So Beijing was truly fabulous we did heaps of amazing things and the wall was yet again amazing, I think I could walk up every second day and still be happy. I'm going to flag mentioning too much because I'm sure Dad or Cam and Pen will on their blog.
Unfortunately the trip home put rather a dampner on the trip. It was one of those horribly cliche moments in a movie when somebody is trying to reach the love of their life and everything goes wrong. Firstly we gave our taxi driver the piece of paper Nancy had written us which said, please take us to the railway station (to YiWu). Unfortunately the taxi driver only read the second half, as soon as he saw to YiWu he was happy as larry, making a sweet profit off the foriegners who could pay for the hour and half ride to YiWu.
I realised about once on the motorway, and much to drivers disgust I forced him to turn around! We had a rather heated discussion in chinese, but finally got to the station.
But alas the drama was not over yet, we could not to save ourselves find the place to buy tickets, and by this time my 22kg pack and Casey's 4 bags were waying down our spirits and our bodies!
It was the end of a public holiday in China which meant that almost every chineseman wanted to get home just as much as us, after queueing up in a line for about 40minute only to be told that we were in the wrong line, and me not actually understanding where I was meant to go, seeing as the railway ladies were speaking fast and fluent Chinese to me, we made a guess, which was right! AND THEN THE TRAIN TICKETS WERE SOLD OUT TIL THE EVENING. Fabulous!
We ended up going with a private driving company who stood nearby, and with the help of the kindest couple who spoke english, we got the fare bartered down, and finally we were on our way.
Throughout the whole ordeal we didnt even cry, although in occassions both our eyes were prickling, and there is nothing like a crisis to make you learn a whole lot of chinese language, I now know myself how to say take me to the railway station and we need two tickets NOW for YiWu.
So started teaching yesterday. First class our carefully devised lesson plans lasted for about 12 minutes, from then on I was winging it! The kids were a lot smarter than our teachers had given them credit for. So after a huge simon says battle between the kids, I re-did my plan and the rest of the four classes went pretty well. Not sure how much I actually tought them though, they were pretty clued up already.
But they did have a lot of fun, and they do study awfully hard, a bit of a fun nothingy class every second week is OK by me!
Loving you all, oh and so happy that Percy and Brookie actually commented!
Missing everyone
xxx Kate
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1 comment:
Oh my lord, my poor little Slaam. Glad to hear that you finally made it back safely, but what a drama!! Good work on not crying, I would have been in tears from the get go! (You guys should definately apply to go on the Amazing Race - if you can argue your way home from beijing without crying you would definately have a shot at that $1million!!).
Sounds like the teaching is going well! Good work on winging it, you're obviously a good teacher to be able to do that! Maybe next time you can get them doing tough of war or something like cam and penny's kindy kids... Or are they a little bigger than that?
Anyhow, I best get back to work. Glad to hear you're safe, take care and enjoy Pups being there! Love you xxxx
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