Day 11 - 21 (July 2016)

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Day 11

Today started off bright and early with us all getting up for breakfast on time and ready to start another exciting day in Harbin. 
In our mandarin lesson today we learnt about the different ages that students go to school and the names of all the different schools. Then we compared this to our own school system. Our teacher was very interested to know about this, as in China they don't have free education and they have colleges. All students have have to pass a really hard entrance exam just to go to school otherwise it costs them a lot more money to go. 
After our mandarin lessons ended we all went to a little ice cream shop located on site and bought ice cream and popcorn as a treat - it was delicious.
After lunch we travelled to the famous architecture museum in Harbin, which housed many plans and draft sculptures of Harbin and how its 'New York' - type vibes came to life from paper. We all found this very interesting and captured many photos including many of a giant sculpture of the whole of Harbin, it was stunning. We also learnt a little bit about the Japanese and Chinese war and the horrible things that the Japanese soldiers did and the experiments they carried out on the Chinese people. This was awful to hear but really interesting. 
Then we travelled back to the university where we all practised our end piece for the closing ceremony (on Sunday). We have teamed up with another lovely group from a school in Devon to perform this.  After a fun and tiring practice we then went for dinner. At half 6 we all met on the outside courts for a Chinese Kung Fu lesson which we found very interesting and energetic. The master was amazing and demonstrated Tai Chi for us, using a real sword.
We then went with a few other people from other schools to the street market again which we love. It's full of lots of different food stalls and so many handmade stalls full of beautiful colours and patterns and shapes. Some of our group are getting much more adventurous in the food they're trying, a student from another group even had squid on a stick. We absolutely love chips on a stick with spice and the rainbow drinks. We then returned to the hotel tired but happy after another busy but amazing day in Harbin.

That's all for today, speak soon from China 

Written by Dannielle Jones 

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