The story in full

I guess I should blog all of this before I forget even more. Thursday: Flew out of Auckland airport on Singapore airlines, was pleasantly surprised by the coolness of the inflight entertainment. Watched Starsky and Hutch and some Ab Fab. Read a couple of Dan Brown novels. That's all really. Friday: Arrived, exhausted, in Beijing. Was met at airport and taken to hotel where I met other teachers going to the school, an Aussie couple, M and B. Also met J, the Aussie boss of the agency. Did dinner at Mexican/Chinese theme restaurant, pretty mediocre, but OK beer. Also went to the Temple of Heaven again, got bored within five minutes tho. Saturday: Flew to Hailar, in Inner Mongolia, a town that used to be a Russian/Chinese trading post. Met the head of the Foreign Office there, nice guy. Went to worthy but dull museum, ate more mediocre hotel food, slept. Asked about population of the town where we would be teaching. Answer was 10,000. Figured the guy's English wasn't so good and thought he meant 1 million... Sunday: Drove to Yimin, the town where we would teach. Road not finished yet, so helluva bumpy 2 hr ride in 4x4. Met A, an American teacher. Also met the staff, who seemed very nice. Banquet in the evening, force-fed too much bai jiu (Chinese white spirit). More mediocre hotel food. Very drunk. Very sick. Hotel was right near coal power plant, quite nice accomo. No shops, no nothing. Pop of 10,000. Ergo, very annoyed. Monday: Woke up and wished I was dead, totally drained and hungover from bai jiu. Never want to drink again. Told I would be teaching Junior school because I was so young. Insulted by that, didn't slog my guts out getting qualified to teach to end up teaching nursery rhymes. Went to school for reception, but no one showed to meet us, not even any students in the school. Ended up being shown to office where M and I were sat in 2 chairs for 3 hours and given a bottle of water each. Only 3 Chinese teachers in the room for most of the time, 1 "English" teacher for a little while who said a few words to us then shut up. Very uncomfortable, not helped by hangover. Got thrown back into hotel after that. B seemed to have much better time at her reception at senior school, treated like royalty. Don't know why she's the golden child, pretty bloody pissed off about the unequal treatment. In evening I mentioned to receptionist I felt a bit queasy, was immediately bundled off to hospital, checked up. Stethoscope, thermometer, the works. Got medicine and went to bed. Tuesday: Got pissy with staff about way we were treated prior day at non-existent reception. Got lots of excuses and fobbing off for ages, until an apology was forthcoming. Had to threaten to leave about that. Had new reception, much better, tour, meet and greet, lunch (you guessed it, more hotel food). After that I refused to sign contract because town was not as advertised. Figure I'm too young to waste my life in town of 10k, no matter how nice school is. Admittedly, had option of going on godawful drive to Hailar at weekends, but it'd be like living in Welsh Frankton and partying hard in Ellesmere (or, for the Kiwis, living on a farm and partying hard in Ashburton). Staff were very understanding, and I got on next trip to Hailar that afternoon. This time in a 2 wheel drive VW saloon. Scariest ride I've ever experienced, could feel the ground scraping the bottom of the car as we jumped from pot-hole to pot-hole. This would be a challenge for most 4x4 drivers, let alone an aging 2x drive. Almost got concussed from hitting my head on the ceiling. Finally got to Hailar, and once again thrown into hotel. Hung around there for a while wondering what was going to happen, phoned the Foreign Office guy, said he'd meet me for dinner but no dice. Ended up going for long walk around Hailar, saw nice park, got lost and finally got back. Phoned Foreign Office guy again and arranged breakfast for Wednesday. Collapsed on bed. Wednesday: Woke up hungry as hell, showered. Room fscking awful, bathroom almost unspeakably bad, everything else falling apart. Actually the foreign office hotel, so would expect a bit better. Breakfast with FO guy (you know what). Now in net cafe typing away. Phew, that took a while to type up. Now considering my options. My choices: 1. Go to Hohhot, the provincial capital, and the place where I really wanted to work. This is pretty much reliant on my airfare being reimbursed. 2. Go to Beijing and then back to Auckland. Really need time to myself to consider everything. Been so rushed these past few days that haven't had any time at all to think properly. Pretty sick of the idea of working in China now, maybe some time to myself'd help me get over this bad experience. Will blog more when I think about, lots more to write