Art, English Corner, Office Meal and Gay or Just Chinese...

Saturday

Saturday morning we headed into Xining very early, we had to be at the provincial museum by 9am! Apparently there was some sort of presentation going on that we had to be present for. We arrived and were greeted by the teachers from the school we live in and Mr Qi. We sat down and the eventually the ceremony began. It was an award ceremony for some students who won an art competition (we think).

After the short ceremony we were led into an art gallery to see students' pieces of art and traditional Chinese pieces. Some of the pieces were really beautiful!

After wandering around for a bit we decided to go for a walk. We walked past the fountain in the Provincial Square just as the water show began! It was great! All timed to music blaring out from speakers. 

Mike, Cecilia and I headed to the market to buy some sunglasses (both Mike and I had broken ours...). Mike is much better at haggling than I am...  We then headed for lunch in the Muslim food court. After lunch we headed to Killin Park to relax in the sun before heading to Jiazhouxuang for an English corner.

The English corner went pretty well, I was with Mike and Will. I think Will managed to confuse them but we still had fun. These kids will be going to England for a fortnight on 3rd August so we are trying to give them as much vocabulary as possible. The office has made them a phrase book which not only is A4 and too big but it is also out of date and wrong. These poor kids are going to be screwed!

Once the English corner had finished we headed outside only to find that it was pouring with rain! Now as it was sunny and hot before, none of us had an umbrella. We eventually made it into a taxi and back to the office, we were pretty soaked though!

When we got to the office, we gathered everyone because we were taking all the office staff out for a meal to say thank you. We decided on Korean barbecue which is always very tasty! I am getting sick of places where you have to cook your own food though!!  The meal was a big success, the food was great and the whole office came (Fish, Kelly, Yang Li, New Guy, Weilin, Mr Qi and Michael Li). There was a bit of a divide though as the Chinese sat at one end and the Westerners at the other. The bill came to 350RMB (£35), £35 for 12 people?! You've got to love China sometimes! 

Weilin, Mike and Cecilia 

Now just in case you've forgotten, Weilin was the guy I went on a date/non date with. He spent a large proportion of the meal talking with me, taking photos of me and has invited me to play badminton with him. So the question still stands, is Weilin gay or just Chinese? Fish and Kelly said they have a secret to tell me about Weilin and he went bright red and told them not to. This could be it? He could well be gay! After we left the restaurant and I said goodbye to Weilin, I cornered Fish as to Weilin's big secret.  Now the answer you've been waiting for! Fish told me that the big secret was that Weilin fancied... wait for it... Deena. Yep so it turns out he is just Chinese...

After the meal we decided to head to a bar for a beer before getting a taxi home. We were walking with Fish and Kelly, then all of a sudden they disappeared. We didn't know where they went and they didn't say goodbye. We rang them and they said they just wanted to go home. Not cool... 

Mike, Cecilia, Deena and I went to a bar, where Mike and I had a beer and Cecilia had an ice cream. Once we finished we spent a good half an hour trying to flag down a taxi! We got one eventually and it only cost us 50RMB! Score!