Didn't you read the notice?

Information vacuum (again!)

Today was the first day back after seven days' holiday to celebrate China's National Day.  I won't even go into the fact that we had to work Saturday and Sunday prior to starting the holiday so that we could have a seven-day holiday...

We had prior notice (amazing!) via R's co-teacher that afternoon classes start at 2pm now instead of 2.30pm.  I was preparing for my evening class as usual, when I got a text message through at 7.06pm from the class monitor to tell me that the time of the class had changed and that they were all waiting for me!!!  I have written and ranted about this in the past (the lack of information, that is) so I won't rant again.  I also have good reason to believe that the Chinese teachers didn't know about the change either...  I just took my time and pottered off to class when I was ready.  My class (bless them!) were sitting quietly looking through their textbooks etc.  Yay.

Recycling - Chinese-style

On a slightly different note, one of the other teachers was talking the other day about 'Toothy the Bin Raker'.  Of course we all knew immediately who he was talking about.  He's a tall, skinny man who carries a sack around campus, going through the bins for plastic bottles which he gets money for.  The 'toothy' bit of his name refers to the fact that he is actually a bit lacking in that department.  It's a pretty horrible job, but he's not the only one.  Near our apartment is the rubbish area - basically an open bit of concrete where people throw their rubbish bags.  There are often old ladies there, going through the rubbish, sorting out what they can take away for recycling (and therefore money).  It also gets periodically set on fire.  Lovely.

Wugong Mountain

We thought we had done well to get on a trip with a photography club to Wugong Mountain.  We had contemplated doing it solo, but it does require a lot of effort, particularly without our own transport.  However, things slowly became less good as we realised that most of the rest of the group were students - argh!!!  We need a break from them sometimes.

Anyway, it wasn't too bad, once you got used to their shouting, rubbish-dropping, mobile phone music and generally behaving like kids on a school trip.  I took quite a few photos, got a little wet in the rain and sheltered in a fake 'yurt' somewhere in the fog and rain (that didn't provoke any interested in the other random [Chinese] people who were also there...!!)  The 'hotel' we stayed in was of a slightly lower quality than the ones I've stayed in previously up there, but perfectly OK.  The food was tasty and we had some beer before and after dinner.  The students entertained themselves by playing a game where you  had to try to NOT guess the number a student had typed into their mobile phone.  If you did guess it, you had to do a forfeit - fairly tame things such as singing a song, telling a story etc.  It was quite interesting as well, actually, as the student singing only had to start the first few bars of their chosen song before all the other joined in.  They're good at doing things together, these Chinese.

We declined the offer to join in [spoilsports!] and played cards instead.  I ended up being the 'Donkey', 'Scabby Queen' or whatever you want to call it twice.  Poor me.  There wasn't much more to do and so at about 8pm we went to bed!  Sadly, the lights were on a single circuit and so we couldn't turn ours off until the generator went off at 10pm.  Didn't stop me falling asleep, though...

We managed to get to the top in the morning and could see a little, though not the views I've been able to see from the top before.  Coming down the next day, down the steps (remember, this is tourism with Chinese characteristics) was agony for tired legs and I can barely walk today!  We saw a couple of people (including one tubby Chinese boy) who couldn't even managed to walk up the mountain and were being carried on chairs with long poles attached.  Yes, that's right, carried up by other people, namely Chinese men with huge calf muscles.  Ridiculous!  We also saw men carrying up rocks and bottles of gas, amongst other things.  Not the easiest way to make a living.

I think that's all for now.  Photos this time.  Enjoy...