THE WEEKEND HAS LANDED.

BAM. BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND! It's arrived. This is the weekend of dreams. The weekend where anything can happen. Three days of pure bliss. No "teacher-me!"'s for an entire 72 hours. Brilliant.

Friday night we excitedly hit a pub quiz. We heard about it through some Westerners that Rob has got to know so decided to check it out. We were greeted at the door by women in masks and full length fur capes, naturally. They ushered us downstairs apparently knowing where we wanted to go and directed us into a room. We entered and were greeted by about 70 Westerners. It was the most surreal thing I have encountered since being in China. Americans, Canadians, Kiwi's, Australians, Irish, English all crammed into a room that was so hot I thought I might pass out. We found a table, sat down and stared. Who would have thought I would be so amazed at seeing Westeners - that is what two and a half months in China does to you. So anyway the quiz began. By the end of the first round I hadn't answered a single question, I couldn't even understand the questions let alone know the answers! I just reassured myself that my topic hadn't come up yet. Second round - still couldn't answer a thing. Luckily the other team members were on fire and The Quizee Rascals were doing pretty well. But I had a funny feeling people were starting to notice I was keeping quiet so I made a conscious effort to act as if I knew what was going on. Blurting out phrases such as "its on the tip of my tongue", "Ahh I know this..." or (after a person has said the answer) "Ahh yes - you beat me to it". This was also exaggerated with a lot of nodding and back slapping. After four torturous rounds the scores were counted and we came second! After an hour and a half of pretending to know answers I was exhausted. I felt I had definitaly earned the prize of a VIP KTV booth and a 200 quai alcohol voucher.

On Saturday we hit the theme park. Now my expectations were pretty low partly due to the fact that from what I have witnessed the Chinese could barely organise a knees up in a brewery let alone the design and restoration of a fully fledged theme park. And partly from what I have seen of China's health and safety policies my confidence in Chinese rollercoasters was somewhat lacking. However, the theme park fully exceeded my expectations and we spent the entire day being flipped over upside down and sideways, being span round until we wanted to puke and being lifted so high into the air our stomachs knotted up so we could barely breathe. But hey ho all in the name of fun. And fun was had by all. We left smiling and clutching our cuddly toys (I won an especially scary looking Russian doll which I swear is cursed. It has no legs) feeling nauseaus.

Sunday was mountain climbing day! We rose at an obscene time to catch a bus out into the country. After a two hour journey we were ready to show the mountain what we're made of and started the climb. About half way up it began to get steeper so we stopped and munched on Oreo's and cake ready for the next installment. We were all pretty proud of ourselves for how quicly we had clambered up and how, so far, it wasn't too much of a strain. If only we had known what was to come. Absolute torture was only a few hundred yards away. After a few more hundred steps we were starting to get pretty tired but the thought "we've come this far, we might as well get to the top" was running through my mind. That thought also caused me to risk my life. The steps stopped and the only way to get to the top was to rock climb, without a harness or a rope. Some people turned back but I found myself hanging off a cliff thinking "what the HELL am I actually doing. I could die". The fact that my legs were uncontrollably shaking was only making the whole experience about ten times worse. We had to scramble in thick mud, snow and ice whilst a stream was trickling over us. The way down was even worse. Whilst trying my very best not to slip and DIE there were Chinese men impatiently attempting to over take me and decided to literally clambour over me whilst I was mid-cliff. Okay so admittedly I was taking about four hours to move one metre but I had to take my time. This was life or death stuff. Anyhow, I came across what I can only describe as a Chinese spiderman who patiently showed me where to put my feet by literally grabbing them and placing them in holes for me. After descending from the cliff we had about a million steps to go down and my legs were still uncontrollably shaking from the cliff climb and from the general strain of the day. When we reached the bottom I was CAKED in mud, exhausted and quite frankly, traumatized. Generally though, a great day!

Yesterday was lovely. On walking street huge structures have been erected and transformed into open beer and food tents. We got there mid-afternoon and sat in the glorious sunshine eating and drinking Harbin beer. We also made a friend who decided to sit with us for five hours and feed us sweets although he didn't really speak any English and we don't really speak any Chinese (its a working progress). When we left however he whispered five words into Mary's ear, words that had such an effect they left her speechless; "I've.Got.A.Double.Bed". What a charmer! I guess he must have just learnt that one English phrase to woo all the ladies with - but unfortunately he was left dissapointed as Mary said goodbye and we all drunkely set off to cash in our pub quiz prize.

Back to teaching today. This morning I felt like a kid going back to school after the summer holidays. Mentally I was stamping my foot and having a tantrum. But kids need to be taught and Kindergarten ended up being okay. The kids are even being toilet trained! Things are definitely improving.

Thats all for now folks xx