:: news ::

01052006 - I've been trying my best to talk and make friends with locals that don't speak ANY english. Depending on luck, sometimes conversations go really well, and it doesn't even feel like your speaking an other language.Other times, people just stare at you as if your just dancing for them. I'm trying hard to study writing, and I feel I am doing really well. I try to get help off any one I can find. Sometimes it's best to go out to restaurants, you will always find some one that wants to talk to you there.

There is a seven day holiday now refered to as "Labour Day", we will be going on a trip to two different towns organised by the department. I asked Miss Lee ( our "foreign handler" ) where we would be going to... but she said, " it's a secret " ( because they probably don't know ) .

29032006 - I went onn a full day's walk with one of my classes to Zhong Hai Park. It is the only place in Binzhou or anywhere around that I have seen water thats almost clear. They a building a big man made lake, island and super developed park. My class had even prepared lunch for me of chinese sweet bread roll with embedded half hot dog and dried pieces of sweet potato. I spent the most of the day having group photos with students, individual photos with students and photos with random people passing by...

21022006 - Back to start the next semester of school. This one is shorter and at the moment I barely have any classes, strange. I got a pack of CHico's sent from Australia and they seem to be the greatest invention known, because the Jersey caramels I get are always hard. I went to Beijing during holidays and climbed the Great wall, which turned out to be more a great number of steps. We went to the night market and saw the great authentic Chinese cuisine of scorpions, grasshoppers and starfish on sticks ( ready for the frying ). And yes, the scorpions were still alive and wriggling. The small boy would chant "SCORPI - SCORPI -SCORPI" as you walked past, as if you hadn't already noticed and pretended you had already eaten.

We then went to Xi'an and saw the city wall, which was good, but I couldn't understand why they had mechanical dinosaurs setup all along it. Maybe it was for the lantern festival. I saw the terracotta warriors, and they were really impressive, mostly when you first walk in the door. So now I can say I have seen a official wonder of the world!!! People seem less friendly and accomodating in Beijing and Xi'an and you get ripped off where ever you go. So now we are back in home Binzhou, where everyone knows us, we get discounts, and gifts on arrival...

white china - this photo IS in colour

07022006 - The snow falls down, and down. This stuff got pretty thick, as thick as your shoe. We made snow men, and now I have a white ball the size of a melon inside my freezer. Most of the taxi's dont bother to slow down in this weather, they just learn to bump off each other...

the traditional method of recording

31012006 - I spent some time making up a song and recording today for all those who demanded it. But, my soundcard is super terrible, I broke the mic input, and it has a supressor on it so there is a continuous windy volume effect. ARRRGH!!!

I will do some more soon, maybe even something a little more energetic...

22012006 - The most interesting thing lately is the " Medicinal Wine " I drank. It tastes just as offensive as usual Chinese wine, but with a hint of something I can't put my finger on...

19012006 - It's a new year and not much has happened. We have been doing some painting. You can see it in the art section.

12122005 - For so long I have had computer and software problems and could not update, but now action has commenced. So much has happened, we travelled to Qingdao and went partying with Russians. The next morning I found that we had somehow accidentally apprehended a british man's jacket and which contained his passport and plane tickets for a flight in the next 5 days!!! We managed to get it back to him in time.

We also travelled to Tai'an where we climbed the holiest mountain in all China, Taishan. It took the entire day to get up and we were quickly directed to a hotel apon staggering arrival at the top. The next morning we did a short trek to the Azure Clouds Temple where we saw the famous sunrise over the cloud horizon. Once reaching the bottom, the entire trip took 13320 steps.

Recently we travelled to Jinan, the capital. We met a guy from Newcastle, Australia, and he directed our trek through Jinan city nightlife. It was fantastic!!!

03112005 - We went to a traditional wedding last Sunday. The air was full of fire cracker smoke and we ate more dumplings than ever before. They wouldn't let the groom in the house without him giving everyone little red envelopes with small amounts of Yuan inside, so we made alot of money that day...

click the redStar logo to view the site

22102005 - Today I had the "Sparrow in China" article posted on the Red Star Magazine website under redBlog. This is the magazine available in English here and covers news and events on all of Shandong...

fireworks from the balcony

fireworks from the balcony

fireworks from the balcony

laoshan pijiu

19102005 - I feel ill today since the occurences of the night before. We turned up to the same restaurant so many times that the owner popped in to see us and wouldn't let us leave without drinking fathoms of complimentary Laoshan pijiu, the popular beer around here. Eventually we squeezed our way out, staggeringly, and found that we also didn't have to pay for the entire meal. I suppose we will go back tomorro night...

11102005 - We got new gypsy fashion carpets for our once cold industrial floor. We are setting up the walls with traditional chinese style wall hangings, but with our own alternative creational touch...

the sleeping buddha

06102005 - We travelled to Jinan yesterday. Climbing thethousand buddhas mountain was excellent, except we didn't have time to see the thousand buddhas. We stopped off at the resident foreign supermarkets and stocked up on comfortable foreign products. As I stood in an aisle near the back, glanced down and discovered my first two packets of Corn Flakes in China, imported from Italy???

the orange night sky of Binzhou

29092005 - For a moment I thought they had closed down my favourite open food market, but then I found it had been forced to be moved down the street into a carpark. The market is made of about 30 wheely cart stalls that have stove burners and several storage sections built in. They come in the morning and then roll home at night. The next day they had returned to their old position, but they are no longer allowed to sell from the road, and must all have their carts on the walkway...

14092005 - We've been eating dinner at this restaurant on our street, open 24 hours. They have delicious bean juice milk beverages and make great "Jing Jiang Rou Si", which is like little barbeque beef strips you wrap in little square pastries. The stores around here have suddenly got surplus amounts of alcohol sitting in the street, it's preparation for the Mid Autumn Festival this Sunday. We got some Chinese wine that was recommended by our street friends. It comes in this snazzy ceramic bottle...

one of the many lions scattered through Binzhou

13092005 - I've been teaching the students songs, since they all strongly requested. I started with The Beatles, Yellow Submarine. Every class responded with high spirited activity and all students automatically joined in. Problems came when they requested I teach them all their favourites. All many years gone slow singing pop songs, e.g. 'My Heart Will Go On - Titanic Soundtrack'. Well, you can't have everything...

10092005 - I still can't wipe the look of confusion and bewilderment from my face since the 'foreign language dinner party', which I guess must have been a metaphor. We were led into a lecture room packed with students, teachers, various representatives and a surplus of television and camera crews. I played my guitar to the crowd and they were ecstatic, even though it was out of tune and I had not a clue what I was doing. At some point we were given a cake as a gift. It was the biggest I've ever seen! Then they began to scoop their hands into it and proceeded to 'smoosh' it onto our cheeks. After several rounds of kareoke to playback of 80's pop song video clips, we left the building swiftly, and without eating a mouthful of cake...

09092005 - Been teachin' for two weeks now, been in China two weeks and a day! Everything has really begun to fall into place. Tonight there is a dinner for us "foreign language experts" and they want us to sing and dance or something. I'm gonna bring an amp and attempt to go rock 'em out, but we will see...

29082005 - It's Monday and here we go. We start teaching our students for the first time...

27082005 - We head off to Binzhou. We stop at a fuel station somehow infested with swarms of bees...

26082005 - Touched down in Beijing. We are staying in a hotel for the night. I took some pictures of the buildings and the infamous Beijing sun...