Here at last!!!

So its been a depressing last week, in the space of a week i lost my camera, both mine and zaks phone, and my motorbike was stolen. Needless tyo say i was pretty cut up for a little while.

Not much else to report, after coming back from down soutrh i found life was much the same in the Bin, still dong the same things, drinking, working, going to blues. Some cool new people have arrived though, don't know if i have reported on it yet but Todd, Dale, and Dane ahave all arrived safely, as well as Johnny my good mate from canada he went home for a bit now he's back big as life.

Also a few Americans have arrived. Put the gun down mum, there actually ok. Strangely enought they are even close to being cool, if thats possible. Ones from georgia, ones from texas and there nboth ashamed of being american which is always a good starting point!!

A few nights ago it was Beth's (Johnnys chinese fiancee) birthday, so we all went out to dinner for a fancy meal, all us Aussie lot and a few cnadaians and chinese people thrown in. Started off tame enough but before lovng we were all rowdy and merry and had created a drinking game spontaneously called 'The desert'. Haha maybe ill explain the rules when i get home buit it was so much fun.

As we went to leave, a cake was brought out and nick was too impatient to wait for a knife so he dove into the cake with his hand, ala my last birthday (im sure youll remember mum.). All desperate not to miss out on a peice we all abandoned protocol and followed suit.

Before long a raucious food fight had broken out, food was flinging everwhere it was quite a sight, i ducked out relatively buffet free but zak and tood werent so lucky. Covered head to toe in some strange chinese dishes, we all did our best to wash up and went out to a club. Without a shower mind you. Poor waitresses must hate us white devils, and not woithout reason. Zak left his glasses behind and had to do the walk of shame back there later, with the death stares of the waitresses upon him.

So that was fun

Then last night, Johnny and Beth signed the marriage papers, making them legally man and wife, though the ceremony is not until next year. So we all went out to another fancy resdtaurant, though this time beths parents were there so it was a tad more sedated. It's so interesting to have dinner with chinese people, they are always so polite and kind and generous and keep filling your glass etc. And dinner in China is always a fun affair because its so communal, theres a big lazy suisan in the middle of the table and everyone just picks at it bit by bit.

The weather is cooling down slowly, after a nice warm summer were in the Autumn now, which im told lasts around 2 weeks before blistering cold sets in. I'm looking forward to that...

3 Weeks left until i finish my contract, then im hangiong around for a little while and heading south!!! do a bit of travelling, see the country as well as a few friends that are scattered around. First to Shenyang, to see some friends from the summer camp i did, then south to HAngzhoui to work for a little doing part time work. Stay there for a few weeks, then a hop skip and jump to Wenzhou, toi viosit Lucas's parents who are over here teaching. Then south further to Xiamen, to visit an old buddy from HArbin whos living there now. A little bit further south is Guanzhou, to visit other firends and then to Hong kong and home!

Love you all

So here i am in Hangzhou, possibly the most beautiful place on earth. Absolutely loving it, the west lake is amazing I go there everyday. Maybe i should explain my presence in the Leisure mecca of China.

Well as you all know I've been in Haerbin teaching for some time, kinda got a bit bored of it so when the opportunity arose to leave and do a summer camp (2 week program, 3.5 hrs a days, sundays off, 4 star hotel accom and meals all paid, around $1000 Aus . Very nice arrangment) i jumpoed at it, told a few fibs to my school and off i went. Caught a plane down to Hangzhou, as i left it too late for train ticket, and caught the school chartered coach to Cixi that day.

Great bunch of people to work with, around 20 foreigners mostly canadians witha few poms, yanks scotts and Aussies thrown in there, even a guy from hungry. Real good fun, and astoundingly easy work too. Most of the time we were doing 'Cultural; activities' like christmas and such, cut and paste, colouring in etc with a few Chrissy carols to sign. Pretty much just two weeks of supervision with a little vocab taugh here or there.

Heres a few photos of my wonderful class

And there I was in Cixi, a very small town but also very rich, good clubs and a good time in general, though it was so FRIKKIN hot! Finished up the camp and caught the bus back to Hangzhou.

