Hello! Well I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and took part in eating and drinking copious amounts of food and alcohol. We had a very different day here. Jake and I woke up to open our presents that our wonderful family had sent us, thank you so much for all of them. We then met up with Shawn and Duncan and headed into town to a restaurant/spa. It was quite a weird place; you had to change into these “dressing garments”, which looked worse than Marks and Spencer’s pajamas. We then went to the restaurant, (in these stupid clothes, pink for girls, blue for boys) to find we were 15mins late for the giant buffet dinner, and we had to make do with noodles! After a classy mixture of noodles and red wine sprite cocktail, (don’t ask, it’s a Chinese thing), we all went for a massage. They obviously spotted the foreigners coming a mile off and put us into private rooms and had a girl wearing a minute white outfit come and maneuver out limbs into uncomfortable positions and pummel our backs. Poor Jake didn’t know where to look with a scantily clad girl climbing all over him, bless. They were also very cheeky in giving us more time than we asked on the basis that our friends in the other room had ordered it. They said this to both rooms. Upon realizing we had been chumped, we attempted to try and get some of our money back. By this time, we were late for the school performance and had to grab a KFC on the way home. What a nutritious day.
The school performance was good fun and it was nice to see the kids perform, even though some of it was boring as hell. We then retired to our rooms for some drink and chat. An interesting day to say the least, and I definitely wont forget it!

Ok, I now have a random selection of photos from December in China.
My appartment is now actually looking quite nice, here is a photo of my lounge.
Here is an example of a dish called hot pot. The soup boil away on your table and you add whatever meat and veg you want and pick it out and eat it. It good fun.
Jake and I went to get our 1st Chinese hair cut. They massage your head and arms and neck for ages! it was really relaxing!
I fell asleep.
This is a museum building on the river of Changsha.
It is very impressive and contains literature from famous Chinese writers and Chairmans etc.
More traditional food.
Jake and I. Yes, I think my legs have actually got skinnier! I didn't think this was possible!
More of my beautiful appartment. The Chinese painting on the wall are very traditional. There is one for each season.

Terrifying heights from the top of the mountains!

A really tall rock! this picture doesn't show how big it is!
Duncan and I infront of a huge rock. Looking good!
Another huge drop!

Big rocks!

After a grueling day of walking and some tired heavy legs, we set off in search for more. We decided to climb the biggest mountain. There were cable cars but we were drastically running out of money and thought it would be much more scenic to walk. Besides, how hard could it be…? About two hours and 6000 steps later and still staring up into never ending stairs, we realized we were unfit and stupid. However, there were amazing spectacles all the way up. Just to stop and look at the stairs you have climbed would make us dizzy. It looked like a never ending labyrinth.
We made friends with a family who was also climbing the mountain; the women were steadily walking up in 4 inch heels and carrying a baby. We looked weak and pathetic taking our breather breaks and trying not to collapse because we had to carry our coat.

Another hour or so later, we reached the top to be confronted by a view so amazing and scary it took away all tiredness and pain. Jake didn’t want to come up, and I didn’t blame him. It was a ladder’s climb onto this precariously balanced rock on top of a huge mountain, staring over a vast expanse of jagged rock and withering heights. Jake decided to just climb the first rung on the ladder, however, other people wanted to get up and he was made (with much swearing) to slowly (very slowly) clamber to the top and conquer his fear. With me clinging to the side and Jake shaking in the corner, we didn’t make such a good name for England. After calming down at a small café with tea and noodles, we set of for the mountain trail walk. This walk took us on a circular route with many fantastic views, well worth while. One of the main views was called Five Maiden View. There were 5 rocks in the distance, but the white mist was far too thick to see anything. However, if you shout really loud and continuously, the mist starts to clear and you can see the famous rocks! Crazy huh! We then felt so weak and tired and didn’t think we would make it down the mountain before the heavy fog set in, so we took the cable car down, another terrifying experience for Jake. Poor guy, not his kind of holiday.

Another night of sleeping like the dead and we headed back to Changsha as we had spent all of our money. ZhangJiaJie is a truly fantastic spectacle and worth every amount of sweat and effort to go and see this natural beauty.

We were all dressed real nice to go out walking in the mountains, Jake and Duncan looked like they just walked out of Ikon on a saturday night in Kent. Nice.

The mountains were huge, and the mist made them look very mysterious. I have hundreds of pics, but I'll try and choose the good ones. None of them show the sheer volume of rock.
Jake and Duncan with our guide, and possibly the only clean water in China.
More mountains. The small rock on the centre is supposed to look like a woman holding her baby. See it?
More mountains...

