Friday 29^th December, 2017 1000

Typing this stuck at work on really quite a pointlessly irritating day. Eight exams to carry out first thing, which were done and dusted by nine, I have been for a most unsatisfying McDonald's breakfast (the McMuffin smelt strange so I only ate half and am now praying they haven't poisoned me) and I now have four and a half hours to wait in order to test the very last five students. On the bright side I should be home using public transport at about 1630 but it is bitterly cold outside with the tiniest of snow fluttering in the breeze.

When I got to McDonald's yet again I wished I had my camera with me, there were dancers in traditional costume (Mongolian from the look of it) braving the deep-freeze and performing for passersby. Well, not all of them and in fact at one point they all came in to warm up, transforming McDonald's into a modern-day yurt. It was rather incongruous seeing these scarlet-clad elderly people tucking into their Big Breakfast, it produced a scene of stark contrast depicting ancient meeting modern.

Just before I left, three young girls, one of them perticularly attractive (no, not a spelling mistake or typographical error, I just made that word up and I think it describes her accurately) got up and started hauling their outfits from a large two-man holdall. They were very obviously the glamour element of an otherwise rather ugly troupe. I was rather taken with the loveliest of the three and so lingered over my coffee as she divested herself of her down jacket and proceeded to don her uniform. Interestingly, she put on what at first appeared to be wings (appropriate I thought, considering her somewhat angelic appearance) but which were in fact three miniature flagpoles and flags.

Before they all went back out to perform I had to sadly leave. As much as I wanted to tarry awhile and watch I needed to be back at school for the unlikely event that I had erred and there was one last student from a class to test. There wasn't so I could have stayed.

Yesterday I had made a rod for my own back. You know my cooking takes forever and I had an apple pie to knock up along with pizzas. Admittedly I have now discovered the benefit of boiling a cinnamon stick with the apple (the ground stuff was critically low) and this time I think I perfected the pastry. That had to be cooked beforehand because four pizzas literally fill my oven.

I was deeply concerned to note that after two hours my dough hadn't risen appreciably and had visions of having to restart the process using a new packet of yeast, thinking the old pack had died on me. Holding my nerve, I left it a further two hours and was relieved when it finally rose, producing a beautifully soft and springy result. In fact it may be my new method of baking bread from now on.

The American contingent started the evening by asking if there were five or ten pizzas per capita, presumably referring to both their hunger level and mocking my 9” pizza trays for being too tiddly. Nobody finished more than one, not even that world-famous garbage disposal unit Annie. The slices I myself left were taken away at the end though, never to be seen again. Thankfully my boast that I made better pizza than Pizza Hut was well and truly proven correct.

So in less than five hours, for me school will be out. For some unknown reason I will have the longest spring festival ever with eight weeks sitting on my bum. I shan't complain – yet.

Stephanie has I hope gleaned a valuable lesson regarding booking flights home. She flies back to the old colony (can't recall where, maybe Massachusetts, I know Annie is from a ghetto in LA) at 0740 on 1^st February. Bloody stupid time to fly even under optimum conditions but in a city where the airport is possibly two hours from your home it pays to check public transport times before making reservations.

The first train arrives at the airport fifteen minutes AFTER the plane departs and the first coach might get there forty minutes before if you are lucky, although early morning city traffic can frustrate plans. The only alternatives are a taxi (should be 200\ but they always rip you off and demand 300\) or going the night before and staying in an hotel.

She chose the latter. The atmosphere became a trifle fraught when searching online for rooms though. One hotel (many were fully booked as it is after all the biggest holiday in China) offered a room for nearly 5,000\! She could probably buy another return flight home for that money and considering that amount would purchase a night in the presidential suite of a Hilton, for a grubby, sand-swept boarding house it was downright preposterous. She did though manage to get a room for the price of a rip-off taxi and it includes breakfast she will not eat unless she has taken a liking to Chinese rice soup (their version of porridge), tea eggs and thirty-five different varieties of (uugghh!) tofu.

No idea what I shall do, more than likely stay put but you never know, impulsive behaviour has on occasion triumphed although I really am trying to save for a summer holiday – wherever and with whomever that may be.