So then, all ready to come back to Haerbin, i get a call from my recruiter saying theres another summer camp going on the 30th of july, little less cash but also less time. With the good times from the last hos could i possible say no.

As i ended my last camp on the 20th, and my next started on hte 30th, i had a ten day layover in Hangzhou.. a bit of a chance to klick up my heels and relax, see a little of the beautiful area and buy some gifts for those lucky campers who will receive them.

Like i said earlier, Hangzhou is absolutely gorgeous, so ill add some photos for you.

Thoguht these were pretty awesome

Well thats all, im sure everyone has given up on this as i have been so UNBELEIVABLY lazy in keeping it updated but ill try and be better i promise!

Take care guys hope your all happy and well.

Yes i know i've been slack and i havent updated for a long while, no real excuses except the lack of internet in my house. But who am i kidding, i could have written before im just a lazy ho-bo.

So i finally got paid, after a month of teaching... So weird the way time has passed, it feels like a week ago i was saying my farewells and having my bag searched for explosives. Before i know it ill be on a plane home getting sloshed courtesy of qantas and landing to meet my loved ones.

So yes, i got paid... All 5500RMB of it, but not without a fight. You see when i landed my school was under the impression i was working for a year, whereas i had stubbornly insisted to my recruitment officer time and time again i was only staying for six months. On signing the contract, i haggled them down and they agreed to a six monther. They didnt retype the contract or anything, just changed the dates and i signed. As it turns out they thought it fair that as i signed a smaller contract certain things would be left out. Certain things included my 500RMB a month living allowance and 3 days a month sick leave with pay. So when my (considerably light) paycheck was handed to me i was pretty angry. Stood my ground though and got it all back. Theyre so stupid, they didnt even change the contract, if i wanted to i could claim a 2 week holiday, as well as a return fare home, all perfectly legal as its in the contract. But they are good people, good for chinese at least, so i will do the right thing.

So after winning my pay i decided to celebrate. Celebration to me involved a trip or two to the beer gardens (My payday, the spring holiday and the opening of beer gardens across the city convieniently fell on the same friday afternoon) and then off to the local club 'Blues'. Blues is great, good atmosphere, good, well not good but better music than most places that tend to play the cheesiest techno/dance/pop/crap ever heard. If you hate the crazy frog song you will kill yourself after three minutes in a club here. But yeah back to the point blues, good place free entry but unfortunatly it has a considerable percentage of Russians who are itching to bash some Americans (as they assume all westerners here to be) ala cold wall iron curtain. The wall fell, deal with it!! I've been quite lucky, the only run in i had was with a russian woman, who kept bumping me on the dance floor and eventually went crazy and had to be held back by her 'comrades'.
Then on the same night another russian girl (what is it with them wanting to bash me?) started abusing me outside, most of it incoherent except for the occasional english curse. I told her to go back to the motherland, amongst other insults i dont care to mention here. I don't even know why she hated me, maybe its what i stand for, my capitolist ideals and whatnot.
Haha oh i almost forgot, last night we befriended a bouncer at blues and he had tazer/stunner with more volts than you can poke a stick at. So drunk, we asked him to zap us.... It was crazy like nothing i ever felt. I have two scortch marks where it got me, nick went like 4 times. Lucas fell to the ground, but dont think less of him it was bloody insane. All the chinese were in awe of our reckless behaviour as you can imagine haha.

So yes, i've been to blues the last four nights in a row which isnt healthy... i just love it there and you meet so many cool foreigners, this one guy Nicknamed Skins from canada, is a champ, and we met a bunch of south africans the other night who were cool as. Then theres john from ipswich. How to describe John from Ipswich... Lets just say one of the first conversations we had was about him 'making sure my boss knew not to F*** me over or else'. A complete and utter deadbeat but good for a laugh. And jim, a kiwi who i have a sneaky suspicion is gay, but it may just be he's very friendly.

I bought a dreamcast, for those of you way past the gaming generation (or who simply have better things to do than play video games...) a dreamcast is a game console that came out a bit before the playstation II and xbox. Its good because it was the console for most arcade games, so all the classics like virtua cop, virtua tennis, sega rally, house of the dead and sonic can be found and enjoyed at your leisure.
Cost a grand total of $45 dollars AUS including the gun to play shootem games, about 8 games and two controllers. Games are about 50c each which is brilliant.

