A Fistful of Dong

As was to be expected new year started with a bang! Fireworks exploded all over the city making almost every car and ebike alarm scream. Having spent the last two new years in Beijing I was expecting Kunming to be a slightly less chaotic affair. I was wrong, if anything the noise was worse and lasted longer than I thought possible. So when Monday came around and it was time for my holiday I was thanking every god I could think of. A short flight (not even an hour flight time) and we landed into the disappointingly cold HaNoi airport. After a brief mess about with transfers we made it to HaNoi backpacker’s hostel.

HaNoi is an amazing city or at least the old quarter where we were staying and the surrounding areas. I am hugely taken with Vietnam, the food is much more ‘Claire’ friendly as there is almost no spice it’s all flavour and loads of seafood. We spent almost every meal at this little street food place by the hostel where I bought the best seafood fried rice I have ever eaten for about 10Y. I found Vietnam really cheap, even in comparison to living in china. Karina and I did lots of shopping (her much more that I) and am average handbag costs about $7. The only problem we had was the money! 26,000 dong is about £1 or 10RMB so we were frequently dealing in 500,000 dong or a million. The numbers were astounding and made it so much easier to think in US dollars, which we then had to translate into pounds and back into RMB. Needless to say our buying calculations took some time and often a piece of paper to write it all down.

Jolly Rodger Booze Boat

I spent three whole days in HaNoi before going on the hostels organised tour to HaLong Bay. The tour was called the Rock Long Rock Hard tour so I was fairly clued up about what kind of cruise I was going on. However I was not counting, at 23, to be the oldest person on the boat. I was on a cruise with about 50 19/20/21 year old gap year students! We drank almost solid for the whole duration of the cruise and played constant drinking games. Even our canoe ride about the bay was beer filled which sadly lead to us being towed back to the end as we were not really getting the whole parking thing. Myself and the guy I had been paired up with were then basically dragged out of our canoes as it was just all too difficult climbing out! I can also now say that I have bought a beer at the bar Top Gear went to on their biking adventure of Vietnam.

HaLong bay is like nothing I have ever seen. It was easy to try and draw comparisons to Guilin and my travels last year but it was just blown out of the water! Even in the nasty and bitter cold of January I managed a swim in the bay, which actually wasn’t too bad. We ate the food out of the bay that the Vietnamese staff on the boat had caught during the day and sat up watching the sunrise. Despite the horrid hangover and the sick feeling looking at a beer caused me for about three days after it was an amazing tour, one that I shall defiantly be aiming to do again at some point in the future.

Halong Bay just before sunrise.

Back in HaNoi, with my remaining two days before we were heading home all I had to do was some souvenir shopping and the war museum. I made the mistake of going to the war museum with and already sulky American Tom who when her realised it was all very anti America basically sat on the curb waiting for me to finish looking about. We did get to play in various helicopters and tanks and watched a crazy film in Chinese about how horrible the Americans are. Which made me giggle and tom sulk some more.

Our journey back was long but relatively painless and stress free. It’s an overnight train journey to Nanning stopping at several check points along the way; the first one was about 2:30 am at the Vietnamese border, the second twenty minutes later at Chinese customs where our bags were scanned and passports stamped again. Finally we got to Nanning at about 11am the following morning where it was a short 5 hour wait for the next train to Kunming. I think three of these five hours were spent sat in McDonalds as it was warm with a steady supply of food, as long as one of us was eating or drinking something we didn’t really think the staff would complain. There was no complaining just bucket loads of dirty looks! After that it was a short 14 hour train journey back to Kunming and a bus journey home. Like I say stress free but so long!

Merry Christmas!

Family meal.

Christmas in china was just the chaotic and unusual event I was expecting.

Xmas Dinner!

It all began with the weirdest dinner I have ever had, followed by the activity night and then a short holiday to Lijiang.

So dinner, or what we thought was going to be dinner, turned out to be; a turkey, an un-openable can of cranberry sauce and something  white and pasty in a jar of Miracle-Whip. Unfortunately we had no cutlery to carve the turkey with so we attacked it was some spoons, chopsticks and hands. Despite the limited variety of food and lack of cutlery the food was good, but was by far the weirdest dinner yet. This was followed by the activity night, which was a nightmare, but not quite as bad as I was expecting. There were 120+ kids spread between 4 teachers and 4 activity stations; songs, games, movies and arts and crafts followed by an all in the hall sing off mayhem! (which lived up to its name). The weekend was made even more hectic by the full day of lessons we had on the Saturday, of which I planned for about half a one, but don’t tell my boss.

