So the big news of the last six weeks is that I will be staying in China next academic year, so I am now signed on until Summer 2010. I will be able to take an international PGCE next year, which is as good as any PGCE I could take in the UK, except it does not qualify me to teach in the state sector. However, taking it here also means I will gain an extra year's teaching experience, and I will be paid throughout, rather than getting into more student debt! I will also be able to do more traveling throughout South-East Asia in the holidays, and continue to explore China. Beijing is starting to feel like home!
I will be back in England in the Summer for around the first half of August, and I also plan to come home at Christmas, as I get three weeks off. So look forward to seeing everyone then.
With that decision made, I am starting to look at new apartments for next year; planning to move in with a couple of friends, pool our housing allowances and get a really big place! The football season has restarted after Winter break - we have won two, lost one, and I have scored in both the wins. Also had a memorable football social, involving some rather drunken singing of all the anthems of the different nationalities of people in our team! The other night, following a successful concert I helped put on at school, I went to one of my colleague's flats, where we had champagne, and she had hired a personal chef to come in and cook us what was quite literally a feast - some of the best food I have had in China. Living the high life!
In February I also managed to get myself onto the staff for the school ski trip, so I enjoyed three days of skiing for free, which was great. It is something I am really glad I will now be able to continue pursuing next year. Winter is finally over, and Beijing is nice and mild now.
I also went to Xi'an to see the terracota warriors, which were amazing. We had three days off so it was great to get a backpack and be 'on the road', so to speak. We stayed in a really cool hostel whre we met lots of other traveling Westerners. We cycled around the ancient city walls on rickety old bikes, and explored the old Muslim quarter and markets. The terracota army itself was actually fairly average...until we reached the last 'pit', where you see whole, totally excavated warriors lined up in military fashion...amazing.
I am sure I have done lots more in the last six weeks but I literally cannot remember; time flies by here. I am off to Thailand in two weeks, so will try to write before then; if not, you will get a Thai round-up in around a month!
x
P.S. I was asked to write something about the presence of Christianity in Beijing, China obviously being a primarily Buddhist country. I have a good friend here who is a Christian. There are obviously no 'churches' in Beijing; however, there are numerous churches inside the posh Western hotels, and I believe you are required to show a passport to get in. I think you also have to pay, to contribute for rent/supplies/maintenance etc. Basically, there is an active Christian community here, but it is fairly hidden away from Chinese eyes. With regards Buddhism, the only temples I have actually seen are the tourist ones, so I am not sure where the majority of Chinese people actually go to pray; I think many do it in their own homes.
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