Only 9 days to go! Yesterday, I bought my train ticket to Beijing, so I'm definitely coming! This morning I booked the hostels in Shanghai and Xi'an!
Good news - there's another school holiday while you're here which means I get extra time off so can spend that last day in Shanghai with you. Yay!
So i'll only be teaching in Zhengzhou on Monday and Tuesday - on Monday I think we'll be able to have dinner with the Birley clan - before getting the night train Tuesday evening to Shanghai, arriving on My Darling Sister's birthday!
Like I said yesterday, the hostel I stayed at in Shanghai (the Biktime) isn't showing up anymore, and unfortunately the rooms at the Mingtown Hiker's didn't work out. Instead, I've booked two twin rooms and a double bed room (we can fight over who gets that) at the Blue Mountain Bund hostel - it's even closer to the Bund than the Biktime, near to where the Suzhou creek meets the main river and (trivia time) very near the building in which the Russian KGB used to be based in the city. I'm confident you'll like it.
We'll come back from Shanghai in the afternoon, have a night at college, and head to Xian the next morning.
I got us the same hostel in Xian as I stayed at, the Xiangzimen, right next to the city walls. It was great there, a fab base from which to explore the walls, the gardens, the arty district and the Muslim Quarter with its night market, and Drum and Bell Towers.
First thing in the morning, we'll hit up the Terracotta Army ("bing my yong" in Chinese), have the afternoon in Xian and then get the train back to Zhengzhou.
I hope these two are ok - they're not exactly the Queen Elizabeth Fairmont in Toronto but they've both got such perfect locations that I reckon they're the best.
I'm lesson planning and reading about Balzac with Skype on this afternoon if you're about...
Oh, and we went the to first home game of the season at Henan FC on Saturday night. With a new manager and five new signings, Henan of course lost 1-0, conceding a sloppy goal in the 87th minute. A couple of students came along and really enjoyed it, which made up for the fact that the Chinese Super League really isn't all that 'super'. Photos here.
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