a picture of this guy having a massage with flames coming out of somewhere!! - I was like, i think we need to make it clear we don't want like some chilli cream rubbed in or something!! - But yeh, an hour of being pulled around, slapped, prodded, elbowed (as you can imagine the afterward discussion was rather funny - we had the group in stiches back at the flat!) etc the three of us came out of our individual rooms a bit dazed, standing in our funky shorts/wrap top combo laughing. I think were all ready for a more gentle massage to relax us after what we'd just experienced, lol!!

And on that note i think i will leave you with that
Wish me luck on the next part of my adventure!!
love and stars, zoe.xxx