Feeling festive!

Ho ho!! So the past week and a half or so has been festive and awesome! Last week, I had my last lessons at my Chonggu School. Chonggu was the new school I was given for this year. At first I was apprehensive but the school, the teachers and the students are now so amazing. I’ve grown so attached and it was emotional to finish the term off with them!

On Thursday, my official last day with them I can’t explain in words just how sweet my send-off was. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that all the kids actually knew it was my last day since they don’t finish for a few weeks yet. Anyway, I was having my last class teaching the kids about bugs. At the end of class, I headed out to go home. I noticed the students following me, and didn’t think too much of it. They followed me to the toilet, and when I came out of the toilet they were still there so cutely saying goodbye. And then, I realised all the students had gathered at the gate entrance and exit of the school to wave me goodbye. It was the sweetest and most overwhelming moment ever. They watched my cross the road, waved me goodbye and cheered “Goodbye Sabrina!” so passionately. I won’t forget this and am excited to teach them again next term!

Anyway, as I warmed with joy from this beautiful send-off from the kids, I also buzzed with excitement as this evening was my flight to HARBIN! Now I got home, got packed and got myself ready. My flight was at 9pm and for some reason I’d thought that it was from Hongqiao Airport which is pretty close to where I live. Whilst eating dinner with my friend, I LUCKILY realised (with just about enough time) that my flight was actually in fact leaving from PUDONG, which is two hours away from me, an hour and a half by taxi!!! It was 6pm at this point, and my flight was at 9pm. I had the biggest rush of my life, packed my suitcase and got a taxi! I made the flight and arrived to Harbin! In fact, my flight there was great. Warm and cost, two seats to myself and productive as I did lots of writing and reading.

I’m writing a separate article on Harbin and I’ll share it on here so I won’t write TOO much on here. But it was INCREDIBLE. The -22 degrees hit me as soon as I landed in Harbin like a tonne of icicles… but it was fresh, crisp and I really weirdly liked the ice-coldness of Harbin. I was in Harbin from Thursday to Sunday. I met a fellow TEIC friend, Matt, there too so we explored together. On the first day we explored the city and its old town. It’s so beautiful, atmospheric and we really felt the buzz as we saw ice sculptures being culminated everywhere. The next day we visited Sun Island whereby there is the Snow Sculpture Park. This was awesome and so impressive! Finally, I visited museums, ate local food and enjoyed the beautiful city Harbin; a unique and great blend of Russia and China!

The reason this blog post is slightly delayed is because I’ve had a pretty hectic week. On Sunday night, my flight was supposed to land back to Shanghai at 9pm. However, due to bad weather I ended up in Qingdao at a hotel. The flight was rescheduled for Monday morning at 7am. This meant that I had to miss work. I was genuinely so guilty and upset because it meant that those kids didn’t enjoy my Christmas activities, and admittedly my colleague wasn’t happy. Fortunately, I put a smile on her face yesterday when I gave her Christmas present to her which was a warm, cosy furry coat she had told me she liked! I had the best and most festive day at work yesterday in which I made Christmas cards with the kids all day and sang carols. It was so much fun and I loved every second!

In the evening I had MMA. It was such an awesome class. Only three of us turned up but it turned out to be such a great class nonetheless. We worked on intricate bag work and putting it into practice on each other. My coach is awesome, I always learn loads in regards to martial arts and also life itself. At the end of class, whilst we stretched off we usually chat about something or the other. This time, my coach posed a thought to us. That, the very fact and biggest difference between us as humans and wildlife/animal is that we have that freedom to express ourselves and be different. Generally speaking, we don’t need to be a certain way like animals do. We can be different and use this in a positive way. I’m still thinking of how, but I want to do this.

Anyway, that’s it for me! Today I studied Chinese all day, and BY THE WAY!! I PASSED MY HSK1! I got 189/200. 100% on my reading. I’m pretty chuffed and eager for my HSK2. Tomorrow I plan to study more Chinese and do some Christmas shopping! I’ll be back in touch on Boxing Day!

Sabrina Xxxx