Moving on.

I Had an excellent night in Changsha yesterday, was taken out for a lovely meal by an ex student and now colleague Mr Ronlad Peng and Dr Wu from CSUST. A restaurant serving authentic food typical of the region, very spicy and quite hot nothing like the Chinese food we get in the UK, and such a variety of dishes from tofu and green beans, an entire broiled chicken ( the only thing missing was the feathers!) to tiny little deep fried and beautifully crispy frogs (trciicky to pick up with chopsticks!) and a glass or.....ahem........two of local beer. Up before the crack of dawn, the jet lag is wrecking me this time, I am waking up at 04.30 on the dot everyday and am wide awake (08.00 UK ) then off for breakfast meetings with colleagues in Changsha University of Science and Technology, it was more like speed dating really, as everyone was scheduled for other (more) important meetings after their time with me. It wasnt because I was getting on their nerves as I feared at one point, I know this because they all met up with me again later to host a stunning lunch at a local traditional restaurant. 14.00 picked up by driver to shuttle me off to Zhuzhou City where I' ll spend the rest of this week, working with the organisation here and meeting the Party Education Department. I was welcomed warmly and taken to dinner, where we tucked into spicy Pigs Lips and Green Beans, a fish that looked like a carp and tasted like it was made of sweet mud (not that I have any experience of what sweet or savoury mud tastes like mind you!), a delicious consommé of some kind of pea and gloopy tofu and some stunning lotus root dumplings to mention only few of the dishes, all topped of with a number toasts and a few "campais" (Manadrin for Down your neck)of the local moonshine 'Mao Tao'. It is absolutely perishing here and a good long walk along the river in the frigid night air took the edge of the 'Mao Tao' assault on my frontal lobe and has positioned me well for what I hope may be my first night's proper sleep in the last seven days! Night night xx