Swinging chairs, Lady Gaga and a mid-afternoon sing song

So, nearly six weeks in Harbin and I feel pretty settled. I'm not sure I would call myself a fully-fledged "local" - I'm yet to unashamedly spit flem onto the street - but I've got a routine, I've joined the gym, I'm even getting into the whole haggling effort. I wouldn't quite go as far as saying home from home but we've found a local bar, a local snooker place and a local lunch time restaurant.

The local bar was an excellent find. There is a distinct lack of places in Harbin where you can drink without having to eat so when we spotted a sign flashing "PUB" in neon pink we thought we'd explore. In all honesty, I thought it would be a hole, but to our great suprise it was pretty good; they had swing chairs and everything. Chairs that you can swing on! Although if you were to actually swing on them you'd wreck the majority of the place and probably cause a few injuries along the way. So they function in pretty much the same way as stationary furniture. Ten out of ten for novelty though. So we drank beer and smoked apple Shisha and sang Karaoke until the place started to empty out. Being full of beer an' all we didn't want to go home. We wanted MORE. So we trekked in the remains of the snow for about a mile to a supposed club (it was all Simon's idea) to find that it was shut. Really though what did we expect, it was a Monday night after all. I went home and ate egg fried rice.

On Friday afternoon we were taken by Sarah, a Chinese student to KTV or, as we know it, Karaoke. Now, this isn't the end of the night - drunken - won't remember the next day type of karaoke that us Westerners are used to. This is the middle of the day - sober - unfortunately WILL remember the next day type that seems so popular in this part of the world. We were escorted into a booth where suddenly we all felt rather self conscious at the prospect of singing infront of each other. Once we got started, however, there was no stopping us. We were belting out tunes all over the shop and it was the most fun ever! Mid- afternoon Karaoke is definately the way forward.

The weekend was full up of lessons for most of us. I felt like I was beggining to get the hang of this teaching malarchy - in fact I realised that its actually quite fun. I've kind of put together a structure for most of my lessons including drilling, games, chants and pairwork that can be adapted to any topic. Also, due to the fact that we are told what we are teaching about 30 seconds before our lessons I've learnt to think on my feet and come up with games and activities as I go along. So there I was pretty pleased with my progression, then Tuesday morning came along - BAM - I felt as if the floor beneath me had been swept away, as if I'd been smacked in the face, as if my whole world had crumbled apart (okay maybe a slight exaggeration). I found myself standing in front of the most intimidating class yet. A class full of TWO YEAR OLDS. (see Kindergarten Cop blog).

Monday morning was an early start as some of us attended English Corner. Talk about yourself for half an hour? Check. Free Breakfast? Check. Free taxi there? Check. It didn't take much to persuade me, especially as I'm a morning person anyway. So we were each assigned a group of university students to chat to for half an hour about well, anything we liked really. Although the topic of conversation just kept coming back to the same things. However hard I tried to steer the conversation away from Avatar and Lady Gaga they just kept creeping back in. "So Roger, you live with you Mother and Father?" "Yes they like Avatar very much, they went to the cinema to watch it with me". "Right... Okay, and Susan do you play any sports?" "Yes, Karaoke, I like to sing Lady Gaga." A country that counts Karaoke as a sport? My kind of country.

After a breakfast which included a sort of egg and sausage McMuffin (better than the Maccy D's version) we had two hours of Chinese lessons followed by a lesson on teaching. Basically an opportunity for us to discuss how our teaching is going, sharing tips and advice as well as performing 5 minute lessons to each other. Acting as the students was the most fun ever! Especially when PJ got FAR too into his role and was so eager to win the animal game he completely stacked it. HILARIOUS. I literally couldn't stop laughing.

So once again, a very busy, productive week. I'm starting to get into this whole China thing. Still not convinced on Lady Gaga though. Maybe they can persuade me in English corner next week. Maybe not.

Thats all folks xx