Yangshuo Update

Well, I'm half way through summer school and it's about time for an update. I shan't be doing it again next year because it's too much like hard work. In three weeks I have gone through more than a whole year's worth of regular school material. I am teaching six lessons a day, five days a week and I have absolutely no idea what I will use as lesson material for the next three weeks. And it is costing more to live here than I am earning.

Add that to the constant extremely hot weather (sweat is streaming down my back as I sit here in the Mimosa Cafe typing this) and I'm exhausted most of the time.

Apart from the heat Yangshuo is a nice enough place to spend time. I've settled into a routine of getting up late and having a coffee, walking fifty metres to my classroom, teaching from 9 to 11:30, walking up to the Mimosa for a late breakfast, walking back, taking a nap, walking to the classroom, teaching from 3 to 5:30, spending a couple of hours in my room (until the regularly scheduled six- thirty rainstorm has stopped) and walking up to West Street where I choose a restaurant at random for dinner and then go to the London Tavern to spend far too much time and money on English beer.

I could eat for nothing in the school canteen but a third of the dishes contain mushrooms (which I can't eat), a third contain tofu (which I don't like) and the other third are rice and boiled cabbage. You can see why I'd rather pay for food that I find palatable.

It is a pleasantly untroubled existence. I don't have to think about anything, worry about anything or even do much of anything. Apart from taking three or four showers a day.

I wish I had something interesting to tell you but I don't. Little happens that is of any great interest to me so the chances of it being interesting to anyone reading this block are pretty much nil.

With that in mind I shall now stop bothering you and say goodbye.

There will be another update soon.

Or not.

A Fishy Business

They weren't here in Yangshuo last year.

Lot's of things weren't here in Yangshuo last year - notably the rather splendid London Tavern with a dozen or so bottled English beers and draft London Pride (not to mention a killer cottage pie).

One or two things that were here last year - for example one of the DVD shops - aren't here now.

But I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the twenty or so "kissing fish spas" where you can plunge your feet into a fish tank and have the little fishes nibble away at your toes.

As I say they weren't here last year.

Some of them weren't here last week. 

Every time I come up onto West Street there seems to be another one open. And now there are about twenty. Probably more tomorrow.

Sounds damned unhygienic to me. I can't imagine for a second that they change the water between customers.

I am however moved to wonder how many customers they would get if they called them what they are "biting fish spas" rather than "kissing fish spas".

None, I suspect.

meaningless to all but one of you

Mimosa.

Walked in.

She looked at me and said.

You work Gansu. Don't like mushrooms. Like beans.

Now that's what I call service.

(And the place next door is either still being refurbished or being refurbished again.)

Gonna be Gone

I will not be able to update my blogs again until mid August (maybe even a little later) as I will be teaching summer school at an organisation that doesn't provide me with a computer.

Not having one of my own means I will be relying on occasional visits to not-very-good internet cafes which generally have no VPNs. No VPNs - no blogger!

When I return to Baiyin I hope to have a whole new heap of funny summer school stories.

Meanwhile, have a good summer wherever and whoever you are and whatever you are doing.

Bob