Some other purchases were a m16 bb gun tha would make any cat hunter/arty hunter salivate... hurts like hell. Also a pair of high top cons for a whopping $9 AUS. Few cool shirts and lachy's old jeans which passed to lucas and then on to me, quite the town bicycle.

Boyde and nick have been living with me, great having them here and having some company at my place, they both came and watched a lesson today at my school and hopefully picked up some things... i know when i first began i didnt have a clue, no observing or anything i was dropped in fresh and green. They have both had lessons since they arived and they like it a lot.

The weather has turned very pleasant, from blistering cold to a gentle 15 degrees average in the day, still a bit nippy at night but its just like an aussie winter as i rememeber it. Green has began to pop its head through the desolation of winters deathgrip, trees are blossoming with lovely white flowers of a variety unknown to me and the grass begins to be green again.

Well i think i've somewhat rectified my slackness with the impressive size of this text, no doubt its taken at leats two cups of tea and maybe even a bikky or two to get through. Hope all is well back home, I'm really quite happy here now. I've had a job offer for teaching Uni students, 10 classes at 2000RMB which is about $40 an hour but that was a couple of weeks back and i didnt feel confident enough... It was a one off thing apparantly but if it comes up again it will be sweet.

Hello to bonnie gray, and betty and mel (you silent cyber renegade mel, your more computer literate than me!!!) I hope you are all healthy and well. Missing Bonnies Chooky dinner IMMENSLY!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!!

Ah, another week gone by, another week of smog in my lungs.

So im settled into teaching, well settling into teaching i should say. I have my hiccups still but the intial nerves are over and i do ok now. I've been doing some hour classes in the ecvenings and on weekends, a little harder but not so bad.

My schools good, they're all good people here and very helpful. I think i mentioned in an earlier posting that i go around to classes and do a short lesson,. well that is good let me tell you. I always have a chinese teacher in the room to control the kids if they get out of hand, which is not that ofter but it happens. Once you start losing control the others smell fear (as dave put it so well) and feed upon the carcass of your so well planned lesson.

Its so windy now, the cold is less intense but the wind chill is painful, creeps in through every gap and chills you. I wanna fly a kite.

Had a bit of a chance to look around my area, found some hhhuuuggge shops, underground markets that my friend Cherylynne in Guanzhou told me about that got for at least a mile, all underground divided into hundreds of little stores with everything you can imagine.

Im still broke, get my paycheck on the 28th which will grand. Not all roses though, i still have some things to pay before i can go crazy. One thing i do plan to buy is a playstation 2, then ammount of games here is absurd, all around 3 quai each, so about 50c.

I mentioned about the roads in my last one. They are crazy here, in australia there would be stabbing every few seconds if people drove like they do here but in china everyone is cool with it and road rage is a rare thing. Got a mushroom to schol today, its a motorbike with a box built around it pretty much, you can see the bitumen through the rust holes in the floor.

Anyone with any photos i would like, i would be so thankful if you could send them to me. Well i have to go, eat some bout szu for lunch. MMM dumplings. I'm learning chinese, well a little, i knw how to count and haggle, say thankyou, please, and all the the ones like goodbye etc.

Love.

P.s my lady on the stairs is gone!!! i hope shes ok.

MY postal address is

Aitong school
15 Xiang Qing Lu
Xiang fang District
Haerbin, Heilng Jian, China

Put my name on the envelope somewhere because thats my school address. But dont send me anything yet, i will ask mum to post me a trial letter to see if the chinese postman are good.

So last time i wrote i was.... at school waiting to get into my new apartment. Ok so heres whats happened since.

Moved into the new place that night, it's very nice with timber floors and white walls and ceiling. I have two bedrooms, a kitchen, a balcony and a bathroom, all very spacious and comfortable. The only complaint i can find is its so empty! I have a couch, a coffee table, a tv, a computer and desk, a small square table and a bed. Theres so many empty corners i often amuse myself by kicking a ball around the place, took out a light bulb though which eneded that fun.

