I just got back to Beijing; the whole school has been away this week on expeditions. Each year group went away to different places around China. I was assigned to year 10, and we went to Shandong Province, which is south of Beijing. We took the overnight train Monday night, which was surprisingly okay, to Qufu, which is famous for the fact Confucius was born and lived there. We visited the Confucian Temple, Mansion, and Forest, which we cycled around. We also went to visit a local school, which had about six thousand pupils - it was massive, but fairly poor, so it was a good eye-opener for the spoiled rich Harrow kids! The following day we started the main part of our trip, which was a trek up Mount Tai. It is a famous mountain, where many Chinese pilgrimage - one of the Five Sacred Mountains of Taoism. It has 6,666 steps to climb (six being a lucky number in China). It took us the best part of the day, and was very reminiscent of my work in Switzerland, encouraging kids up mountains! We stayed in a hotel at the top, which had pretty great views. We got up at 5.30am the next morning to watch the sunrise, which the kids weren't that happy about - made worse by the fact that it was so cloudy we ended up not seeing anything! The descent only took the morning, and in the afternoon we visited a local village - real poor, rural China, where they showed us local activities like pancake and tofu making, paper cutting, weaving, and so on. It was really interesting, and, again, something some of our kids really needed to experience! Though we then retired to a 5* hotel, and came back on the luxurious express train today!
So it was a good week. Three weeks of regular school now, and then half term. I have a football match on Sunday (we lost 6-4 last week in a disastrous match, so need to make amends!). A birthday party to go to tomorrow. And lots to catch up on with all my friends who went on the other expeditions - some have been trekking and abseiling on the Great Wall, one went sailing, others went to the Tsunami reconstruction zone etc. I am home alone for the week ahead as Louise has gone back to England for graduation. Have finally sorted Mandarin lessons with a really nice teacher who works at the primary, and is going to teach me for free!
Hope anyone reading this is well. x
Friday 17 October 2008
Friday 3 October 2008
Holidayyy!
I am on my first school holiday - none of us are sure what we're celebrating - it might be communism or something, but it's five days off so who cares?!
I went crazy and splashed out about 30quid on a bicycle so I am now super healthy and environmentally friendly and cycle everywhere. It is very Chinese - no gears or lights or anything silly like that, but it works, and it is definitely the best way to get around and see the city. Unfortunately I seem to have no concept of distance, direction or time, so the last two days I have ended up lost on the other side of the city, after dark, frantically trying to find my way home!
I also found a climbing wall in one of the parks here - we had one on the camp I worked on in Switzerland and I got quite into it - it is really good fun and good exercise. The one here is massive, at least three or four times as big as the one on camp, with massive overhangs and tricky routes, and it is really cheap for a day pass, and fairly cheap for membership, so I might join. There is still a small chance I might run a half-marathon in a couple of weeks, so I need to at least do some training (I'm not that fussed about just running!).
Other goings on...Louise (flatmate) and I got really lazy, gave in, and accepted the school's offer of a maid, so she comes once a fortnight to clean the apartment and do our washing up and ironing! This is going to stand me in terrible stead for when I come back to England. My new boys choir sang in assembly at school in front of everyone, headmaster, kids n all, and went down a treat. They sang a piece I had arranged, so my Head of Music has now got me attempting to arrange Christmas carols for barbershop which is ridiculous! Ooh n I went to a party n it turns out in China you can buy 70cl of vodka for 17quai. Which is about £1.50. Which is interesting to know.
Other random observations on China:
-You can use your mobile on the tube.
-Men take 'man-bags' to a whole new level. They are fashion items, status symbols. A man carrying what I would classify as a purse is actually doing it to show how he has risen in the world. No fancy suit, no new ipod/phone/whatever...a purse. Weird.
