Got up early despite the overly comfortable bed inviting me to stay a while longer. Had to get downstairs for the buffet breakfast though so up and moving it was. The buffet was amazing. First opportunity for some western food in a while. I ended up with a bowl of rice krispies and cacao nibs (rice bubbles and coco pops) to start with, then proceeded to a plate of bacon and eggs with a slice of toast. Didn't even think how my body would react to suddenly getting the food it was more used to...

Today was a bit of a quiet one compared to the rest of the week. We started with a trip back to Muslin Market as a few people (myself included) needed to pick up a few more souvenirs. Mine were mostly things I'd planned to get for others. We were only given around an hour in the end to find and buy the last of our souvenirs so I got a little frustrated with Michael when he started pointing out the purchases I was making were bad deals. I could have haggled more but didn't want to waste too...

Started the day with a tour of the historical museum, learned about some of the artistic and cultural history of China as well as the evolution of the written Chinese language. We also had a calligraphy session where we learned to draw some Chinese symbols. One that was the basis of all symbols, and one really bloody complex one. From there we made the one and a half hour journey to (I believe) Yuanjia. A supposedly contemporary Chinese village where we were going to experience traditional...

On the go early, had a class of tai chi and kung fu in the morning. It was still quite hot even at that early hour so the class was cut short. What we learned was interesting though, and really showed how tai chi can be a soothing or even meditative exercise when done right as it really flows from one position to the next. Planned to go shopping with a group that was heading out, but discovered my envelope containing all my documents (except my passport) had gone missing. So I ended up staying...

Day Three: Today was a fairly quiet day. Up at 7 again, had to be up and moving early anyway as we had morning class learning basic Chinese. Suban and Michael were funny as hell associating Chinese pronunciation with English words ("eBay" is 100 in Chinese (yi bai) in case you were wondering). We've been getting strange looks all week from the Chinese students (foreigners yo!) and now we're getting laughs when try to use the local lingo. Ended up going and playing some ping pong for a little...

Woke at about 7. Bed is hard as a rock even with using the blanket as extra padding. Breakfast in cafeteria with Matt, Gabriel and Michael, had another one of those pork rolls, such a strange thing to have for breakfast. Nice though. Headed to the new campus, had a tour of the engineering building and textiles museum. Our tour guide showed us the building for the library, easily the biggest building on campus and would have been at least the size of Rod Laver Arena. Had lunch in the cafeteria...

Woke up about 7am, back was killing me but I didn't really care because it was a decent sleep after being awake for over 40 hours straight. Beds were uncomfortable, Luke and I both agreed that it was ample for the first night but we'll be using the blankets as extra padding tonight (since we won't need them because of how hot it is). Had breakfast at about 8, a pork burger type thing, I didn't catch the exact name of it. It was nice though, had this orange juice thing with it that was overly...

The line at Melbourne got long, it ended up taking us about 40 minutes to get through it and check my baggage in. We had to wait for Tanvi and Andreana who arrived a bit later than the rest of the group. Mum wanted to get a group photo of us before we went through "the doors" (you know the ones, everyone takes photos there), Russell had already gone in to try and save us some seats though so he missed out. The waiting lounge was where the nerves really started to set in. I think the buzz...