Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

So, the Dalai Lama walks into a Pizza Shop...ouch!

This time, using the front door he enters and begins checking the menu and after a few minutes the Pizza Guy says, hey Peaceful Dude what will it be? The Dalai Lama looks at the Pizza Guy and says...how about just making me 'one with everything!’

Sheerbang!...and for anyone who knows a little Chinese here's the final Sheeeerbang.
The Pizza Guy then looks at Peaceful Dude and says, hey Dalai, La Ma?

All exams have been completed, there are no more students climbing my window rails trying to peek into my apartment, all my clothes and electronics etc (for those who don’t know, is everything I own in life) have been squashed into a small forty five litre pack and my teaching 'stuff’ has been squished into a small wheelie case, both of which are now sitting beside the my open front door, which in several hours I will lock for the last time.

I will then take my ‘things’ to American Travis’s apartment for the summer.

Soon after, we will both grab a taxi to the Shangrao train station and take the ten thirty sleeper way down south to Yangshuo where I will begin the 2012 Summer Beers N Noodles adventure by getting prodded and pocked, lobotomized and drained of blood to enable me to obtain my next year’s Residency Permit. Sadly though I will be passport less so I won’t be able to do anything but spend my time walking and riding through and around thousands of spectacular limestone karst peaks, ancient villages and rice fields for anything up to two weeks.

My Gawd, it may be even longer!

Come on everybody, I can feel it. Everyone hold hands and say Ohhhh, poor Eddakath for having to spend two weeks in what is one of THE MOST amazingly beautiful parts of China. I thank you for your sympathy. No, no, I do, honestly. It really is a tough life I live here and I need every bit of sympathy I can get….NOT!

Anyhow, there actually was an important point to this blog but for some reason it has slipped through the strange grey knots and twirls of what some would call my mind. Maybe I have a hankering for pizza? But I can’t eat dairy so that can’t be it. Maybe I have a calling to visit Tibet?   But the Chinese government continually changes the regulations required to visit Tibet from mainland China and at the moment they have gone all out weird and wonderfully crazy and now require me to find a group of five people from the same country to obtain a permit to enter Tibet, so strangely that can’t be the point of the blog.

Oh my gawd, maybe I want to become a Pizza Dude!

I can barely poach an egg without it ending as an epic Surfers Paradise cancer patient failure. As for making things round without a compass and then adding the required top soil to make it into what most pub leavers require as the ‘main necessity (besides coffee) to battle the on-coming hangover, I would probably add Beers & Noodles so it can’t be that gawd is calling me to kneed and fold dough.

So what is this blog about and what is my actual calling?

I still believe it is to be a photographer for Asian Play Boy, but there is no Asian Play Boy and nor do I believe they would allow or trust anyone who uses a Nokia N8 phone camera to pursue such a career. So I guess the point of this blog is simply to let everyone know that the Eddakath Adventure is still continuing and as of September 1^st it will be in a new school which is located in what is known as ‘one of the most beautiful and scenic areas of China’. This blog is also about thanking the English Staff in my previous school and to let them know that they were one of, if not THE most wonderful and amazing group of people that I have ever worked with.

Needless to add that they were the most beautiful and sexy (I am a man after all) office full of Chinese English Teachers that I have ever been so lucky to have been amongst and that I will miss all of you! To be honest, put aside figure hugging Chinese silk dresses, short shorts, high heels and short frilly skirts, the English Team I worked with for the past year (many of which were my classroom assistants) helped me through some very difficult times with my lack of confidence when teaching my classes, mostly my Grade 1’s and 2’s.

Without their help and support I have no doubt that I would have become yet another fly by nighter foreign teacher who simply packed and disappeared over night without warning.

Believe me, at one stage I actually did pack and was ready to catch the midnight train to Shenzhen to be with JiangNi and forget all about my Grade 1 & 2’s who at one stage, overnight turned into uncontrollable little creatures that were born from my worst nightmare. But with the help and understanding of my boss Owen Buckland and my classroom assistants I continued try. There were several Monday mornings where I simply shut my apartment door to walking into the classroom but thankfully my students for some reason changed back into little human beings and they re-opened their minds and arms and allowed me to begin teaching them again

To this day I honestly have no understanding of what happed and what made them change into tiny little Lizzie Borden’s and Freddy Krueger’s. Thankfully though, Wes Craven finally stopped wearing my sandals and we all grabbed a golf cart and turned left out of Elm Street and moved on towards something not so scary. So this blog is for the English Staff at Number 5 Primary School in Shangrao County!

Maybe for everyone else it is all about

WHAT CONFUCIUS DID NOT SAY

War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left.
It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it.
Passionate kiss, like spider web, leads to undoing of fly.
Man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night.
Squirrel who runs up woman's leg will not find nuts.
A lion will not cheat on his wife, but a Tiger Wood!
Man who eats many prunes get good run for money.
Lady who goes camping must beware of evil intent.
Man who fish in other man's well often catch crabs.
Man who drives like hell is bound to get there.
Man who wants pretty nurse, must be patient.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Man who stands on toilet is high on pot.
Better to be pissed off than pissed on.
Beers N Noodles toya…..shane

PS: The first part of the Dalai Lama joke I found on YouTube as an ‘Epic Broadcaster Failure’. An Australian TV presenter, whilst interviewing the Dalai Lama actually told him that joke and of course the Peaceful Dude had no idea what he was on about. As for the second Sheeerbang, I wanted my own Epic Failure so I thought I’d add a little more to it. It’s basically the Pizza Guy asking the Peaceful Dude (in Chinese) if he wants chilli on his pizza….la is chilli and ma makes it a question….Hey Dali, la ma?

Pretty cool epic failure hey!
You see kids, your teachers are right.
If you really want to achieve something, you can do it!

PSS: The photos for this entry are simply 'here's and there's' from the past six months whilst walking and riding around Shangrao County.
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Iron & Wine
The album was ‘Sea and the Rhythm’
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