My attempt at Artistic!

 Somehow we all made it through Saturday without too many temper tantrums and onto a train bound for Lijiang. One tedious overnight train later we arrived and made our way to ShuHe, a small village outside of Lijiang itself which, although pretty and graveyard quiet became tiresome.

My second Christmas dinner was in a Tibetan restaurant in Old Town Lijiang where we ate Yak in so many different ways that we must have eaten a whole one, but Yak in my new favourite meat so I really didn’t care.  

Just for you Mam.

The following day was spent drinking, relaxing, eating and aimless wandering about the labyrinth of endless and identical alleyways across the southern part of the town.

 Our final day was the highlight of the trip; we all piled into a mini bus and drove off over the mountains to the first bend of the Yangtze River (above), and true to its name it is an almost complete loop and the river is a nice blue-green and not the shitty brown of the Sichuan province part from last year. We stopped on the way at a viewing point from which we could see the Yangtze River down below and the magnificent Snow Mountain in the background, the place was amazing and amazingly impressive. (below)

Yangtze River and Snow Mountain (and me)

All in all a good and only slightly drama filled trip (no trip is complete without a Chinese person throwing a hissy fit and making everyone uncomfortable) in which I ate my fill of Yak and thoroughly enjoyed.

Next weekend is new year and I have 4 days off work, still trying to think of something to do, so stay tuned.  

I'm dreaming of a Chinese Christmas

So I know it has been an absolute age since my last post but I have several very good excuses lined up.

Anyway, tomorrow is my six month anniversary living in Kunming and teaching at Shane, and I am still really enjoying myself.  Life at school is crazily busy at the moment as we have to hold all sorts of Christmas related activities, which when you work with the Grinch and three of Scrooge's (pre-hauntings) clones, getting into the spirit is a little tricky. Regardless I decorated four trees and draped every cupboard, shelf and sleeping TA in tinsel. So we are getting there, ish. My house on the other hand looks like Santa personally appeared and threw up Christmas spirit; I even decorated my fish tank.

Which reminds me, I now have two new residence of my little house; Ahab and Floozy. They keep me company and basically sit on the cabinet looking fish like and cold, the house is so cold that I am a little worried about the tank freezing over and coming home one night to an ice cube with two little fish-ice-lollies with surprised expressions on their faces.

With Christmas looming and having been given all of our holiday dates for the next couple of months I decided to sit down and plan various excursions.  Christmas Eve Karina and I are going straight to the train station from work for a few days in Lijiang. Having been there already (with Mam and Dad) I know how pretty the place is and am very much looking forward to a weekend in the lights and streets of the ancient city, and a day climbing a mountain to the north of the city. It’s going to be a different type of Christmas but one I am very much looking forward to.

So like I say, good excuses. Well maybe only OK excuses. I have had Mam and Dad invade for a full two weeks, which was nice but bloody hectic! It took me weeks to catch up at school and even longer to get over the weird effects of having a small piece of England with me in China. Then there was….well that’s about is actually. I have just been really busy.

I now have Chinese lessons every day and spend large chunks of my day completely baffled and trying desperately to remember if the character for water is the one that looks like a star or a little man holding a fish. Chaos!!

Well that’s all my news for now, I will be updating with pictures of very cute Chinese kids singing Christmas songs next week, and with any luck Lijiang too.

Wishing everyone at home a very merry Christmas and a drunken new year, and when you look at leftovers of turkey remember me over here slowly turning into fried rice.

Lots of Love and Festive Kisses,

Claire xxx

"Square one, we meet again!"

Hong Kong: half way between China and home.

 I spent three days there and saw very little of it, this is because of the VISA office and its ‘once in you’ll never leave’ horror film style of dealing with people after working Visa’s. Sadly I was held captive for a grand total of two of my days out of Kunming and on the third I had to return to pick up my shiny new tourist Visa.

The nut shell version is; I didn’t have all the right documents and the school weren’t able to Fax them so, I had to get some kind of Visa or I would get stuck in Hong Kong with no-where to go. I was very lucky, I had been hounding all of the miserable gits in the office for two days about getting a working Visa and then had to turn around and get a tourist one. I was insanely lucky and the shifts changed literally a couple of numbers before mine was called. Not sure what I would have done if they hadn’t got a tourist one. Panic and drink I suppose.

