spaghetti and bananas

we went out for kareoke on wednesday night (it's a fairly popular out here) and oh my gosh it was so much fun!! Everybody got up and sang at some point and we chose the worst/cheesiest songs ever. Basti got up and sang man! i feel lke a woman better than shania herself, and christopher belted out a cracking version of cher's 'if i could turn back time'. I found myself in front of a mic when 'everything i do' came on. hugh was also supposed to be singing but couldn't work out which song it was so I serenaded Faith instead. After which everyone decided i had a "great set of gills". oh and i've also learnt that i sing out loud in public far more than i realised, apparently i was singing along to my MP3 in the cafe and my teacher overheard. oopsy!! Incredibly fun evening though. Thursday was our first proper free day to do whatever we pleased. Naturally most of us didn't emerge from our rooms until midday or so. We did make it to the Lama temple though as it really isn't that far away. That was so good. I loved it and there was lots of incense burning so it smelled yummy too! We trekked around beijing to find the best fish and chip shop (according to the lonely planet guide anyway) the boys got real english ale. It was a home comfort night! Our first teaching practice lesson yesterday didn't go so well. it wasn't bad, just not good. We were told we could assign them english names but our class all had them (even if one girl is called Coffee. Another class has Obi-wan, Talent and Crazy) Chinese culture class yesterday involved tai chi which is amazingly relaxing and thereputic. Meditation most definitely! It was back to planning more lessons and assignments and work work work! No wonder we decided to chill out with a few beers in 24 noodle (it's quickly becoming our favourite restaurant) there were around 15 of us and I think we spent 3 hours laughing solidly, always good for mental well-being but it's great that everyone gets on so well! I get to learn how to write chinese characters this afternoon before more prep and work but i think we might head to a jazz bar tonight, we heard of a really good one in town so we thought we might hop along. I love jazz =D