I also read the other day they are going to maintain some of the anti-pollution measures they implemented for the Olympics - during the Olympics they alternated odd and even-numbered license plates being allowed to drive. Now they are doing numbers ending in 1 & 6 can't drive on a Monday, 2 & 7 on a Tuesday etc. Which I guess is a start - the change has been SO noticeable. In fact, it has moved from Summer to Autumn so ridiculously quickly (the average temperature must have dropped about 10 degrees in a week) I swear the government messing about with the climate must have something to do with it. So it's good they're not just letting it completely slip again; and I think it's great people who live here are willing to sacrifice being able to drive and have pressurized the government into these new laws.
Anyway...on a less environmentally friendly note, got my flights booked to California at Christmas :) thank you parents, and my mission for this week is to blag this free trip to Hong Kong at half term... I WILL buy a camera soon...
x
p.s. I bought the Entourage box set for dead cheap and am LOVING it so thank you Tom for the recommendation all those months ago!
p.p.s. A little part of me is jealous about all these people going back to Freshers Week. Grrr. Have fun (begrudgingly)....
Finally...Kanye West is doing his first ever gig in China, in Beijing, on Nov 1st; lots of my friends are going, but it's the ONE weekend I have to work and go away on a school trip. Supervising 60 teenage girls on a singing weekend. Gutted.
I went crazy and splashed out about 30quid on a bicycle so I am now super healthy and environmentally friendly and cycle everywhere. It is very Chinese - no gears or lights or anything silly like that, but it works, and it is definitely the best way to get around and see the city. Unfortunately I seem to have no concept of distance, direction or time, so the last two days I have ended up lost on the other side of the city, after dark, frantically trying to find my way home!
I also found a climbing wall in one of the parks here - we had one on the camp I worked on in Switzerland and I got quite into it - it is really good fun and good exercise. The one here is massive, at least three or four times as big as the one on camp, with massive overhangs and tricky routes, and it is really cheap for a day pass, and fairly cheap for membership, so I might join. There is still a small chance I might run a half-marathon in a couple of weeks, so I need to at least do some training (I'm not that fussed about just running!).
Other goings on...Louise (flatmate) and I got really lazy, gave in, and accepted the school's offer of a maid, so she comes once a fortnight to clean the apartment and do our washing up and ironing! This is going to stand me in terrible stead for when I come back to England. My new boys choir sang in assembly at school in front of everyone, headmaster, kids n all, and went down a treat. They sang a piece I had arranged, so my Head of Music has now got me attempting to arrange Christmas carols for barbershop which is ridiculous! Ooh n I went to a party n it turns out in China you can buy 70cl of vodka for 17quai. Which is about £1.50. Which is interesting to know.
Other random observations on China:
-You can use your mobile on the tube.
-Men take 'man-bags' to a whole new level. They are fashion items, status symbols. A man carrying what I would classify as a purse is actually doing it to show how he has risen in the world. No fancy suit, no new ipod/phone/whatever...a purse. Weird.
I also read the other day they are going to maintain some of the anti-pollution measures they implemented for the Olympics - during the Olympics they alternated odd and even-numbered license plates being allowed to drive. Now they are doing numbers ending in 1 & 6 can't drive on a Monday, 2 & 7 on a Tuesday etc. Which I guess is a start - the change has been SO noticeable. In fact, it has moved from Summer to Autumn so ridiculously quickly (the average temperature must have dropped about 10 degrees in a week) I swear the government messing about with the climate must have something to do with it. So it's good they're not just letting it completely slip again; and I think it's great people who live here are willing to sacrifice being able to drive and have pressurized the government into these new laws.
Anyway...on a less environmentally friendly note, got my flights booked to California at Christmas :) thank you parents, and my mission for this week is to blag this free trip to Hong Kong at half term... I WILL buy a camera soon...
x
p.s. I bought the Entourage box set for dead cheap and am LOVING it so thank you Tom for the recommendation all those months ago!
p.p.s. A little part of me is jealous about all these people going back to Freshers Week. Grrr. Have fun (begrudgingly)....
Finally...Kanye West is doing his first ever gig in China, in Beijing, on Nov 1st; lots of my friends are going, but it's the ONE weekend I have to work and go away on a school trip. Supervising 60 teenage girls on a singing weekend. Gutted.
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