OK, I know it has taken me ages to write up the rest of the trip, but school has suddenly become busy. I am the choreographer for the performance Grease, and there are talent shows etc coming out of my ears. I am also in the final for a teaching competition which involves essays and lots of preparation. Ah.
But…on with the storey. After staying at our slightly horrible hotel, we awoke with hungry tummies and no hotel restaurant. After Jake asked the hotel clerk where was good to eat, he merely pointed to a sign across the road. We went to check it out, and Jake pointed out that this was a dog meat restaurant. Out vegetarian friend Duncan was not impressed and neither was I. We made do with biscuits and left to get in an expensive taxi and go to the main attraction of ZhangJiaJie, the mountains and the park.
We arrived at our new hotel and were pleasantly surprised, it was clean and luxurious. We wasted no time and paid a fortune for a 2 day pass into the park. We also picked up a non-English speaking guide on the way to the park and she was with us for the rest of the day, explaining stuff in Chinese. We understood some, but most of it was a mystery. The mountains were incredible, neither my writing nor photographs show how impressive this scenery was or how dam high the cliffs were!
After hours of walking along streams and getting neck ache by looking up at the towering rocks, we got in a huge (expensive) life that took you to the top of some of the peaks. The views were scary. The “viewing platforms”, which were a little rickety platform hanging off the edge of a 1000foot drop, with a wee wooden rail around it, were plentiful. Not only was Jake’s fear of heights tested, but my faith in Chinese construction wavered. We walked around the top of the mountain for most of the day, until Jake’s nerves could take it no longer. We went back to find we had to pay again to get back down in the lift, even though there was no other way down, clever! We then died in our hotel for the night.

At night, the main building looked very beautiful. They had dancing displays and native music.

This is Duncan and Jake with a giand gold Bhudda.
This is a traditional piece of art, created from tree roots. It is supposed to be a bird, looks a bit wierd to me.
This is the medievil working village, its was actually pretty scarey and wierd when inside it. They actually spit roasted a whole sheep for entertainment value. Not my idea of a good performance.

This was one of the viewing terraces in the 9 Heaven Building. The chairs were really comfy!

This was one of the many decorative chairs in the building. The detail is amazing!
There were also many scarey masks on the building!
Here is more amazing woodwork!
And this is a bed. I think. It was very beautiful, but hard as a rock!

This was the entrance to the tourist area that set us back 80yuen. Looks a bit poo.


This was the stage where a minority ethnic group of China, who didnt look Chinese at all, did some traditional dancing. It was all very noisy and interesting.
This is Jake and Duncan on our train. There were 6 bunks to a compartment. Cosy.
Thid building is called 9 Heaven House. There are 9 different floors, representing the levels of heaven. It is an ancient building with lots of crazy woodwork and layouts. Inside, it was like a maze with beautiful carved interiors.
Here is just a little snippet of what was inside! It was fantastic to walk around, even though it was freezing cold!

After 5 days of recovering in my apartment, I feel I have the energy to tell the storey of our travels in ZhangJiaJie.
We got up unnaturally early on the Saturday morning to catch our 8.30 train; this was to be my first journey on Chinese trains. We arrived early but when it was time to board we found ourselves trapped in a raging crowd of angry Chinese people trying to get on. We, cleverly, had pre-booked out tickets. We held the class “hard sleeper”, which entitled us to a bunk bed each in a clean standard carriage. The journey took 6 hours and carried us through an interesting array of countryside and 18th Century style dirty factories.
Our taxi driver from the station to our hotel was very chatty and didn’t hold back telling us that our hotel was far to expensive and he could show us some cheaper ones. We managed to politely decline thanks to Jake’s hard work with his Chinese text book. Our hotel was nice, cheap by British standards, and disappointing for Jake as there were no cable channels to watch pointless documentaries about computer games. However, it did the job. We got straight to it and went searching for things to do. A particularly touristy spot was recommended to us, so Jake, Duncan and I set off to explore. After begrudgingly spending 80yuen entrance fee, we were expecting to see some amazing stuff. As it happens, there was a lot of interesting things to be seen; ancient buildings, old artifacts, a medieval working village which comprised of roasting a whole dead lamb and a cock fighting pit amongst other things. We lost out on a lot of the good stuff as we didn’t have a tour guide, and it was too cold to stay interested for long, so we found a restaurant, after walking into the first one with carcasses of animals decorating the walls, not so appetizing for our vegetarian friend.