Well, I have returned to Darwin for my final year of uni. Not something I was/am looking forward to, but I must confess it is a lot easier this year than last year. I've been back less than a week, enrolled in all units, kicked out of Centrelink and told to fend for myself and whilst trying to match make a friend have got a job at the Novotel. So all in all, it's been a successful week.

My fitness kick has also began, and I must say running in tropical heat doesn't add to my enjoyment of running, and most demoralising the second day when I ran far further than the first day of run/walk my time was only 5 minutes faster, yet I was red as a beet and really quite uncoordinated. Nevermind, all in the name of the game is being able to drink beer like a fish without turning into a blowfish or whale so this running thing is here to stay.

So to top it off, I've caught up with friends and Carlton Draught, struggling with a western diet but enjoying being home in the warmth and cleanliness of Australia.

By the way Steve God Damn Drambuie, please call at a normal hour of the day and I'll be happy to have a chat.

We have finally gone on camping hiking trip with the donkeys as part of my farewell. We went to a little village called Xi Tian and climbed a hill and walked for about 13kms. Once we arrived we set up camp in a rice field and did regular camp site things. Drinking games, flutes and singing were all part of the evening festivities, which was a good thing as the tents had ice on them and without the warmth of rice wine it could have been a rather yucky time.

We got back to Qingtian mid afternoon, in time to shower and clean up before meeting for a debriefing dinner of hot pot and beers and watching a great fireworks display over the Ou Jiang to celebrate the end of the 15 days of Chinese New Year Festivities.

We have been busy lately so not much to report on for the blog. We went to Wenzhou with Er Zheng for Chinese New Year celebrations. This was spent with the whole family gathering around the TV to watch a show broadcast by CCTV. Everyone was very excited by this but to be honest I found it a little mundane.

Their were fireworks going off day and night in Wenzhou for the 3 days we were there, and Er Zheng's niece Ha Ha was loving playing with the sparklers, she was a little frightened of the bigger louder crackers though.

The whole Pan family showed us a great time with good hospitality and we were very grateful to have been invited into a Chinese home during this very family orientated festival.

Around san chu or the third day of the New Year we headed out to Huang Fang Kou to Jimmy's hometown. This was not the first time we'd been there and we always have a good time out there. His family fed us and fed us and fed us, I guess you are getting the point here. Jimmy's sisters were also at home and we met their husbands and kids. This was great as the family were doing a lot more family things than those people in the city. This was great to see the difference between city and country festivities.

Jimmy showed us his old home and we went to a few of the nearby temples. Wang Dan joined also came from her hometown of Dongyuan to join us in the afternoon.

I managed to rent a classroom and hold a winter holiday program for English learning. This was a good experience of learning what to do and how to do it better. A few minor mishaps included no showing of kids and not getting a deposit up front, but in the end I had enough kids and the lessons went ahead.

After this program there are a lot more parents interested in me teaching their kids and it's now a hard decision to head back to Australia for the last year of uni or stay on doing something I thoroughly enjoy and the natural progression of it is taking momentum.

On New Year's Eve Wang Dan's school had a concert much like an Australian end of school year concert where each grade puts on a performance and families come along to watch. Qing Zhong does the same thing but there's no surprise that no parents come along (they also probably aren't invited - sorry for the dig).

Anyway on Saturday afternoon the whole school turned out to watch these performances which were a mix of modern cat walking to traditional communist songs. I helped in the makeup department putting the girls faces together and had a great afternoon.

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera but here was a picture at school taken earlier in the week.

The donkeys had been preparing for a talent contest/concert to be held to celebrate "Yuan Dan" or what we commonly call New Years. I had been going along to the rehearsals with Jimmy for about two weeks and having a good ol' laugh as they strutted their stuff in modelling skits, role plays and musicals.

Bu Ping had written a script which he then directed and was taking some offense to the should be actors performance, but in the end all came together and everyone had a great time.

Christmas Day we had a great time. We were blessed with a great day weatherwise which meant our traditional Aussie BBQ and hit of cricket could take place. People started arriving mid-afternoon and we kept going until the early hours of the morning, even had an imposter come and help themselves to the food.

Everyone enjoyed themselves and had a try of some western food including vegemite on crackers, some cheese, shortbread, TimTams and it wouldn't be complete without the BBQ shapes.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Last night we had dinner with old friends at Tian Tian Yu Gang, a really great restaurant. All the old crowd were there and we caught up for the first time in ages which is what Christmas is all about. Getting together with friends.

After the meal I went to collect the goodies for todays BBQ and ended up in a KTV bar until pumpkin o'clock having sung Jingle bells three times, with each song ending with the Chinese version and the whole room arrupting in Ding Ding Dang Ding Ding Dang - not too hard to work out how to say Jingle Bells in Chinese.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

While in Qingtian we have not had any snow yet, the locals are all talking about the colder than usual conditions. In the north of China it's much colder than here and the blizzardous conditions are causing havoc on the roads.

Check out this poor fella caught in a traffic jam - or rather snow jam in Shandong Province about 1000km south of Beijing.

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I was just searching for some pictures on the internet to show this horrible looking wine and came across a crazy article in the China Daily Newspaper.

Police have confiscated counterfeit firecrackers and are destroying them in a bid to make Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) more safe.

Well I am very surprised - it seems there is a crackdown on all things counterfeit as even the website we watch English movies for free on has recently had all it's western movies removed.