Winter Holidays

He he, i'm running out of excuses why i'm not maintaining this blog. I checked it out again after leaving it for a long time and I was surprised to realise that the last time I posted anything was the Summer holidays! It's now winter, or more correctly spring, if you follow the Chinese lunar calendar which i'm tempted to do because the last few days havent been as biterly cold as the winter here and the sunshine actually has some warmth to it when it makes an appearance.

Its now well and truly 2009 which is a bit scary because the years seem to be going by so quickly recently. Anyway, here is a bit of an update. Sarika is off the scene and i'm now living with a girl called Lisa, who is not my girlfriend by the way, just a good friend and life at home is very happy and peaceful at the moment. Work at school is still fun and although not perfect on a daily basis, i've signed up for another year there and that begins again on the 25th of this month. It will be the first time in a long time that i've worked at a place for more than a year and definitely the first time that i've ever taught the same grade and subject for two years in a row so i'm really looking forward to this year. Actually knowing what is ahead is a real novelty.

It's now almost a year to the day since I made the decision to come over here and I don't have plans to take off any time soon. My apartment is nice and i've got some good money coming in. I'm even starting to study a bit of the language which is very liberating as none of the locals speak English. I even had my first real holiday in a long time. After experiencing the bitter cold in Beijing last winter I definitely wanted to go south this year to escape the cold. However since i'm in China I also wanted to stay in China and have a look about here since this is where I live. Next time i'm going to go to Thailand or Vietnam, but this time I went to the southern cities of Guilin, Yangshou, Chengdu and also Sanya which is on Hainan Island. Reportedly, China's very own Hawaii.

I had a fun filled two and a half weeks and I now have a better understanding of the diversity of this big country and I've also seen and experienced some iconic Chinese things.

Here's a few links to the pictures in my album. I hope you enjoy! :)