So I have to go back on the 4^th of September, at least this time though I shall be going with someone else and not on my own. Hong Kong is the sort of place I think I would have enjoyed a little more with a little more company, so anyway. Take 2 is imminent!

Despite the Visa issue it was just a fated journey, my plane was delayed leaving Kunming so I spent hours in the airport where there is very little to do, and so by the time I arrived at the hostel (if it can be called so) they had given away my room. It’s about 3 am at this point and I was pointed at a chair and told to sit for 30 minutes until someone was checking out and so I fell asleep in the chair. When I was finally told I had a room, one which they said had just been cleaned, I found I was sharing it…. With the biggest cockroach I have ever seen! This thing was so big it had had to book into a hostel for the night, think Men in Black bug size! Oh and a dead rat in the bathroom. Once these little oversights of the cleaning staff had been addressed I collapsed onto the bed only for my alarm to go off only a few hours later. The Visa office on a Monday and Tuesday is stupidly busy and so I was in there with hundreds of other people. And thus began my troubles.

In other news….

I have now finished Phonics and can go to my regular schedule! I woke up on Thursday in a panic as I thought I had overslept through some o f my lessons until I remembered and rolled over to go back to sleep. Best feeling ever! Although it was very weird not having to start work until 5pm, found myself wondering what to do with my time and how Tom could say he is so busy?

Its also 4 weeks until mum and dad are over here so I have been booking hostels and trying to decide on things to do with them, thinking park in a bar will do.

Right I have to go and plan some lessons now, stand by for more from the fated world of Claire’s Travels in China.

                                              Modesty?---------->

How many Chinese men does it take to cut one persons hair?

It would appear it takes about 10 Chinese guys to wash and cut my hair as well as about an hour. I walked in at 9 pm with long and unruly hair and walked out an hour and a bit later with still unruly but now much shorter hair. Language was a problem as it always is and so the collection of gay Chinese Cruella Deville look-a-likes all pushed each other towards me and very generally very blatant about the fact they didn’t want to have to deal with a Westerner, something that still really bothers me regardless of how many times I see it.

Anyway one of these idiots finally lost and came over so I wowed him with my limited Chinese and my hair cut routine (pick up scissors and take a chunk out of my hair and say everywhere-has worked several times now) and my hair was then cut. It’s much shorter than I planned but it is much better.

Other than that my week has been the start of the second batch of Phonics kids, some of which are alright and others are a bit of a nightmare. Tracy and I see to be coping OK but we still have 2 weeks to go. I have ten kids this time round which makes most games more of a riot than a game, 6 was much easier to handle. Big bonus being though I have no Helen she is now in Karina’s class. Tonnes and tonnes of self restraint were employed to stop the pointing and laughing impulse when we worked that out. It would seem that I am in fact a good friend. So I am back to A B and C and thoroughly knackered again, pay check was very nice though, nearly £200 of over time pay! Roll on next month!

I also found out when I am going to Hong Kong too. 21^st of August which is annoyingly after phonics as I really wanted to make Tom cover one of my lessons. Lucky git gets away with it and still has the nerve to say he is tired and has no time to which Karina and I hurl things across the office at him!

Also I finally got my bike from Cath and sadly the gears died as the handover ceremony was being completed. Lucky for my still nameless bike I am a modern day McGiever and managed to stick the gears into the top gear with the aid of a teaspoon and some string. I feel Grampy would have been proud and to quote Dad "blind man would be happy to see that!" it worked perfectly anyway, until I played with some screws and sort of fixed it. It will last until Dad comes out anyway!

So it is about 8 weeks until Mum and Dad come out here (with oodles of stuff for Karina, Tom and me) and I have managed to get myself a little under two weeks off. Lizzy (our Chinese boss) suddenly sadi that I could not have holiday time as it is a national hoiday, despite having said yes a week previously. So I implied that I would not be working these days anyway and she might as well be warned and arrange cover. It would appear I have found a way to make sure we don't get screwed by the Chinese staff. Threaten to leave our already stretched to the limit school. Handy!

Right I am off to see Harry Potter with Jenny and Karina, fingers crossed not in Chinese again. Stand by for Tales of the traveller in Hong Kong.

Week one and only 12 kids on the hit list!

I have just finished my first week of official full time work and I am knackered! Unfortunately I have also had the extra phonics lessons and will have for the next 2 weeks.

