Swine flu and other adventures

Swine flu has arrived at Pingxiang College. We got a phone call at lunchtime last Wednesday to tell us that lessons had been cancelled for a week, due to an outbreak of swine flu on campus! Yippee. Rick was at the time in the middle of a bad cold, so our boss was a bit anxious (phoning every day for an update on his condition, offering trips to the hospital, drips, swine flu vaccinations etc.), but we seem to be OK so far.

So, we're mostly enjoying being lazy. We had planned to go away on a motorbike trip, but it's really a bit cold for that at the moment. And it's not sunny either. We set off this morning for a short trip and were back in PX two hours later, freezing! Still, it was good to get out in the fresh air. We saw an old broken-down building (see photo), lots of cold people and a few dogs.

At PXC they're continuing to demolish a small hill on campus, to make way for some building or other - not sure what (see photos). I had to try and compete last Tuesday (when I was teaching) with a 'pecker' - one of those attachments they put on diggers to chip away at rock and / or concrete. I thought my voice was going to go. I did of course get the students to shut all the windows, but they don't fit very well and double glazing... what's that? I remember trying to explain it to my students once. Don't think there's much of it round here.

As for adventures... not much of those lately! I've been working on my MA, planning my assignment and doing some reading. I've also been preparing for my trip home in January - yippee! And, I've been trying to sort out more photos so that I can finally post about the summer trip.

Watch this space...

The [not really] welcome to China tour, 2009

I can believe it's already November and I still haven't written about our summer motorbike trip.

We set off on 3rd July, 2009 and returned to Pingxiang on 28th August. We covered a total of around 9,250kms - equivalent to going from London to Basra and back, as the crow flies. Oh, and the bikes were only 125ccs.

It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done, and also one of the most amazing. At the moment 'difficult' is what I think of before 'amazing', but I'm sure that in time 'amazing' will win. We didn't have any major problems. I came off my bike twice, but both times at relatively slow speed and I suffered nothing worse than grazed elbows and bruised and grazed knees. However, it was the sheer physical exhaustion, the low temperatures and high altitude, and the fact that I was way out of my comfort zone that made it difficult. I guess that living in China means that I am already out of my comfort zone, but when you're actually living somewhere, you find ways to make it more like 'home' and to, well, just to make things easier. When you're carrying everything you need on the back of a motorbike, you don't have many comforts. As well as that there is the human factor. If I thought the staring was bad here in Pingxiang, it's nothing to what we encountered in the middle of nowhere in China. Understandable, really. Two foreigners, which is surprising enough, but also two foreigners riding motorbikes [how can they ride motorbikes?] and who had, judging by the licence plates, ridden them a long way.

As a relatively inexperienced rider, it was a steep learning curve for me, not least because of the poor quality of lots of roads in China, and also because of the horrendous driving. I was absolutely physically exhausted at the end of each day, and then we had to find a hotel for the night. Sometimes we were lucky and found a reasonable one quite quickly. More often we found one which was acceptable (but not that nice) quite quickly, and occasionally we had to look for a long time and then only found a fairly nasty one.

One of the worst things, though, in the first few days, was discovering that there are places in Hunan (the next province to the one where we live) where foreigners are not permitted without a special travel permit. More of that later...

PS - alternative names for our trip: 'Welcome to China, but not this bit' or 'Welcome to China. Give us your money and bu**er off!'