I think I'm in love.

Apart from not being able to speak the language, and waking up sticky with sweat every morning (without a good excuse), I think I am quickly falling in love with this place.

Yesterday (Monday) was our day off, and we decided to go out to Red Flower Lake, which is an incredibly scenic reservoir where the three hundred odd people in the water are absolutely not allowed to be there under any circumstances. It's pretty cool. Apparently.

What actually happened was that everybody got planted (drunk, for the rest of you) on Sunday night, and only started moving around 11am. Not me, I'm used to dragging carcass (hangovers), so I spent the morning wandering around trying to buy a bicycle. More on that later. We finally got everybody to the taxi at around 2pm... ooh, which leads me to a slight diversion. Traffic.

Traffic here is... incredible. Take Johannesburg, remove any remaining attempt to follow rules of the road. Then, make everybody drive really slowly, and chill them out. People drive along the main road, with the ubiquitous bicycles and scooters meandering between the cars, at a very gentle pace. Robots are mostly adhered to, but lanes are there for decoration, and hooters are there for everything. Not aggressive hooting though. It seems to me that they only hoot to tell you that they're coming, or passing you, or can see a westener, or can see a Chinese person, or forgot what they were doing, or want to warn people to get out of the way because they're about to do a u-turn across SIX LANES OF TRAFFIC.

Which brings me back to our taxi, who did just that, apparently unnoticed by anybody except for the four westeners screaming in his car. Everybody just kind of slowed down and drove around him.

Anyway, long story short, he took us to the water park, not the lake. Nil desparandum, we went into the water park. Obviously China isn't big on private swimming pools, so they have these really cool swimming parks, which aren't anywhere near as crowded as the pictures you've seen back home. This one was fantastic - a long swimming canal which ran around a central island that had slides and whatnot. There was a refreshment shop built so that you can sit in the water and have your drinks (although I don't know how you pay).

Also, as westeners, we were the stars of the show. I am sure I have already mentioned how we get "Hello" shouted at us quite often, occasionally from across the street. Well, in the pool, I felt like a superstar. I suspect this was helped by the fact that Chinese people are not hairy, and I am. Very. So everybody spoke to me while staring at my chest. If I've ever done that to any girls, I apologise.

We were then all very rapidly cleared from the water and made to swim in the indoors pool while a thunderstorm ran through the area. At this point I have to make a diversion to laugh at British people.

A number of our teachers had managed to get to the lake, knowing the area better than us. The storm arrived, and, London apparently being deviod of water or sense, they decided that the best place for them to be was in the water, so they would at least keep warm. Of course, Thor has a great sense of humour about that kind of thing, and so lightning struck the water. They describe an incredible jolt passing through all of them, followed by a very quick decision to exit the water and stand on the island, now far away from their clothes and freezing. No comment.

I went for my first really decent walk this evening after school (left my digs around 19h00), and had an amazingly good time. The streets are pretty busy while the shops are open, which seems to be forever. In truth, shops close some time after 22h00, at a more or less random choice made by the owner/shopkeeper/whoever seems to be standing around at the time.

Most of the shops are little hole in the wall vibes, most with a really friendly shopkeep who either stares blankly or speaks rapid and fluent Chinese in response to my tentative Ni hau (hello). There are however a couple of malls that make Eastgate look like a hole in the wall, with really friendly shopkeepers who either stare blankly or speak rapid and fluent Chinese in response to my tentative Ni hau. What it comes down to is that I haven't bought a hell of a lot so far, unless I could find it myself.

On that note, I am going to bimble off to sleep. For those wondering about the actual teaching, it is going well so far. I will need to make an entire post about it, as there is a lot to tell. Chinese kids are amazing - really hard working, and generally pretty cool. Most of them have taken to having a new teacher with a minimum of fuss, and all seems to be moving along well. I'll update more on that tomorrow.

Last thing - I cannot access my blog from here, so please don't post comments to me. By all means laugh at me behind my back if you want to, but if you want me to see something, please email it to me.

Cheers.