Happy New Year!

Happy New Year

After Christmas day we had to work all week through to Sunday- New Years Eve. We finished at Noon and soon 9 of us found ourselves on the train destined (once again) for a big night out in Beijing. The eventual group that we amassed there was 14 in total as Wallace and Renée, Brock’s friends from home, brought some friends of their town from their town as well-so we had built up quite a decent little crowd.

Because of having to teach we couldn’t catch a train until 2.30pm and didn’t arrive in Beijing until 5pm and not at the hostel until 6pm. After a few problems checking in- I’ll let you read Dave’s account of it but the moral of the story is you must always remember to take your passport and visa with you to any hotel you want to check in at, and if you don’t just try and make up a name that might have stayed there before, do not bother with photocopy’s of your passport as they are only ever used as evidence against you- we set out for a meal at an American Diner called “Steak & Eggs” and got back to the hostel for about 10pm.

After a few hours drinking and playing table football New Years was looming so we decided it was time to go up to the roof. Brock and his friends had done it before, said it was easily accessible and gave superb views of Beijing- we were hoping for hundreds upon hundreds of fireworks. Well the roof was locked and we despite our best efforts we couldn’t get up, so we sprinted downstairs to the courtyard and had our rendition of ‘auld lang syn’ out there, all shook hands and wished each other the best.

After that we headed to Brown’s nightclub and welcomed the New Year in, in style. The rest left about 3/4am but Anthony and I stayed on and were later taken to a 24-hour bar called “the Den” by a fellow English man for a few late beers as well.

Now the part of the checking in problem from before that I hadn’t mentioned was that Anthony wasn’t allowed to check in-despite arguing for about the best part of an hour. So he officially had nowhere to stay. With Dave sharing a room with Hilary, the 3 girls and Zack in one room and then Brock and I in a twin room there was only really one place for him to stay. So he and I tried to go top to toe in my tiny single bed- but I woke up and found him sleeping on the floor- apparently I stole all the covers!

The next morning we woke up said our goodbyes and Dave and I went to check into our 5 Star Hotel for a day of relaxation and recovery! Money very well spent! We hung out in the steam room and hot spa and ate and drank for free the whole day. In the evening we ventured out – after free wine and gin & tonic- to Club Football to watch the Liverpool game and then back to the hotel with the idea of watching the Newcastle match at 1am. But after the exploits of the day before we were fast asleep before it started!