Back to the balcony I return for my next update.  After writing Saturday’s episode we headed out to catch the England game (unfortunately they won!) but in the bar I found myself sitting between an American and an Englishman, who was born in Scotland, so in supporting the USA I earned a pint or too.  After the game finished we ended up playing ‘winner stays on pool’ with some local Chinese guys.  Here, I learned my first useful pieces of mandarin – good shot and bad shot – the latter being used more often!  In fact, I lost on the black ball to the local maestro.

As for hockey, well that was a non-event.  The pitch had been double booked therefore we were unable to play.  I did, however, meet some of the team and they seem a friendly bunch (mainly expats – Australians, Dutch and German) so I will try again next Sunday.  Hopefully by then it won’t be quite so hot.  Today it hit 34°C and was quite pleasant as it’s less muggy.   To be honest I’m back on the balcony in glorious sunshine and around 29°C J.

As for today, we headed to the university for our first full day.  This morning consisted of a “Welcome Ceremony” so we didn’t get any real classes in – the fun begins tomorrow.

This afternoon, we had our first kung fu lesson with Mr Wong our ridiculously flexible instructor.  After being kitted out in cool kung fu gear, we started with a warm up and allegedly “simple stretches” followed by various kung fu moves … despite looking more Billy Elliot than Jackie Chan I thoroughly enjoyed this.  Hopefully by the end of the ten months I’ll be doing cartwheels without my hands like Mr Wong!!! Then again ... maybe I won’t! 

Anyway I’m off to get some grub now, I may not be writing again for a while as tomorrow I have lessons then a meeting with British Council, so it’ll be head down from now on!  David x