I've had even more fun and games with sending a blog today so the revised one may be shorter.Tom's visit has now been and gone and was a great success. It was lovely to see him after so long, and he, like Tim, could see for himself why I like it so much here. He helped in each class, we had a cooking crowd round, went up Xihua Park and Wen Bi Ta, ate out with students (fun) and teachers (not so much fun, the usual 'avoid speaking foreign' far...

This photo shows what English people think the Chinese eat all the time. They  do indeed sell Rover down the market but it doesn't seem to be the Pekingesy jobs you see everywhere. They look more like whippets, but this one obviously didn't run fast enough that day. Shall I bring some back for anyone?I've experienced the College 'handymen' recently. They weren't the first in the brains queue and when they came to look at my dripping s...

Life has returned to normal, after all the travel and visits, and , on the job front, I've been enjoying the chance to teach some Classroom Methodology lesons to final year students. They certainly need the practice. They were mostly taught, when at school themselves, by static teachers whose oral English was probably very poor. Nor were they given much oppportunity or encouragement to observe or teach, using new 'communicative' methods,&nbs...

We returned to Ljiang in some style, having negotiated a price with a man who was keen to get home with paying passengers to more than cover his costs. We did this as all buses were arriving full, the crowds waiting were building up and, as the concept of queuing isn't well known, getting on the next available bus would be a free-for-all. I was keen to stay at Mama Naxi's guest house in Lijiang as I'd heard so much about it from fellow trave...

Things are just about to get back to normal after Tim's latest and last visit, before and during the May holiday. He again really enjoyed being in the classes, but this time he was also in the role of 'Interviewer'. The students had been practising interview skills in my previous lessons and Tim was amused by the ones who told him 'my English is poor', 'I don't want to be a teacher' or 'I used to b...