Monday 7 September 2009

A Week In...

Its been interesting. Saturday night we went to a western restaurant, and to a karaoke bar (where the boys did a stunning rendition of Backstreet Boys' As Long As You Love Me)

Video link


The western restaurant had the strangest ceremony for irish coffee – they had a special stand with the coffee on it, and another one for the glass, which had a gas burner underneath. The whisky (Johnnie Walker Red) was poured into the glass with a lump of sugar, this was then heated by the gas burner, while the glass was spun in the stand, until the sugar melted. After that, the hot whisky and sugar were poured into the cup, and the coffee poured on top. Then cream was piped on the top of the cup, and it was all sprinkled with hundreds and thousands! I've had Irish coffee in a few places, but this is the first with hundreds and thousands! As Irish coffee goes, it was not good, but the sprinkles made up for it.

The convoluted ceremony for irish coffee. Watch for the flames!


After the karaoke bar, we went to a nightclub, where there were people performing. We are not sure whether they were regular clubbers doing a turn on the podium, or whether they were paid performers. Must remember next time we go out to take toilet paper with me, I was desperate to go in the club, but there is no toilet paper in the cubicles, so I couldn't.

Felt a bit rough on Sunday, i'd eaten something that didn't agree with my digestive system at all. I felt rather sick all day. Went for dinner Sunday night and had some gorgeous chicken dish that was a bit like a dry curry, and some rice and some spinach and tofu soup. Lilly seems obsessed with vitamin and protein counts though – I could get bored with that quite quickly. I did tell her today that I didn't care how much carbohydrate was in a drink...

Last night wasn't a good night's sleep. I eventually got to sleep about half midnight, after my digestive system had purged itself completely. Feel much better today.

Today was the first teaching day, and it was successful. I started with an introduction about myself, with pictures, I told them my name, my parents' names and about my pets. The students liked the picture of Finlay and there was a lot of 'aaah's coming from around the room. I had two classes, one starting at 8:45 and finishing at 10:15, and then another starting at 2:30 and ending at 4:00. The 8:45 class had a better grasp of English, but there were a couple of students in the later class who were really good. The first class were worried that I wasn't married...one of them asked my age, and then another asked whether I had a boyfriend. When I said that I didn't, they then asked whether I was worried that I wouldn't get married...

I'm beginning to get the hang of things here. I'm not eating a huge amount, I think this is because it is so hot that I have no appetite. Being unwell yesterday didn't help as my systems still feels a bit delicate. I am drinking a huge amount of soft drinks. We have water in the apartment, but it is so bitter that I am buying coke and orange juice a lot. I had an ice lolly today, which was absolute heaven!

The National Day is on the 1st October, so we are going to get 8 days off. Phoenix (one of the students) has offered to take us to Chengdu for the week. I am really interested in going, there are some lovely looking places there. We're going to Chongqing city at the weekend, so hopefully, i'll be able to meet up wih some people from Cqexpat. That'll be good, i'm looking forward to it very much. I've been told there's also some good shoe shopping to be done there too...and my flip flops did break..

My internet connection is erratic again. It was connected, and now it has decided to not connect for some reason. Not sure why, I think i'll get Sawyer to come and have a look at it for me and try to fix it. It is connected to the internet, but then won't go any further. Not sure why this is, as my firewall is off at the moment, so I can't be that. I had to turn the firewall off because it was stopping the proxy software working. Dammit.
Ok...so the internet connection didn't work because...some idiot unplugged the router to plug in her hair straighteners...i have dead straight hair...

No comments: