Sadly due to china's love for stopping everyone doing things blogger has been blocked, or at least made very slow difficult to access. This leaves me with two options:

A - no more blog
B - new blog.

This is the new address: http://benholding.socialgo.com/

Cheers, safe blud.

I doubt there is not a single person out of the 2000 strong school that has not said this, but it's ok...
The treatment I get in this school is like the last one but x1000. Everyone is so much more happy to have me around, I feel really like respected and thanked which is good for my shanghai broken ego. Though I have probably already put on about 5 stone or something ha haa.
Last night I had to have dinner all alone because the english teacher, christy, had to go and see her ill mother so I had to rely on my own devices to get around and make sure I didn't starve. I had alot of snickers bars. But seriously everyone is very nice, There is always a crowd of about 30 people waiting for me outside my office, maybe it'll change! who knows.
Also I watched the sequal to Donnie Darko - S. Darko ... aweful. Then I watched 2 episodes of stargate atlantis - awe...SOMEE! I'm actually looking forward to watching more tonight. I'm sorry this blog seems to have turned into a monologue of my life. Lets get back on track.

I still don't actually know my full timetable, but instead I seem to be finding out on a day-by-day basis, It doesn't matter at all because I'm free all the time but I suppose it would be nice to get into a routine. I taught two fifth grade classes today, and two sixth graders yesterday which went super well, they really loved me. I feel really confident in classes now though. When I think of how I felt/taught when I first arrived in china I can't help but feel proud. I'm not brilliant, but i'm not a cowering wreck like before...
After class it was a trip to the cafe behind the school for lunch. I think the school and them have struck up a deal so I don't have to pay for food which is good! Perhaps the variety isn't as good as the shanghai school but still very good. Oh man food is spicy though. The first hot pot I had I was very very close to tears so they gave me a less spicey dish haha. Following lunch me and christy took a trip to the haircutter people who gave me like a massage, washed my hair, cleaned my face and errr... my ears too.

Now I'm at the teachers house watching chinese music videos and blogging. Huzzah.

and I've not got swine flu. They actually tested people as we got off the plane, oh man that would of been bad!

One of the headmasters (apparently they have two!) and 2 english teachers met me - already nicer than the shanghai school, and took me by car to the place where I would be staying for a month.
They stayed and sorted out the room, took me shopping and exchanged phone numbers before departing. How nice!

I'm in a internet cafe at the moment with an english teacher, neither of us originally planned to come here but we had a few hours to kill before hot pot tonight with the entire english faculty. I'm finding it confusing I'm not really too sure what's going on most of the time and it sounds like i'm gonna be spending alot of time with the teachers (I already know I'm going fishing this weekend!) and because of this I'm actually very glad I didn't end up staying with a chinese family. Mann they are a handful ha haa. None the less today has been fun and I hope for alot more of the same.
I am sort of counting down the days back to shanghai in a way, which of course is sort of bad, but It'll be a good experience and I'll have fun.

Pictures another day - yes I'm still putting it off.

Ben

...the moving day to Mianyang has arrived! I was meant to go yesterday but...well... I forgot to renew my visa so now I'm leaving today instead!

Apparently I get my own hotel/appartment room which is ace, Jessie gave me the option of a homestay with a chinese family but Betty really put me off that idea...
This way I'll be able to finish my 'History of western philosophy book' Oh man it's so big!

Yesterday I spent the time doing bit's and bobs and alot of western eating. We went to Babela's AND Hooters for Rine's birthday song. Perhaps Hooters works well in America but everything just looks a bit out of place here. oh and the only other people in there were like old western men haha. I really felt like being western. Maybe it's like the 3 month bluesss
I also collected my visa, exchanged some money at la banks. OH AND BOUGHT A NEW MEMORY CARD.
AHHH ok to parents -> if someone in china happened to loose their ipod would it be covered by the same insurance as I have? This is totally hypothetical of course...

Friday afternoon at 17.47 (or something like that) we took the hour and a half trip to Hangzhou by super CRH train (CHR, HRS, JFUEIK or one varient).
It's famous for it's AMAZING west lake and china calls it 'heaven on earth' or something which is actually quite a name to live up to!
We arrived at about 7.15 and we had two jobs to do:
A) buy return tickets - Check
B) Find a place to stay! - Problem! The hostel we wanted to go to was full up. I felt like how Mary must have felt at christmas 2000 years ago\\\\\\\
It wasn't too bad though, having a Betty comes in handy and she just phoned another hotel place and got us a room. EASY.
The hard part was trying to find where it actually was and the greesy, money-grabbing taxi drivers didn't make things easy! One even shouted at Betty because apparently she should know where it was because 'she's not a foreigner'... urgh.
We found it though, don't worry!

have a look here for some picturesss!http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=www.b-etty.blogspot.com&sl=sv&tl=en&history_state0=

My memory card has actually ran out of room! I've taken 8gb's of pictures now haha, so I didn't get so many pictures of hangzou...

Yesterday - after repairing the mess I made with the tickets to hangzou, which I swear was easier than in England - Betty and I went to the underground eyeglasses market which I had spied when nearby last time.

Yes I bought some new glasses, they are massive and really make me look cool but a bit weird. A big step towards harry potter I'd say. But get this, they cost 130rmb!! and only took 15 minutes to make!! That makes the price of a flight to shanghai worth it just for buying glasses!!!

Betty also bought some uber cool big ones, she looks really korean now especially with her kite!

I'm writing this from bettys computer because i'm all moved out of my own school now. I have no home, well apart from the volunteer flat but all I do there is sleep and don't usually get back until like 1am or something. Sorry about never writing, but no school and no computer makes Ben not update his blog.

1. Parents have gone home and I quite miss money haha. Also the company of course, it felt like they were here for ages really.
2. I've moved out of my school, it's such a shame I feel sad to not be teaching the children any more. They were really really cool people and so nice! Even if not all of them knew my name I still felt very welcome. The new teacher Thomas seems nice though. He's a swiss person about 24 or something so hopefully he'll get on there well! One bad thing though is that the teachers didn't even bother to say goodbye to me. AND the ones I did say goodbye to didn't even seem to know I was leaving. urghh So no present for them!
3. Yesterday I followed Betty and her volunteering crew to their school to help out on this english day festival thingy for the kids which was fun, and I also think it might of helped the fudan people not to think I was really wierd.
4. I got some good dvd's the other day!
5. I'm going to hangzou this weekend. Well for like an evening, but as i'm such an idiot I booked the tickets for the wrong day. Tomorrow I'll fix it all hopefully.
6. Saturday is the Roberto/rine's birthday and my leaving day party at guv's house.
7. roberto punched a police and I was at the police station with betty until 6 am on saturday
8. booked flights to mianyang for the 12th may, will go to hong kong on the 13th june...
9. Some other volunteers are gonna be in hong kong at the same time so no being a loner for meeee.
10. done.

Okk so my family arrived on saturday and by the time I saw them they looked less like humans but more like some sort of zombie/vampire hybrid but that's what jet lag will do to you! I managed to drag them along the bund before they could take no more and retired back into the underground layer that was the NEW ASIA HOTEL.
By the next day they seemed better and they took a taxi over to boxing lu where they got a tour of my school, and the japanese fastfood noodle restaurant...

Wednesday evening began the great train of Beijing trip. The sleeper train was quite amazing, the waiting room had leather sofas, a grand piano as well as a overpriced cafe. All the things needed in a place which makes you feel like you are too poor to be there. It took only 9 hours too. The distance between Shanghai and Beijing is eqivilant to the distance between London and Rome so it's a fantastically fast train. Not to mention the TV's we had built into our bed!

Awake at 7.30, and time to leave the train at about 8. Quite in a horrible reversal from the upper classness we were drowning in beforehand, breakfast required a trip to McDonalds for pancakes and breakfast muffins. Oh what were we thinking!

After that it was a quiet taxi drive and a rainy walk to our 4 star hotel, (which didn't seem posh once our tour guide pointed out the 7 star hotel...), where we were to camp out in for the 3 night Holding family siege of the north captital.
On Friday we arranged to be given a tour by some people recommended by my friends. It was 140RMB per person, but we got to go to the Ming tombs, The great wall, as well as other places hand picked by the tour guide (with VERY large gift shop sections...). I thought one of the intresting parts of the tour was when we got examined by a Chinese doctor! Apparently I have a bad sinus and an irregular heartbeat and if I don't treat it I will die! Only joking, though apparently my bad sinus plays havoc on my memory. Now I know why I never did good at school!





Saturday we went to see dead Chairman Mao in his huge temple/mausoleum. He seems to be considered more like a god than a man...
My mum bribed the guard so we could skip about 45minutes worth of queue which was funny too!

I think with my parents here I have neglected to post on the blog, so i'm sorry to other people who read it. It's been strange having my parents in the same city, It's like having some sort of tie back to reality I suppose but it's quite nice none the less even if they can't use chopsticks. I do however feel as though I am more noticed when walking around with them. We look very touristy as a group - sort of like a Brits on tour kinda thing - but touristy isn't bad. I mean I haven't done all the touristy things in Oxford or London even though I live next to them so It's a good excuse to get out of my office and do some stuff (which is paid for my my family of course...)

Tonight we go to Beijing. It cost some what of a small fortune to get there even on the train. 700ish yuan per person ONE WAY! Ahhh. We are soft sleeper though. Yes it's the life of luxury for us!

Somewhere in this massive city and I've yet to work out where, the rest of the Holding clan now resides. I'm not quite sure how I'm meant to contact them but somewhere they are here!

Right now I'm writing chinese charectors. I think I must have gone crazy but I'm really enjoying it. I think i've got 'ning', 'jiao', and 'shen ma' down to a tea.... ha haa

Zao,
Somehow teaching is actually going very well this week, I think it's because I'm giving out more stamps due to next week being my last full week of teaching at this school. I will really miss the children! I think i've made quite good friends with alot of them and now I think about it there is not a grade I will miss most. They've all been amazing and even though I've felt like jumping out of a 4th floor window a few times sometimes you get this feeling, like a feeling that actually maybe you are helping and somehow it seems to make all the negative thought disapear. I can see why people become teachers, it is, no matter how many times people have said it, a very rewarding thing to do.

Today I really need to pick up my visa from the visa office. I've forgotten to do it since Monday which is quite bad. Hopefully there isn't a fine or something.
On top of this I'm looking into reserving a table at a special restaurant for when my family arrives on Saturday but I'm not sure if you can reserve. Who knows. I don't even know when they are arriving... ... ... ...
Also maybe to the glasses market!! On the way back from Nanjing I found a amazing looking market where they just sell glasses so maybe i'll get a new pair or something. That would be really really cool but considering I'm so stingy maybe not.

Something I don't think i've talked about is how my mandarin skills are coming on. I think in two months I have got better, I mean I can sometimes understand what people say if it's about ordering food now. This seems to be when I practice the most which I suppose is both good and bad. I really want to get better though! I've been trying to find out ways of continuing learning when I return home but with little success. I emailed goldsmiths to see if there was a way of taking a year abroad but with no reply... Maybe i'll spend another year learning chinese like Albin is going to do and Betty is doing, who knows! That would be amazing. Betty has pointed out though that some of the things I have learnt though the tapes I have used are wrong though which is a bit stupid...

Bennnn

There was alot to write so rather than try and force myself to do it while I didn't have the time I really wanted to feel free to take my time.

Friday started well. A lesson off in the morning which meant a nice relaxing sleep hurraah! The day continued like most others I taught my lessons, had a shower and after quite a lot of confusion about where I was meant to go I met with betty and her father. It was good, a nice trip to Starbucks with my mocha frappechino thing. It was cold and had lots of cream either way so it's got my approval. I took a taxi back to Boxing lu, and quickly ran to the school - the time was about 4.30 and I had to organise myself to get on a train at 6.40...

Uh ohh...where's my wallet! Ahhhhhh where is it!?!? Damn I must have left it at Starbucks!!
Do I have enough money for a taxi? JUST ABOUT but only in change and not enough to get back.
How far? 5 km. Do I know the way - NO.

Please go to Decathlon/Carrefour!!

Luckily when I got to starbucks they actually did have it and it even had everything in it! This good luck far outways the bad luck of loosing it so really the day was going well!

It didn't matter though, I was running late. REALLY LATE. It was about 5.30 now and by the time I got back to boxing lu (after having the slowest taxi ride of my life) I was literally RUNNING back to the school to collect my clothes for the weekend - don't ask me why I didn't take them to starbucks, I don't know.
Take the metro - HA too slow, I'll get there in time if I get a taxi! Oh wait this taxi driver is refusing to take me. Time 6.00 - REALLY REALLY NEED A TAXI. OK now this guy is taking me there, brilliant!
WHY IS THERE SUDDENLY SO MUCH TRAFFIC!

Cut a long story short, it took an hour for the taxi... I took SO long to get through the tunnel to puxi urghhh.
Ok new plan - buy a ticket for later this evening. Only 4 hour sleeper trains left? ...Great... 96rmb. That's 10pounds i'll never see again! Oh and to make things better it meant I would arrive at 12.45am.
Moral was kinda low at this point so I bought a king sized burger king, which was actually really really good! I did feel a bit sorry for myself though sitting there alone...

The sleeper train was actually quite nice, apart from the smell and I managed an hours sleep or so. I had a nice conversation with Betty on the phone only to find out that Jessie thought I was arriving at 12.45PM not AM! I had to phone her and she said that all I needed to do was phone the manager of the youth hostel when I arrived. It was around then my phone started making noises which I had been ignoring for a while but finally realised it was because the battery was rediculously low! Oh dear, if it runs out how will I find the hostel? PANIC PANIC PANIC. oh and wait, how do I know if i'm at Nanjing? It's like 12.45 now? Have I missed the stop? errr
"Nanjing zai na li?"
...
"kgrkghnegnhegohivpoierpoisb[opijepij["
...........
"ok"

1.00am ->1.20 -> 1.30

1.40 we got to Nanjing!

By this point I'd turned my phone off to try and prevent the thing I was dreading most - that my phone would run out. It did indeed turn back on, not without telling me that battery was low though...
I quickly phoned the manager - I think I was talking very fast though because I kept on having to repeat things - who told me that I should give him to a taxi driver. I could only see illegal and unlicenced ones though...
They would have to do. I gave the phone to some random women and she beckoned me to follow her into the car park. She started shouting at people (as the chinese do) and eventually some guy showed me a car and told me to get in. I was actually a bit scared so I took my debit card out of my wallet just in case...

All was well though, he did indeed drop me outside of the hostel and the manager found me. Albin however had decided to switch rooms and as the manager didn't know and was unable to get into his/my room he allowed me to sleep in his bed. I have no Idea where he slept but either way it was a strange ending to a hectic day.

I feel writing down what happened on the rest of the weekend is actually not so exciting as that one evening but I'll give a bit of a synopsis.
Saturday started with visiting a museum, which was quite similar to the Shanghai musuem. Next we went to the confucius temple after having a amazingly cheap hot pot (50yuan including drinks for 6 people!)

Sunday included going to this museum dedicated to the invasion of Nanjing by the japanese. The Chinese have had such bad luck over the years.

I feel I have lost momentum but I'll update with pictures soon!

Benn

and i'm only in Shanghai for one more month! It seems to be all disapearing to quick. I've said many times before but perhaps not online that Shanghai seems somewhat like a dream.
I mean it would be so easy to just stay here forever, it's like a magical land where I can live a brilliant life earning loads of dosh just because I'm born in a western country. I just turn up without any degree/experience/money and can get a job which pays 10000rmb a month if you know where to go.
Which is of course actually very unfair seeing as a salary for an educated chinese person could just be 1000rmb...

hmmm...

Nanjing today! Scary meetings as well. Not to mention two more lessons!

Ben

Ok I've been inspired, blog posts everyday from now on. Except maybe not Saturday I'm in Nanjing... but after that for sure!
Today was my free day off, which I expect you to know from studying my timetable below in depth.
I woke up really late which resulted in a bit of panic as today was 'Bad Betty' day and we had arranged to meet at the flowery cow at one and when I woke up it was twelve. Being Clark Kent/Harry Potter (delete as appropriate) has it's advantages obviously as I managed to be only 10 minutes late. A supernatural act I think...

Lunch->present buying->park going->meeting Albin for dinner.

Due to a new teacher coming to the school my first lesson is canceled tomorrow which is nice. I've hardly taught this week...
After school I'm meeting Betty's Father. Scary. Then meeting at 6 for the train to Nanjing. If you want to see an itinerary go here...http://www.xubo.org/monthly-gathering.html

ben

Wednesday - my old arch enemy. Firstly I thought you might like to see this...this is my current timetable:

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9.15-950	C3G5	C5G5			C3G5
10.10-10.45	C1G5		C3G2
10.55-11.30	C2G5		C2G2		C4G5
LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH	LUNCH
12.50-13.25			C1G3		C1G2
13.35-14.10	C1G3	C4G5	C5G5		C2G5
14.20-14.55			C1G5

As you can see Wednesdays are my most busy day but what you don't see is that they are also the worst classes! My grade 3 is by far and away the worst class out of an already awful year group and I had to break up another fight in G5G5 today. I tried to teach them how to play chinese wispers and wink murder... neither worked.
I spend the whole week building up my confidence with the children then let wednesday slowly destroy everything i've built up. It's really not satisfying.
I feel I should mention that on the whole I really enjoy teaching but I feel more up for talking about the bad parts it seems.

Tonight is Sebastians going home party so another late night for me

Ben

Ok so I have now been away to my secret destinations and arrived back safe and sound. This weekend has been super ace because Monday was a school holiday and the previous Friday was the field trip which meant my weekend was really long!
Whoever told me Chinese people love to do things spontantiously was right because the first thing I had heard about the field trip was when my supervisor, called Lily, text me the night before. It was such a nice change though and I think the children really enjoyed themselves.
The place we went to was a bit of a cross between a zoo, a theme park and a safety education place. They taught the kids all about what to do in a earthquake (using a really funny earthquake simulator) what to do if there is a fire and so on. There was also animals to look at (bad conditions) as well as like fairground type rides...



In case you're wondering I think visa application was successful and I need to go back next week. I actually kinda needed it on friday for when I go to Nanjing but I think it should be ok. If I don't write again then it's probably best to assume I am in Chinese prison.

Saturday again was very fun. For 'busy Ben day' we decided to go to Ikea. The epitomy of things I dislike (no offence to my Swedish audience). It's not Ikea itself I don't like, actually the opposite I quite enjoy playing with all the furtinure and stuff, but it's the crowds! I've dubbed it the 'Ikea sickness'. Perhaps it's a phobia caused by my parents dragging me around the one in London for hours on end who knows! I think everyone (but me as I can't eat them) was pleased to get their swedish meatballs though haha!
We then met with Alex and Ben(was that his name or maybe it should of been?) - two canadians working as English teachers (REAL English teachers with REAL money and a REAL apartment (*drool*, this is whatI should have) - who had decided they NEEDED to buy a Wii with Rock Band and Guitar Hero. After about 2 hours trying to find all of the above we ended up back at their (really good) appartment. Playing some computer games was exactly what I needed and even though I sucked it was a lot of fun!
Man I'm so jealous. I'm a bit annoyed at the moment because the school has decided that we are not allowed any visiters to the school. Which is really rubbish because Boxinglu is so far away from everywhere and if people do come here they have to leave straight away. Not even Betty can come it seems oh so stupid! This is why I am jealous., plus I just realised yesterday that I spend more on taxi's that I do anything else. The only thing I've been able to actually buy for myself (apart from food and going out) is my guitar which feels abit bad. 8000RMB sounds good right now... A moan for another day perhaps...?

Sunday was the trip to Wuxi. Wuxi is a little city about 50 minutes train ride outside of Shanghai (don't ask me the distance or direction - I don't know)
The city was a bit boring in all honestly but the main attraction was it's wonderful 'Scenic Spot' which contained a boating lake, a cable car, a temple... EVERYTHING.

So yesterday was April Fools day and the school has especially asked me to do a 'special lesson' for the 3rd graders. The original plan was to pretend I had broken my arm but surprisingly my mother did not force me to pack any bandages or slings and I didn't want to try and ask the pharmacy in case they got the wrong idea and thought my arm was broken or something (plus I felt quite lazy). Instead I opted for pretending I had changed my name to the unpronounceable 'Xochiptzihuatl'. Sadly I don't think quite a lot of people were really listening to my explanation about April fools day and therefore weren't really getting the joke. I think some people actually think I've changed my name as well. Ohh well...

Tomorrow apparently the school is going on a trip to somewhere and asked if I wanted to go with them so I said yes. I have no idea where the trip is too or when I get back. I really need to be back kinda early thought because I need to go the visa office!
I'm also going somewhere on Sunday. I really need to listen more perhaps.

Ben

So here a group picture of us outside M2 club on Wednesday night for my birthday. Most of us are in it...


So on Saturday night I went to see Battles at the Dream Factory in Shanghai. Battles were mega ace, but the support bands I'm not so sure about. The first one I saw (We ended up missing one) was like a Chinese math rock band, a bit Ed Fitzy actually so I enjoyed them (as long as they didn't sing in English...). The band before Battles were uber lame though I thought, but I guess I'm not too into techno/classic rock/screamo thing. They were wearing leather jackets and smoking on stage too. I mean how cool!

...but yes, Battles were super awesome. They started with Race out (10 cool points there) and they played all the tunes, Tonto (was AMAZING), Atlas and Tras etcc. They did such a aweful encore though. You know that bad song off the album. Yep. That one.



After Battles we ended up walking to Peoples Square, which was actually a very long way! It took so long that by the times we got back to the volunteer flat it was like 6am haha. It was fun!

This morning was really aweful, probably as a result of the point mentioned before, but I woke up at 9.10 when my class started at 9.15. I didn't even have the lesson planned so I stumbled into the classroom with absolutly no idea what to do which was very fun... Go go gadget improvisation.
After school Betty and I met in Peoples Sqaure and went to the Bund, then through this really cool park (which we found by total accident) and made our way by ABSOLUTE fluke to Yu Gardens. I've actually posted some pictures of it before when I went with Albin, Eva and her friends. It was really nice though and we went to this ace dumpling place - where I made a total mess.

It'ss been a good week.




Ben

I feel ashamed. 6 days without blogging, I'm like the scurge of the bloggers, the lowest of the low.

Cut me some slack though, it's been a busy busy week. My birthday, Alex leaving, finding out Alex was leaving, and this evening I'm seeing Battles/saying goodbye to Anna. So good and bad things are both happening.

