So after all the excitement that was last weekend with Shenzhen and Guangzhou, we decided to have a quiet weekend in Houjie. But (if you see the common theme of this blog reappearing) this is China so obviously things never go quite according to plan. Friday night we were sat minding our own business having a quiet beer at the night market, playing a few 'getting to know each other' games as we realised after 3 months living together, we still didn't know a lot about each other. Next thing we know, a Chinese doctor comes over and says he and his brother want to join us at our table, and with them they bring a whole load of free drinks. This then lead to a game of truth or dare which saw Phil dancing Gangnam Style in the middle of the market around a whole lot of confused Chinese people (although we're foreign, so I think everything we do confuses them anyway). This dare backfired a little though, as it just meant a load of new Chinese people wanted to give us more drinks and gambai with us... in particular one guy called 'Jeff' who kept appearing at our table shouting at us 'he'.. which means drink in Chinese.
On Saturday we woke up feeling a tad worse for wear and Robert, an Indian teacher also living in Houjie invited us round for some proper Indian food. We jumped at the chance of eating something other than noodles. The only catch was we had to cook a 'typical British' dish to contribute to the dinner party. We chose Yorkshire Puddings, because how can Yorkshire puddings go wrong...? Well seeing as Chinese kitchens are missing ovens, a vital part of this plan, it turns out Yorkshire puddings cooked in the microwave can in fact go very wrong indeed. We settled on making some questionable pancakes instead, but luckily Robert's curry was so good no one seemed to mind that our contribution was a bit (a lot) of a fail. We had a few drinks and ended the night with a game of pool and a few drinks in the only expat bar in Houjie (and a slice of the best Chinese pizza I've ever eaten in my life).
Today was quieter, I went for lunch and a spot of shopping with Linda and tidied my room... hardly worth writing about but I feel like this blog isn't helping the 'Brit abroad' reputation and that I should start mentioning when I do things other than go out and drink with Chinese people (although I can't help that that does dominate most of my weekends these days... being a teacher is stressful so it is very much needed). Also Linda has invited me to her hometown to meet her family and friends which I am more than excited about!
We have our school 'sports meeting' this week, which is essentially sports day so that should be fun. Friday's afternoon classes were cancelled for rehearsals of the opening ceremony, so we happily sat in the office watching the thing out of the window. Next thing we knew, however, we are being shouted at to run downstairs as we were meant to be in the rehearsals, marching round the field with Chinese flags. I'm pretty sure we were actually meant to be the stars of the show... but of course they had neglected to share this information with us sooner! So we bombed it down the stairs and ran straight onto the field to march round (being told off for marching and flag waving incorrectly) on the hottest day I've experienced so far, while all the students pointed and laughed at the funny white teachers making fools of themselves. So next week we have to do that all over again... but wearing matching t-shirts. Plus whatever extra surprises they have in store for us. Joy...
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