Happy Birthday!

Verdict on birthdays in Chinaland...very cool! Wednesday night the program leaders threw a suprise party for all the birthdays happening during this training month, incidently, mine was in that catagory, so, upon stage with about 9 others and sung 'Happy Birthday' in all the represented languages. We had Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, German, Dutch, Polish and a few others... it was like having just the one plain English version on your birthday but 10 times more embarrassing. But very sweet. Anyway, all the birthday people got a cake each, a crown and a present. Then we had a pub quiz type thing. My team came joint 3rd out of 9 or 10 i believe.

Then, my birthday, i had classes during the day but in the evening i went to dinner with, what i thought would be just Josie and Jenny, turned out to be 13 of us which was really cool. Had a gorgeous meal, and if i haven't said before, China...so cheap! £48 for 13 of us! And it was a really nice restaurant too! Then finally, the bar district here. In one bar one of our lot told the bar staff it was my birthday, to which i was took one stage, sung happy birthday to in English and Chinese and given a 2nd crown and a 2nd cake. Very yummy. The have sponge cakes full of fresh exotic fruits! Really nice! I was given a free drink of rice wine in another bar down the road, it's not good. In fact, it's disgusting.

And today, i climbed the Great Wall! Yes! I finally felt, yeah...I'm in China. But, i didn't realise how tiring that wall could be, it's so steep! I was shattered! We managed 5 towers from the entrance in the time we were allowed to explore. We visited the Ming Tombs afterwards which was dull, but nice for a break. There was a nice picnics sort of area surrounding it so it was really pleasant. Then onto the Olympic area this evening. We saw it as it went from daylight to darkness so from being not lit up to all the lights on, gorgeous, so inspiring! They blast out that 'One world, one dream' song over the PA surrounding the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. Very Cheesy, but it works! :P

I'm going ice skating tomorrow afternoon which will be very cool! Oh and I'm very proud of me, i managed to buy myself a phone, just a cheapy nokia for my Chinese Sim Card but i was all aloney and there are lots of fakes and things that just don't work here so i was a little nervous. For all those on facebook, just to let you know I'm having some difficultly getting on it so it might be quite unkept. I can read your wall posts though because it emails me those so thank you all so much for the lovely messages, you just make me miss you more.

Plenty of love and hugs for you all! xxx