10th Birthday Party at Dongshan and toffee apples

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted and since then Dongshan Foreign Language School celebrated its 10th Birthday, so celebrations were in hand. First off we were all given more presents. This school is great, since I've been here its been presents galore!  This time we were given a huge fruit box and presentation sets of two silk ties and two silk scarves.

 The fruit box

 The silk gifts

The celebrations took place on a Saturday morning in the theatre on campus. There was also some sort of conference going on so principals from schools across China were attending. So the theatre was pretty full. The entertainment, in the main, was put on by the students, so for the past few moths they have all been rehearsing,  I have posted some videos and pictures before.  

The foreign teachers were instructed to attend in our best formal clothes, which we did, although this request didn't seem to have reached the Chinese teaching staff. 

These are some clips from the event.

The following day, the Sunday, I also had to give a demo class in front of the visiting principles. So I had spent the previous week coaching the Junior class, who were to be my demo class guinea pigs, in the mysteries of Halloween which was the content of my class, so by Sunday they were word perfect. So my class went down a storm with the visiting principles and I was congratulated for doing an interesting lesson. I had also used video and a powerpoint presentation. So that was all good. 

The big news is that Steve Wood is back in Nanjing. For those of you who have been reading this blog since the very beginning you will remember Steve was on the back of my scooter when we had an accident and his leg was broken.  So I went off to the Blue Marlin to catch up with him and also bumped into some other old friends.  Snooks was a great hit too. Rick in particular was quite enamoured. 

Of course most of my time is taken up with teaching during the week and on a Saturday. This is one of the Saturday pupils, Mary. Delightful!

The kids in my school are kept busy, they are boarders remember.  This is a Tai Chi lesson one evening.  And their time table. A bust day that starts with Get Up at 6am and lights out at 9:30pm.

I was highlighted on the schools info TV

  As its starting to get cold new bedding was the order of the day. I'm hoping the quilt isn't filled with the actual skin of the silkworms...

Snooks was also the beneficiary of a gift of two beds from a Chinese guy I know who works at Linkfun, my actual employer. That was very nice of him. Snooks loves the beds too. 

I've been out and about. I've joined an Art Club thats held in a bar downtown (which is about an hours journey for me) but it gets me out and meeting new people. I went the Sunday of my demo lesson, and met up with a Russian guy, Konstantin and Laurie an Australian. We were the only ones who could make it, but in the last week more people have been making themselves known so it could be quite a good club. Theres a gallery opening I hope to go to next Sunday which will be cool. I've also found out where the Art supply shops are, so will be taking a trip there maybe one evening or Friday to get some stuff.


Steven and I have scouted out this 'local' bar - its about 10 minutes away by bus. Its called Puzzle bar, and its new. Western style bars are few and far between in China/Nanjing. There are a few in the downtown area that cater for foreigners, but not many that are aimed at the Chinese clientele. We were the first western customers at this bar. We may be going to it after the Halloween celebrations at the school on Thursday.



More locally, opposite the school in fact, we tried a muslim restaurant, its mainly noodles, but its pretty darn good. This huge plate of ribbon noodles cost me about £1:20 I couldn't eat it all.

 On Friday I zipped off downtown before my lesson and got myself a flu shot from the Travel Healthcare Centre, it cost about £10 but worth it I think.

Sunset over the Auchan

Theres been a lot of tree planting along some of the avenues, they crane fully grown trees into place.

 Parents waiting for their kids at 5am Friday

 On Saturday I go to my Saturday class, which means getting the bus at 7am to get to the Metro, to get downtown for about 8:30 for a 9am start. This is breakfast - Shaobin. A pastry with a bit of green chilli and sesame seeds. I take 2 for about 20p.

Then the Saturday classes.  This Saturday, I did the usual 9 - 11 class, then had no classes until 3:45. BUT apart from my lunch break 11-1, I had to sit at a desk until it was time for class. Thats a bit boring. And I spend my time fighting off sleep, cos napping in class time is not allowed.

In the evening I was taken out into Nanjing for food. This is in a Japanese place. Udon Noodles in tomato sauce, with prawn fritter and squid I think. And banana fritter (left). No beer!

This is Sunny and Susanne who took me out for the meal ( I paid. £14 for the three of us - they thought it was expensive!) Both of the women have great English. Sunny was a teaching assistant at my school but she quit to get an easier job in the City  - she didn't like the 6am starts and the 9am finishes.

Then we went to the Hunan Road for these sort of toffee apples.  Hunan Road is a popular food destination with lots of places to go and lots of stalls selling stuff. 

So that's been the last couple of weeks.  It's Halloween this week, we're planning activities with the kids so that should be fun. There's a lecturer from Plymouth University visiting at my request, so he's turning up in Nanjing next Friday, I think, for a Monday lecture spot. I'm going to show him the sights next weekend, with the help from a Chinese teacher from the school. 

Halloween is also the anniversary of the scooter accident that messed me and Steve up. So that will be a good anniversary to get past without any mishaps. 

