It's all party, party, party...

For your viewing pleasure:

1. Andy and his friend the dragon shrimp (direct translation - does anyone know if these things have an English name?)
2. Our school campus, looking very jolly in the sunshine!
3. Merry making at Lin Xiao Feng's birthday party.

1. My babies on their sports' day parade!
2. The fantabulous twins (nope, they're not identical. Honest.)
3. Another, erm, eye catching Chinese birthday cake (note the presence of a candle in the polar bear's eye - muhahahaha!)

I'm freeeeeeee

Believe it or not I have another week's holiday! Woo hoo! Oh yes, it's the May holiday! Well, actually, I exaggerate and so do the school: they have moved our days around a little so that we work the weekend in order to get the following week off! It's all good anyhoo!

I'm thinking of venturing to a funky little town called Pingyao in Shanxi Province, but it's tricky to get train tickets there from here (as if purchasing train tickets in China isn't tricky enough!), so we shall see...

Here are a few more Spring Festival snapshots:

1. Ma Lynch at the Shaolin Temple
2. Looking up inside the Shaolin Temple
3. Mart Lynch with his piece of the Great Wall (vandal)
4. Us in Beijing on Chinese new year (yes, I'm choking on a cigar) (thanks to Jeremi for the photo!)
5. Us and our new buddies in Xian. Emma, Bernadette, Leon and Dave: hello you wonderful people!

Happy, happy Easter one and all!

This picture has been a source of endless amusement to me ever since I first saw it. I think it's just wonderful! The mere thought of it kept me sniggering throughout much of the train journey to Beijing last weekend, which was a good thing because an older man opposite me starting having a shouting fit approximately a third of the way into our travel time. (Not due to my sniggering - I hope!).













Ah yes, so I went to Beijing for a little outing and had myself a jolly time. I bumped into some Shijiazhuang friends in a bar and subsequently didn't do ANY clothes shopping at all, but nooooo regrets, no regrets! I did eat REAL fish and chips and drank Snowballs: oh, the luxury! I also ended up on the top bunk in a youth hostel YET AGAIN! I am yet to get a bottom bunk - the bunkbed gods clearly resent me.

Long overdue Spring Festival photos ahoy...

My dorm in the Captain's Hostel, Shanghai.














People's Park, Shanghai.