Wet and cold

It was only a week or so ago that we were lamenting the continued hot weather. Overnight it changed. Last weekend when we went to Hangzhou it was wet and cool, but today it is wet and COLD. I have two jackets, but I will need a winter woolly or two. I have had a look in the shops in the city, and there are some reasonable jackets or tops at a good price, so next week I will get one or two.

I have some tracksuit pants, but no tops. And I will get one or two of these as well. Especially for the early mornings when I jump out of bed, I need something warm to put on as I don't have a dressing gown and I don't intend to get one here.

Everyone wears scarves and there are some delightful ones around. Very imaginative designs. I do generally wear a scarf during the cooler weather as they really do keep the body warm. I love looking at the scarf designs the students wear and those in the shops, and I do have a growing collection of them.

One of the things that always amuses me here, is that with 10,000 students there is always a parade of umbrellas when it is raining. It is hard describe the scene with so many students leaving the classrooms, and at lunch time or when classes finish at 8.30 pm the long "conga line" of students under umbrellas, often with a strange glow from their mobile phones, as theywalk from the classrooms to the West Gate or to their dormitories.

Speaking of dormitories. I had a phone call from a student last night. His teacher has asked him to invite a "foreign teacher", an English teacher, to the boys dormitory to help them with their English conversation, and he asked me to go on Mondy night. Conversations with Chinese students can often be curious. He did explain that his teacher would be there - but his invitation to come and have fun with the boys in the dormitory I found rather amusing. I sent a text message to one of the other Aussie teachers. "I have been invited by some boys to go to their dormitory to play games and have fun, should I go?" Her reply (and I knew to expect something like this as she does have a wild sense of humour) was "Absolutely" and when I saw her we had a good laugh about that. So that's a story for next week.

So now it is cold I will wear one of my jackets and a scarf, and carry my bag of items for class, and my umbrella. I feel like a pack horse!