Phonics (teaching the sound the letters make) has to be the most boring thing I have ever come across, and that includes Charlie’s Shakespeare lectures! I have two and a half hours to teach 5 kids 3 sounds, and we do this 3 times a week. Its starts at 0930 and finishes at 12 so we are having several early mornings as well as our late night lessons. Friday I was in the office or teaching all day 0800-10pm! then had a full day of lessons on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday night we went to the bar and all of the 22 teachers were tucked up in bed by 11pm, (party animals or what.)

My phonics class is only 5 kids, youngest 7 oldest about 10. they are not bad kids and really get into the games so we can have some fun in these classes, not much but some.

Otherwise I am fairly impressed with my classes, I have 8 really nice ones that are going to be great to teach and 2 that are going to kill me! And I mean that literally, one of them bites, one kicks and one hits so all together I think they are Charlie’s Angels?

My classes are mainly the older kids in the school and I love teaching them, I had one class playing Ring of Fire (obviously without the booze) and talking about King Arthur and St George. One of the boys in that class is called Sparrow and is obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean, when asked what he wanted to do in the future I was presented with “in the future I shall be a fearsome commodore”- top marks on language too. I am getting a new kid in there too who love Michael Jackson, no prizes for guessing which name he chose for himself this week.   

My TA’s are pretty awesome too; as the bigger kids don’t really need anything translating they join in with the classes. I am training Shirley on her speech for the competition and Ryan wanted to learn about the Royal Family, alll in all I am knackered but very happy in this job.

So 2 weeks ago was our activity week, I mentioned the egg paining in the last edition. On the Saturday we went to a park near the school for a day of Sports Day style things, my little band of hyperactive crazies were great fun, right up until half left at lunch due to the rain. A little rain didnt stop us having a good day, we just had to keep running for the cover. Karina and I somehow ended up jammed into a 2 man tent with 2 TA's and 2 kids. We were cramped and very uncomfortable and possibly getting wetter than if we had been sitting in the rain (the tent leaked). The pictures are of my group before the rain and of the parents dring the rain.

Sorry there has been a delay in updates but like I say.... shattered.

"Just eat around the Chicken Feet"

So bloody hectic week, it began with several long and tedious hours of being taught how to teach (something we may have covered in my TEFL course) and finished with me settled in my new house with a working washing machine, fridge and internet (currently in progress)

So like I say I have a new house, well more of a studio flat that greatly reminds me of living in halls. The vast majority of people living on the complex are students or fellow teachers, there are very few families as all of the flats are one room. I have my own bathroom which is actually a wet room, which makes cleaning it really easy just turn around when showering and voila, clean bathroom. My bed is tiny and has been hidden away behind a shelving unit to create the illusion of a separate room and some privacy, amazingly it works. When I am sat on my sofa it does actually feel like a different room and so if I have people over its not immediately obvious we are sat in my bedroom. Kitchen; small but functional or at least it will be at 11am tomorrow when my landlord finally gives me a fridge and cooker. Until then I have been forced to go and eat in the hundreds of small backstreet Chinese places about here, damn shame. Sadly my Chinese is still limited so I am living in varieties of noodles and fried rice (actually we ask for fried rice and seem to get everything but, never mind though all tastes good.)

School is going really well; I have had to observe what seems like hundreds of lessons, but is actually only seven. Watching is far more tiring than actually teaching as I cannot join in or talk to anyone; I sit in the corner and take notes on the same games and lessons over and over. This week is the first week of the holidays and so we are having a games and activities lesson. I am paining hard boiled eggs for the next two days and then have Friday off. Saturday we are having an old school sports day with games.

Well to is now after my first completely solo class for Shane school and I have to admit I am amazing. Of course it helps that 5 year old kids are fickle and giving them a balloon at the end of class makes them love it, (naturally I did not tell them that I had catered the class to be a little on the easy side for me as I have a cold-balloon volley ball lasted ages!) Unfortunately I was only told about my lesson about half an hour before I had to take it and so was amazingly under prepared. God bless TA’s and egg painting! Regardless it went really well.

This week has been stupidly stressful but I have achieved loads, today alone I set up a bank account, installed the internet, had a very thorough health check that left very little unchecked if you get my drift and taught a last minute lesson. Bloody productive day, so my now sitting in bed and watching Jaw’s again is thoroughly deserved.

Tomorrow I will be teaching the same class again but to slightly older kids, fingers crossed they too can be bribed by balloons, if not I am screwed! (Updates to follow.)