Tian Xin Hotel Changsha

... wrong, and feeling a little touchy about abuses to my rights in general, I refused to give it. Looking back, I probably should have just done it as it was simply standard Chinese procedure and it wouldn't exactly have looked good for our case but in the end they said I didn't have to do it. Hooray! Our 35000yuan fine (about 3500pounds - a HUGE amount of money to a rural school although it was later reduced to 10000) was to be paid by the school. After waiting another few days for our ...

... Wall was magic (not as good as the one in Cardiff Andy!!!); The forbidden city is massive (4 hours spent there were not enough to visit the entire place). The drivers are nuts and we do not think there are rules. It is organised chaos between bicycles, buses, car, taxis and pedestrians. Very pushy drivers. Seen a couple of accidents but it is not surprising. On ...

That's right folks, it's time for the next long-awaited installment of "Bizarre Happenings in Hunan." Thankfully for all involved, this is also the last installment. Where do I even begin? In retrospect, the weeks seem to have passed by quickly, and yet the individual days feel interminable. In one week, I will say goodbye to Liuyang and head up to Beijing. Contrary to what I was expecting, I am experiencing few last moments of fleeting sentimentality or sadness at ...

Ah...springtime in Liuyang. Rain, rain, and more rain. The week in Tibet provided a lot of contemplation and relaxation time, and somehow coming back "home" seemed even more distasteful after the brilliant skies and grandiose scenery of the Himalayas. Remember those purple mushrooms that were growing out of my bathroom door back in October? Now I have some enormous bright orange mushrooms that have taken their place. And I think it's mating season for the cockroaches ...

Another two weekends down, which were (for the most part) uneventful. Well, at least, nothing disastrous happened. Speaking of disastrous weekends, the Jinshi government and Jinshi No. 1 Middle School somehow scraped together enough money to reimburse me for my abducted cell phone. They gave me 84% of the value, which apparently was all they could manage. A bizarre bit of news: the hotel in which we stayed has apparently gone bankrupt in the short time since we were there, and the ...

The springtime weather here fluctuates quite a bit. One day it mists, the next it drizzles, the next it sprinkles, the next it pours. I never knew there were this many forms of rain. Seriously, I feel like I'm living inside a giant never-ending rain cloud. But because I am a girl residing in a place where the power is 80% hydroelectric, I will not complain. I haven't written in awhile because I've found it very difficult lately to put my feelings into words. The last thing I want to ...

I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is very exciting. Halfway through March, which means that I have exactly 4 months remaining until I return home, and really only 3 months left of teaching. Sometimes it seems like nothing, and sometimes it seems like an eternity. Depending on what mood I'm in. I'm recovering from yet another vicious cold, which was probably brought on by my jogging on the track at 11pm wearing a short sleeved shirt ...

I have been home for a week now. We left Hanoi on the morning of the 17th and walked into Mellisa's apartment in ZhuZhou on the morning of the 18th. Pretty remarkable, consid**ing I had visions of us getting stranded in Nanning for days. We walked across the bord** into China with not so much as a single baggage x-ray scan. The second we crossed the bord**, I knew right away we w**e back in China. We w**e immediately surrounded by money chang**s and taxi driv**s. Of course ...

Liuyang...glorious Liuyang...hard to believe I have been here for over two months now. Classes have been going well, although it was rough going there for the first couple of weeks following the National Day break. I worked through the weekend before and the weekend afterwards, somewhat negating the effect of the vacation. For the most part though, classes have been going fairly smoothly, despite a few minor incidents and miscommunications. Last Friday morning I showed up to teach a ...

In preparation for the upcoming week-long vacation for National Day, I worked 8 days straight, and I can honestly say that teaching middle school-aged children might be the worst job on earth. The kids are exhausted, I am exhausted. They have such long days and regimented schedules, I wonder sometimes how they manage. Wake-up bell sounds at 6am, followed by morning exercises, breakfast, classes until noon, then more classes, dinner, then more classes, before they can finally go to ...