A busy week in Dongshan which ends well with birthday cake!

It's Sunday morning and my first day off in 7 days so a busy week starting with the moon cake and birthday cake at the start of the week and ended with more birthday cake yesterday. One more day of teaching tomorrow and then a weeks holiday for the Chinese National Day holiday.  I love China and their surfeit of holidays.

My teaching week here at Dongshan was actually no busier than usual except for the Monday evening classes I wrote about below.

One of the main highlights at school was that our International Section (total of about 65 students out of 3000+) have received their new Autumn uniform and very smart it is too - here's Lynn modelling it.

But, because of rain we had early in the week and the fact I had no food in my cupboards which meant I ate in the school canteen, I hadn't been for a run since last Thursday.  Despite me not being the traditionally athletic type when I don't go for a run, once I'm in the groove, I start to feel it. I can feel the energy building up inside of me and I need to release it and as there are no other 'outlets' available to me I have to run.

So on Thursday I pretty much felt that I was going to do my normal 5k but I wanted to push it a bit further with the view of eventually going for a 10k run. But the weather was perfect for running and I felt fit and full of energy so blow me down I did the full 10k which I was pleased with.

But the next day I was invited to go swimming which I thought would be good. It would ease my stiff legs and would be fun. So at 11:30 I was picked up and off we went to the Mystical Health Swimming Club and very nice it was too. But what my host had forgotten to tell me was that previously they had been a professional swimmer on the China team!  So while they ploughed up and down the Olympic sized pool, I fought to keep our end up and valiantly did lengths I think I did about 12, I might have been a bit more or a bit less.  At one time the lifeguard asked me if I was tired and needed a rest. I think they are there for more than just diving in if they see someone in trouble, perhaps they are being more proactive so the don't have to dive in to save struggling laowai (foreigners). I spent much of Friday evening in the recovery position on my bed with a book and a can of Tsingtao beer!

But more fun was in store for Saturday. I was up at the crack of dawn to get ready to go teaching in downtown Nanjing as I have been doing for the last few weeks. I had already been told that if I stayed later that evening I would get extra pay as there was a party. So thats a bonus for a start being paid to go to a party! I wasn't sure what the party was for though.

At 7:15 I jumped on the bus. This was a new adventure as we had just found out that the 18 bus takes us to the Metro stop at Herdingqiou near the big Auchan store (French owned supermarket). Normally I  had been hanging about outside of the school hoping for a taxi to turn up. Our school is not on a particularly busy street so waiting for the taxi was a bit hit or miss, but the buses are the life blood of Chinas streets they always turn up!

As expected the bus turned up in a few minutes and soon I was at Auchan and on the Metro into town. The taxi trip is about 20y whilst the bus is about 2y so a big saving and the bus only took about 5 minutes more than the taxi so thats a good find.

School work was fun as it always is with the kids aged from about 6 to 10. And soon it was time for the party. The party turned out to be a birthday party for one or a couple of the kids, I didn't actually find out, although I did ask.  I think I was there so that the parents could see a foreign teacher close up. I was the only foreign teacher in attendance even though I know they have one other, there maybe more during the week, but I'm just the 'Saturday Girl'.

It was a party like any other party apart from the kids were sat in serried ranks and held their hands up to answer a question and stood to attention if chosen to answer. But there was still a lot of shouting, fun, excitement, cake, singing Happy Birthday and playing games - Simon Says and a version of Pass the Parcel, where they passed a pen to music, when it stopped the winner came out and chose someone, that someone then had to do their party trick and then I had to pop a chosen ballon which had gift promises or sweets in.

Here's some pics...

The place was decorated with balloons and the usual accoutriemnts 

Hello Kitty

Waiting for the party in a classroom

Co Co was the youngest and cute

This is Mary - very good English, cute and loves cake

Jonathan in the yellow, his dads a famous cardiologist in China, Linda to the right - very precocious at 6 with very good English, 

Parents stayed in the background

 Playing Simon says

 CoCo was desperate to be picked for the games, but was often overlooked cos she was so small, I made sure she got a prize

 The party in 'full swing' no need for sleeping lions here.

CoCo loves cake too - she had two servings

Another fan of cake

Compilation of short clips of the party

Linda deserves her own clip, her party trick is to sing We are Family, remember she's 6!

The party didn't finish until about 7pm. I was pretty tired by then having been up since 6am. My feet were killing me, I hadn't had much to eat, despite the cake,  so was starving too. Snooks had been home all day, but fortunately Stephen was around so he let her out a couple of times.

So off to the Metro, along the way I met with a woman called Kate, that I'd bumped into a couple of weeks ago when I had Snooks with me, she has two dogs, a pug and a hound called 'Snooby'!  I had a chat with her and her husband. Got the Metro to Auchan, got myself a Veggie Subway to eat on the bus. But the bus didn't come! I think it stops after 7:30pm!   Anyway I jumped in a taxi and was home for 9 - a LONG day.

But enjoyable.....