Xi'an - Day 2

Today we visited the Terracotta Army. It was amazing to see, I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Tonight we've had an early night ready for our 4.45 wake up call to set off to Beijing.

Xi'an - Day 1

Airport journey ran smoothly, and despite being a good 30kg overweight as a group we weren’t charged…thank god. Fingers crossed things run as smoothly for Beijing and Hong Kong.

After checking into our amazing hostel we took a bike ride around the ancient city walls. This took roughly 2 hours with a few stops along the way. We rode for 14km in total in scorching heat, 30 degrees plus. It was beautiful to see the old city walls and the contrast of the modern city built up around it.

Goodbye Tong Tong…Tuesday

Today we were taken out for lunch by the tutors where we said our final goodbyes. I got quite sad but we had a lovely meal because they ordered us our favourite dishes and they’ve said we are welcome to go back whenever we like. I’m seriously thinking about this as I’ve really enjoyed my time here.

After a manic few hours doing our final bits of packing we left the dorms at 5pm. As our flight was very early the next day we had a hotel booked next to the airport in Hangzhou. Tong Tong accompanied us on the bus, and when we arrived we had a very sad farewell. I literally love this lady; she has been so good to us over the last few weeks. I honestly don’t think our time would have run so smoothly without her being on call 24/7.

Today was one of the lunar days of the month, which is traditionally a day where the Chinese burn paper objects for their relatives in heaven. As it is the anniversary of my mum’s death on the 20^th of May, I decided to burn some Gold Bullions in a traditional Chinese style. I will burn the rest of my presents for her on the 20^th whilst I’m in Beijing.

Evaluation

The last full day in Ningbo we had our evaluation where we had to do a presentation showing our work from the company, our work that we did whilst we were teaching and also the things we did our spare time. The head designers from each company were present and were marking us on three points, from what I could see the marks were split up as follows; 60% for work placement, 30% for teaching and 10% for cultural experience.

The evaluation went well, I ended up going first because some of the other girls had problems with their powerpoints. I think this was mainly due to the difference between Pc’s and Macbooks but mine worked fine thankfully.

Monday evening we packed our bags ready to leave the next day.

Celebrate Good Times…Saturday

Saturday morning Kate and I had to visit the company for an hour whilst our tutors came to discuss our work.

After a quick lunch we headed back to Ningbo for party celebrations…

Jocelyn & Joseph

Today was our last day at the company, ahh it was so sad. I'm going to miss Jocelyn and Joseph so much. They are so hilarious and cute. Tonight we arranged to go out for dinner with Jocelyn, and the other girls came up from Ningbo to Hangzhou, for Becca’s birthday.

We had a lovely meal and went to a few Chinese bars to see in 12am for the turn of Becca’s 21^st.

West Lake with the Company

Half day in the office today, in the afternoon the company took us to West Lake. Ah, it was so beautiful. The lake was a million times larger than I expected. We went to West Lake with the designers from the company, and we asked if we could go on a bike ride. Little did I know we would be going on a 3 seater bike…wow talk about a sore arse the next day. The 3 seater bike is not great especially when you’re at the back going over pot holes bump-bump-bump!

Not forgetting riding on the roads of terror, we had various near collisions we builidings, cars and other bikers much to the amusement of the designers and the Chinese audience who looked on in utter amazement.

After West Lake we went to a posh 5 Star hotel to have dinner with Mr Chen. He told us last week that he would take us for food that we would never forget. Bless him…Ha Ha Ha. I wouldn’t say it’s the nicest food I’ve ever had but it was delicious for China. It was an all you can eat buffet and I loved having a bit of steak, mash potato, veg and gravy.