Well we've come to it folks. The last blog of my year in China. There are probably points that i should round off or questions i should answer from my previous blogs but i'm not going to i'm afraid as i don't really feel up to writing anything in too much detail. If you've any questions,,,just ask when you meet me!

So its the night before we catch our flight and Suse and i are killing time before we join some of the others in the airport waiting to check-in at 5.30am tomorrow morning. Right now i can't help feeling anything but a rather huge welling sadness. But i'll go back to leaving Tianshui before dwelling further on that.

We went back to tianshui for a few days last week in order to finish our Community Reports, say bye to our friends and pack. Packing up your life for a year is a hard thing to do, made all the harder when you've only a rucksack to fit it into but we managed (just) all the same. We saw Dave and co for the last few times, going out for a meal (we made them try whiskey- they weren't too impressed), playing ping-pong and maijiang for the last time and chatting. We went to Jennifer's for a meal and to all of our favourite restraunts making sure we had jiaozi, niu rou mian, rice and dishes, pancakes and a last meal at the local. The school held a banquet for us which turned into a huge drinking and toasting and picture taking fandango which was excellent fun! We gave the head teacher a tea towel of buckingham palace and the school gave us a jewellry box and a glass cross-stitch stand to take home (we had asked Jennifer for small, travel friendly gifts! but i suppose you can never be too specific...). Then the night of our departure Brad arrived to collect his MASSIVE suitcase and the school arranged a car for us to go to the train station. Dave, Kate, Jennifer, Helen and Sam came to see us off at the station helping us carry all our bags and trinkets. By that time we just wanted to get on the train (it was 11pm) and we'd been cleaning and packing for the past 2 days and were physically and mentally exhausted from going over and over lists of things to be done, to be kept, to be chucked....etc, etc! So although it was sad to leave Tianshui in the end we wanted to just go as we'd packed up and left behind the life we'd built there. For some reason the thing that makes me feel sadest almost is looking at my bare, empty room just before we left and the bare flat. Over the year i'd built up a huge montage of pictures and tickets and bit n bobs on my wall and seeing the bare whiteness really wasn't nice.

In Beijing we met 10 of the other volunteers and have been chilling for the past 3 days. We went out one night and yesterday Suse, nick and i went to the Bird's Nest and actually went into the stadium and sat metres away from where Hussain Bolt won his 3 gold medals and broke the world record. It was good!

And as i say now the final meal (organised by PT) has been eaten at the very same restraunt where we all ate our 1st meal in China. All our bags are packed not to be opened again until Britain (hopefully!) and we will be boarding our flight home in 7 hours, nearly. What a year.

Its gone in a flash yet i remember the feeling of it yawning ahead of me when i first arrived in Tianshui. Now we've finished teaching, left our home and our friends for the 2nd time in a year with the big difference being that its very possible that we will never again see our friends in China. Its definitely had its highs and its lows the beginning being a hard time for me- getting used to everything, and leaving everything normal behind- and in the middle of June where for a few days i just felt that i could not teach again as my bad classes had brought me down very badly and i felt i couldn't face it again. The best things of these experiences is knowing that i have managed to pull myself through them and come out on the other side and Suse has been such a support for me over the year throughout everything i can't thank her enough for being the person she is. 

The best bits? Too many. Far too many. The things that stand out? Qinghai Lake and being so far from anything it felt like in a country of 1.3billion people you really were the only one around. Many a delicious meal, beef noodles (niu rou mian), yu xiang rou si (fish resembling meat), jiaozi(dumplings) all so delicious i will miss them incredibly! The friendly, warm-hearted, kind meaning people we have come to know and love: Jennifer- she was ditzy as anything but so lovely. Miss Yang always there to feed us and make us giggle. The Wu family who also fed us, Wu Rong Mei for being a great friend. Dave and Co for being funny, chatty, hilarious people to hang out with and a whole host of others who have really made the year worth while. OH DANNI! One of our very best friends, we will miss her.  Learning ping-pong and Tai Qi and the countless anecdotes Suse and i can bat about to do with learning those sports and Mr Kang our ping-pong teachers doing his best to make me, "move your feet"! So much laughter, so much food, so many new and exciting things it truly has been an amazing year.