The penultimate week to half term, and we are certainly ready for the break. Matt's Gran arrives on Wednesday, so lots to look forward to next week. This week started off with the birthday of a new friend. We took him to the Korean BBQ place that we went to a couple of months ago. He loved it, and it was so delicious! Our other friend's parents are over at the moment, so they came too. His Mum said it was her favourite meal of the trip so far, so I'm glad we recommended it.
We also had a birthday in my office. One of her EAL students who plays the french horn, came in to surprise her by playing happy birthday at break time. It was so cute!
Matt and I went to the fake market to buy some bits to brighten up Gran's room for next week - the giant fan in the picture below. We stopped for a lunch of wantons, spring rolls, dumplings and peanut chicken. Yum!
I also bought some bits to bury for my Archaeology club. We are doing a dig in a couple of weeks time, so I will bury the two bowls, the three warrior figures and the wooden game pieces (Chinese chess). Matt bought a teapot and some jasmine tea - our new favourite drink.
On Wednesday night I spent the night sleeping at the Shanghai Aquarium with year 4. We left after school - I still did my club after school, so was pretty tired before we had even left. We had the aquarium to ourselves, which was cool, and had a tour and a talk until about 9pm. Then, the children could decide if they wanted to sleep in the shark tunnel or in the stingray room. Lots opted for the tunnel, but I went for the ray room because it was much darker. The children were asleep by about 11 - a couple of teachers got woken up, but I was lucky and managed to get about 5 hours of sleep, on my blow up mattress - not too bad. The floor of the room was pretty disgusting though, and some little carpet bug bit me throughout the night. I actually enjoyed the evening, it was the next day that I was dreading. We got back to school at about 9, and had breakfast, then it was a full day of normal lessons that I had to teach. I was exhausted by the end of the day!
That, however wasn't the end of the day for me! Matt and I had got free tickets to the first ever National Hockey League match in China. It was the Vancouver Canucks Vs the LA Kings. The Kings won, but we were supporting Vancouver, the underdogs. Our seats were miles away, but we were sitting with lots of other people from work, so it was fun. There were free trader cards of players on our seats, and towels with the match details, which you had to swing around in the air at certain points. The teams had only been allowed into China on the condition that they behaved - no partying, and no fights in the game (fights are lega in NHL and considered a big part of the sport),, so unfortunately, we didn't see any!
A friend from my office, had seats way closer to the action, with lots of spare seats nearby, so we headed down a tier. Matt talked us in past security, and then we were really in the thick of it. The atmosphere was great there, and we had such a fun night.
It took us ages to get home, as our taxi driver went the wrong way, so I didn't get into bed until gone midnight - not great, the night after the aquarium.
Friday night, as you would expect, was a stay in and order pizza night. I slept solidly for about 12 hours! On Saturday evening we went to the head of school's huge house for a BBQ with the rest of the school leadership team. It was a really nice evening - I get on very well with the Assistant Head of Primary, so spent most of the night chatting to her about cats!
Today, we went to the fake market, and have just been relaxing with the cats, ready for a busy week with Matt's Gran, and then a trip to Bejing!
A busy week, but looks like fun!
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