My first night there was pretty lonely, i didnt have a dvd player, internet or any distractions of any sort, and as well as that i was (and still am) flat broke. I read a book for Four hours solid, and almost went crazy with boredom.

The next day i came to school and observed a class, and met some of the other teachers, all chinese. There are also two other schools at which i teach, all owned by the same man. I went and saw them and met the students, and afterwards came back to the echoing apartment. Determined not to spend another night going nuts with boredom, i caught a cab over to lucas's and met some more of his friends, all very cool people. Had some beers and went to sleep.

I started teaching wednesday, thrown into a thirty minute class with absolutely no idea of what to do. It went relatively well i think, the kids seem to enjoy it and as i was only reveiwing old learnings i just played some games. Since then i have been teaching around four hours a day.

I've got it pretty good in the fact that i only pop around to all the classes and do a thirty minute english lesson (30 minutes for upper classes, thats 8 years old, 25 minutes for middle class's, 6-7 years old, and 15 minutes for baby classes, 4-5 years old.) in between all the math and history and whatnot, so the kids are stoked and automaticly love it. Plus i don't have to worry about discipline.

My schedule is:
8:50-9:20 Upper 9:25-9:50 Middle 9:55-10:10 Baby one 10:15-10:30 Baby two.
I do that tuesday to friday, as well as afternoon classes, 2 hrs worth on tuesdays and thursdays, 3hrs worth on wednesdays and fridays.

On the weekends I will be doing maybe 1-2 hrs a day so thats good, hopefully not to early. But this weekend i dont work and is a long weekend for me! Yahoo no work till tuesday.

The kids are great, and after maybe four lessons I realised there's nothing to be really scared of, because trust me I was scared. They love you no matter what you do as long as you bounce about and act an idiot. They're all very eager to learn (some are too eager) and obidient enough, if they are really naughty I don't deal with them anyway, their teacher does.

I can't even imagine, and never want to try, teaching on a hangover or worse. Yesterday one of the classes teachers told the students that to get my attention they should yell 'Teacher, Teacher, Me ME!' Oh sweet lord I wanted to slap her! I had 20 kids screaming franticly, trying to get my attention by yelling louder than the kids around them.

I love all (ok, most) the kids, though some have serious issues. This one kid can't contain himself if i don't pick him for a game, he skitz's out and gnashes his teeth. I'm not kidding you, he sits bounces up and down biting the air. I think he may have ADD or something, but in china there are no facilites or help whatsoever for it, i don't think they even know (or care)what it is.

I got a photo taken with my favourite class, i'll send 2 copys by post to yumi, one for mum and the other for her, if your interested in seeing them hit either of those two up.

Yesterday i did an hour long lesson with Parents looking on, which was scary as! But strangely it was one of my best lessons. The hardest thing is explaining a game to the kids, once one gets it they all catch on.

Everything is sailing smoothly, well there are a few ripples on the lake but my boat is sturdy (haha love the metaphors). I'm living off about $3 dollars a day, easy enough to do, as i eat breakfast, lunch and supper at the school and then usually just some fruit before bed. The schools cook is great, he's teaching me a thing or two every now and then which is awesome.

I hope you are all well, thanks for tuning in and i'll keep everyone posted on any exciting events (It's not half as exciting as you'de think here, though it is good just to be here and be experiencing it)
The roads, for example, are so crazy. I don't think there is a chinese translation for the word 'Lane' or 'Roadworthy'. Lanes are marked on the raod but they don't mean diddly, if theres room to squeeze through they'll take it, even on the wrong side of the road. Clint, you once said to me that a good place to learn to drive is Brisbane, because if you can drive there you can drive anywhere. I'd love to see you try china!!

Well, thats all folks, I'm settling in quite well now that i have a schedule and routine, and im adjusting to self sufficiency quite well i think. I wish i had a camera to put some photos on here but for now im much too broke.

Love you all.

P.S hello bonnie!!! I'll send my postal address as soon as i find out so we can correspond the old fashioned way. Love you XXX