Well it's safe to say that the journey back home was much less eventful and all round enjoyable than the journey out here was. Not that that would be difficult.Our last night ended up being really nice: those of us who were still there just bought [...]

One of my favourite favourite things about China (and indeed, about most foreign countries new to me) has been the food. I've tried so many different things since I've been here, more than half of which I pretty much didn't know existed before I came. I've [...]

The trip is coming to a close, and I am sad.It's been a brilliant three weeks, filled with Chinese food and late nights and struggles to get to grips with a completely alien language. I've tried to start my packing early and hated every minute of [...]

Blog 5 ChinaSo I had one of the best weekends I've ever had.Saturday morning saw us all stumbling out of bed, bleary-eyed at 7am, in time to catch the coach to Mount Tai in the morning as part of our ongoing 'cultural education'. As ever, we [...]

Two weeks down, one to go - this trip has felt like it's been put on fast forward but simultaneously that we've been here forever. I still don't know all of the people on the trip (I mean, there are about 70 of us, and we're [...]

Mandarin is a really bloody difficult language.I mean, I'm not the most adept when it comes to language-learning in general - even after living in France for five months over summer I can barely sustain a conversation in French - but seriously, this stuff is HARD. [...]

So I've only been here a few days and my determination to write something pretty much every day has waned as usual, but it's a combination of tiredness and busy-ness that has foiled my plans so I don't feel too bad. As long as it's something [...]