Been awhile.

So China. I went there again. We had our second teaching attachment trip, and I was in Nanjing. We flew out of Hong Kong on Thursday morning and came back not that Sunday but the Sunday after that. So 10 days.

We were lodged comfortably in Western style at the Green Tree Inn, which, unlike the hostel in Guangzhou, pretty much opened onto a main street with stores, taxis, and food. We were responsible for most of our own meals, although we did have some arranged dinners which were usually Chinese style banquets. And the hotpot we had the first night. Solid mushroom hotpot. I've never eaten that many mushrooms, being not a huge fan, and to be honest, I'm not sure I even was aware of the fact that there were so many edible mushrooms.

I got, as expected, what I shall refer to as the Tour Guide syndrome while in Nanjing. Hanging out with a bunch of people who, not to put to fine a point on it, are clearly foreigners, all people turn to me to translate. Which makes it even funnier when one of the other ETAs busts out their putonghua instead. I can pretty much only say thank you, and even that I manage to mess up by thanking people in Cantonese instead of Mandarin. Of course, now that I'm back in Hong Kong, I want to thank everyone in Mandarin now.

Our duties were pretty straightforward. We were teaching at an Institute that was across the Yangtze River, so we took a bus back and forth twice a day. It is a huge river, and the bridge is forever long, and the traffic is crazy. Also, interestingly, there are bus stops in the middle of the bridge, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You'd think that once you were on a bus on the bridge you would just want to cross all the way over, not get off midway and catch another bus. Anyway, we mostly worked with small groups of students...intensive talking and such. They had some questions already developed, but a lot of it was just impromptu. We also did a games morning which was pretty fun. Sack races, three-legged races, limbo, relays, etc. We ate at the canteen on campus for lunch. And we had a guest room on campus so that during our long breaks we could go chill out (literally...I was not prepared for how cold it was).

I also went to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, twice actually. Once with just a couple other ETAs and once with my group of eight. It's intense, gloomy. I have no idea how it compares to the Holocaust Memorial, but this one did not beat around the bush and had a fair amount of brutal photographs and stories in addition to more innocuous artifacts.

I got sick upon returning...tummy troubles. Went to the ER and when I had told them that I had been in China, they just nodded and said 'Ah, so you ate dirty food.' *shrug* I'm feeling better, but still pretty shaky. I just ate my first decent meal in a couple days, and it may or may not have agreed with me. But then again, curry fried rice may or may not have been the nicest thing to give it. I'm just so sick of bread and crackers.

We're starting up projects at new primary schools next week in addition to continuing our duties at the primary school on campus. Much of the other responsibilities are falling off as students leave campus. And I...I need to crack down on the whole studying thing.

Anyway, it's Friday, I've spent the majority of the last five days in my bed feeling miserable. It reminded me uncannily of the early parts of September and November. *shudder*