from beijing to hengxian (not very inventive, but it'll get better).

sooo, where are we up too... ahh yes, the 4 am make up call! how terribly delightful!
got up and realied i wasnt as packed as i thought, so had a mad rush to get everything in pack and down stairs by 4.30. lost one of my padlocks, which ended up being at the bottom of my pack, but it meant that most of my clothes in the bottom pocket of my bag were vulnerable for the entire trip =[
got given a "breakfast box" on the bus. mine contained a pastry like edible, which was quite nice, but contained a solid slab of something green that looked like seaweed flavoured jelly. i avoided that bit. said good bye to everyone at the airport, except for four gappers who were flying later. checked in without any problems, except that my bag had magically gained weight even though i didnt buy anything in beijing.
just to show you how good chinese airport security is: i took a pocket knife onto the plane in my hand luggage =D accidently of course. they scanned my bag yet didnt notice it was in there, and i had completely forgotton about it.
flight was ok, slept for most of it though. the woman infront of us put her seat back just after take off, told us to shut up, and went to sleep. this of course made us giggle for a good 5 minutes, all the while eliciting evil glares from the man next to her, who we assumed was some sort of male relation and not just an angry passanger.
arrived in nanning at about 11am found our luggage with out any troubled (thankfully my unprotected clothes had not been violated), and were met by our link teacher betty and the school driver. they had a very cute sign with our names on it. caitlin and lauren were met by their link teacher, shadow, who started stroking their arms and saying "ohhhhh, so beautiful!". our link teacher has studied in canada, so we didnt get that kind of reception. on the way out she asked us if we would like to go out for lunch and we declined, but realised that gap may not have informed them of our vegetarianism (carina is also vegetarian). we had assumed they wouldd have, but it occured to us on the plane that they may have left that responsibility up to us... it appears this was the case. fortunatly she was shocked but not mortified as we had expected. on the way to hengxian (pronounced hung-she-en), we pulled over; turns out betty decided we needed food anyway. we were a bit apprehensive as to how she would take the whole vegetarian thing - turns out she understood perfectly! the food was nice, but the drinks... chinese people dont drink alot of water, especially not at meal times; they always drink tea. however we were lucky enough to experience the wonders oooofff...... corn juice! yes corn juice. it is really just pureed corn. warm purred corn. its actually not that bad. but i would never drink it again. ever. its weird.

we arrived at our school and were shown to our ground floor apartment. tis very big, but terribly cold. its all tiles, and a bit drafty, but im sure it'll be great in summer. we have seperate bedrooms, a lounge/computor room, a laundry, something you could call a kitchen if you wanted to, and a bathroom with a western toilet. we also have a squat toilet, but thats acting as a drain for the washign machine. we've called it 'the wooden palace', because everything is made of wood. everything. all the furniture is wood, the COUCHES are wood, and i swear on my life that the matresses have wood in them some where. we've called the bathroom 'the swamp', because there is no seperate shower cubicle, so the water just goes straight onto the floor and down a drain. but the drain is a bit dodgy, so it floods a bit first, hence the name. everything is brand new, because they've never had gapper before so thats nice.

that night betty and lily took us out for dinner to meet all the other english teachers. we rode to the restraunt in a vehicle that is very hard to describe. its a kind of three wheeled motorbike thing, with an area at the back to sit in, but not like a rickshaw. i shall get a photo of one so you can see. the dinner was nice except they kept trying to feed us an eggplant dish that had chicken in it. we just kept ignoring it. and they gave us more corn juice...

the 21st was the lantern festival, the last day of the spring/new year festival, so children were letting off crackers and fire works. we told our link teachers that in australia you need a permit to let of fire works and whatnot, and they were very shocked. they offered to take us to buy some after dinner, an offer we hastily excepted. we bought 60Y of fireworks and crackers, and took them back to the school to let of on the oval. they were spectacular! one of them started shooting balls of fire or something along the ground, a spectacle we were not prepared for, and one of them hit carina in the leg, twas hilarious! some of the smaller ones were these amazing showers of sparks, and one of them was like fireworks we get at home; huge colourful explosions in the sky.
one of them was a dud, so lily went and returned it, so we have a spare one to let off next celebration.

that night all we heard was the sound of fireworks. it was a very exciting welcome to our new home.