saying goodbye and travels so far.....

Well its been a while since I wrote, so here it is. At the weekend we went to Hangzhou, to spend sometime with Laura and Kate who work there! We did many things such as going shopping and we also went to a place called Westlake, which in theory is actually a death trap, I only say this because we decided it would be a good idea to ride a bike around the lake, I didn’t realise this would entail going actually onto the main road, baring in mind the traffic here is horrible and people just do what they want, also no helmet or protection in any way haha! It was so much fun, but terrifying at the same time!!! We also got onto a boat for a little ride, it was fun but again we just spent the first 10 minutes screaming because it was so rocky and then the guy rowing the boat felt the need to actually make it worse!!! People here also tend to see white people as money and will try to make as much money as possible out of you, so although the boat had a sign saying 80rmb, one of them tried to charge us 240rmb, which is about £24!! I no these people have little, but when you come to a country like this you have to realise you cant be taken in by the money factor. These people have little money, the prices of things over here are so cheap that really they don’t need that much, and although sometimes you feel really guilty, you have to haggle and not pay over the odds for silly things. When we arrived back in Ningbo on Saturday it was beccas birthday!!! We went out to the local bar where on of our new friends organise a cake and drinks for us all!! It was so good! After this we met some more English people who took us to a club! Well what you can sort of call a club. Here they play a game, I’m not sure what it is called but basically, you each have around 5 dice under a cup, then you shake them and look at which number you have under your cup, and how many of the same number you have, say if you have two number 3s under your cup, then you bet on how many of the 3s are under everyone’s cups, and if no one bets above you, you will win. If you say something they cant bet over and its wrong then you have shot drinks, which was an interesting game. Its also an easy way to get drunk for free as we found out, as you literally go around to any table who is playing the game and join! (Then just keep losing) I think we should have this game in England. We finally arrived home at 6am in the morning! Not good! Anyway the day after was spent getting ready for our evaluation! It was ok, we just mostly wrote things up and that’s it! Plus we were all hangover so it was an interesting day trying to get the work done! On Monday it was the big evaluation! It went well I think although we did have problems with the power points, think this was due to the fact the software on macs is better then PCs, so some of the pictures didn’t show up and also a lot of the time it took a good 10 mins to get them to work at all I think maybe jasmine wasn’t best impressed but there wasn’t much we could really do to prevent it! All in all it went well and at around half 4 we went back to rooms to pack!! In the morning it was an early one as we still had packing to do and also was off out for dinner with our supervisors! It was good and nice to say goodbye, but then it was off home again to finish the packing!!! When we eventually did, it was half 4 and we were getting picked up to go to the airport!! It was a 2-hour drive to the airport hotel and when we arrive it was time to say goodbye to tong tong! This was awful!!!! So upsetting!!! We were all in tears and she was worse then us!! We miss her loads!!!! In the morning we were up early for our flight, which set off at 7.40! Finally we arrive in Xi’an! It was around 12, when we got to the hotel and freshened up! So once we had done this we went to the Xi’an wall and rented a bike! This was good at first, actually fun, until I realised it was 8 MILES LONG!!! 2 hours later and very tiered I was ready for home, not to mention getting a little red as the temps out here are like 30 degrees! After we took a walk to the Muslim markets and saw the drum and bell towers! It was good as well as practising out haggling skills! Thee hostel really nice too!! They are really friendly and we are enjoying being here!! Today we went to the terracotta army! It was amazing!!! I would upload photos but the Internet isn’t good here so I don’t think it will work well!! But when I get home ill defo be uploading them all!! Only less then 2 weeks and I’m back in England it’s been a mad 6 weeks so far! Anyway tomorrow ill be going to Beijing I hope to post again but it depends on the Internet connection!! Anyway if not ill see you all when I’m back home!!! Toddle pip!!