The British Bulldog Pub

12th September

This morning frankie and I went to get our bikes so we could cycle to class and our bikes weren't where we had left them. So obviously we thought they'd been stolen. We spent a while looking for them in case they had been moved, but we couldnt see them anywhere so we went to ask at reception, and the lady told us that they had all been moved to an underground bike store across from our halls. Such a relief, I actually thought they'd been stolen!

Class we so much easier, I actually understood what was going on and i didnt feel as stupid as yesterday. Part way through class Frankie pointed at the american girl's t-shirt, it was sooooo gross. It looked as though someone had been sick all down the back of it. I was just looking at her t-shirt and frankie elbowed me and I realised that everyone was quiet and the teacher was looking at me. He'd asked me a question but I didnt recognise my chinese name so I just ignored him - it was slightly embaressing, and I really need to learn my name.

In the afternoon, sunny gave us a guided tour of the library which was exciting - they have english newspapers and magazine and loads of english books to read!

Later on we were all talking about how we miss english food so we decided to go to the English pub for tea which is called "The British Bulldog". It was so exciting. It was just like wakling into a pub in England and they had a nice english menu. After tea we went upstrairs to play pool and I was just playing against Gemma and heard something move behind me and Gemma shouted "rat, rat". There was actually a rat in the pub. It was awful. The bar woman just looked at it and smiled as though it was her pet.

So after that we went back downstairs to take part in the pub quiz, and there were loads more western people there, although they were all quite old. Two American guys asked if they could be on our quiz team, they were Ric and Bernard. Ric was really nice and friendly and he was hoping to get a teaching job in shanghai. I didnt like Bernard at all, he took the quiz far too seriously and he was so competitive. He was also a genius and know-it-all. He had done a degree is cryptology, and he'd done a post-grad degree and was now on his second masters, he was also a restaurant critic and a sommelier. We didnt stay till the end of the quiz cos it was taking ages and it was quite boring and I was still traumatised because of the rat.