On Wednesday we had a joint Ben's birthday/Alex's leaving party and it was so good! I couldn't have possibly asked for a better celebration, I was a bit upset by noone knowing it was my birthday at the school. I thought perhaps they would say happy birthday or something but nope haha, but it was really made up by the amazing evening.

Props to Betty for these pictures that I stole without asking...

Ok well I went to Shaolin si and I got back so now I guess the last part of the adventure is to write about it.
It was a really amazing trip and I'm very glad I went despite having a few last minute reservations about the cost/fun ratio. It cost me about 1000Rmb but I think it was worth it just to get a taste of life outside of Shanghai. I mean why bother coming to China if you don't venture out into the actual country. I really don't see the point, but anyway.

So we started on friday after work. We booked the train for 5.40pm and it was easy to sort out because the Shanghai terminal has an english speaking booth. The 13 hour train journey loomed over us like a dagger, but moral was suprisingly high! 6 volunteers went on the trip. It actually ended up being the perfect amount because there are 6 beds to a compartment.






Ok lets keep going, well the trip there was quite uneventful to be honest. Chocolate sandwiches were probably the most funny thing as seen in picture 4, and a small toddler I made friends with...

The next day at around 8am we arrived in Zhengzhou. I actually slept quite well, the rocking motion of the train acted sort of like some sort of cradle and was relaxing in a strange way. The city is much less developed than Shanghai and was of little real intrest. When we arrived we needed to buy train tickets to return to Shanghai. As there was no English speaking booth I had to try and use my mandarin to get us our tickets. I was fine at saying we wanted to go to Shanghai etc but as soon as they tryed to tell us that we couldn't all sleep in the same compartment I got very confused. Luckly it was fairly easy to sort out as we phoned Jessie to translate for us!
We also needed to buy bus tickets to get from the city to the temples, and I am still quite uncertain of whether we got ripped off or not, but somehow we ended up paying twice for the bus. then again for the temple. hmmm. Well either way I really enjoyed the tour. The bus took us to 3 different temples. The first one was very small and obviously wasn't used by monks anymore but only for money making by tour guides. I felt slighly cheated when we arrived there because I felt like the 15 hours(including bus) of travelling didn't seem to quite deserve this but it got better...





Next to temple number 2. Don't ask me the names, Appart from the actual Shaolin temple I didn't really understand where we were going...






and just to prove they still exist...




Next stop (after lunch) was the Shaolin Scenic Spot. Sadly we didn't see it all. I'd have loved to spend more time there but when we got there it was about 1.30 and we had to leave at 4.00 to get back in time for our train. But it was still amazing. Monks are really money grabbing though. I mean Jesus Christ! I guess it's just the chinese culture but there was little you could do without paying. The first thing you see as you get to the first temple type thing is a large bell and someone next to it who asks you if you want to ring it. My friend rang the bell and as soon as he did he was asked for money because he rang the bell! Nice start.
The first thing we did really was watch the kung fu show. It was amazing! It made me want to go and do some Karate even more. Urghhh. But before the show 5 monks stood on stage to pose for a picture you could be in (which cost 20rmb). I did get one, but I don't like it too much. I wasn't really too sure what was going on so I didn't pose very well haha...
I don't have it on my camera so that is one you'll have to see when I get home.


Then they allowed three volunteers from the audience to join the stage to perform kata (forms) with the monks and two of my friends were chosen!









Next we looked around one of the temples. There were so many monks around you could almost believe it was 500 years ago or whatevrr/




I think that pretty much sums it all up as much as one can in a blog post. The train journey back was quite entertaining I though. I had a interesting conversation using just the mandarin I knew with some people who couldn't speak any english. I was actually really fun! Later two younger chinese guys came along who could kind of string together some semi understandable english so me, two other volunteers and 5 or 6 chinese guys had a good conversation. It was really fun, and actually helped my mandarin. I was able to see if they understood what I was saying etc.

Good night for now,
Wan shang hao way sian zai ( maybe/maybe not right...)

Ben