Halloween, Health, and Huh?

I am writing this entry in my office at work because I've just been handed the rare gift of a cancelled class. For the past twenty minutes I've been scouring the internet on Tao Bao --an eBay style website -- trying to find the clothing for my Halloween costume, all to no avail. I can't write Chinese which is obviously a huge hindrance with this kind of thing.

My manager has asked me to host the party on Friday, which will consist of telling a group of people in a bar where Halloween came from and why we celebrate it. Then, with a tutor, Candy, we will introduce each game that will be played. Games include: mummy wrapping (who can wrap a person with toilet roll the quickest), magic box (students will put their hands in a box and guess what they are touching), and the only traditional game of the lot, bobbing for apples. It should be fun I hope. Just need to find my costume now.

Yesterday I began trying to do some exercise again. Since I came to China it has been difficult to join a gym due to the money I never seem to have spare. For quite a few months I have been using my Nintendo Wii as a convenient way of exercising -- and it really works. I don't have Wii Fit yet (although I would love to get hold of it) because the console is region locked, so buying a copy in China would be a waste of time. Instead I have been playing the only game that came bundled with the machine: Wii Sport. For anybody who doesn't know, you have to physically move the controller in real-life to make a change in the game. For the Wii Sport game you have the option of playing Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Boxing. By far the most physically challenging is the boxing. Each morning I have been playing the boxing for twenty minutes or so, and by the end I am quite exhausted. The game has become so hard I now spend each round dodging punches, which is much harder than you would expect.

However, since I bought the guitar a few weeks ago, the time spent on exercising has been spent on practising instead. Yesterday I decided to switch the Wii back on and try to get into a better routine (I think getting to sleep and waking up earlier would be a good start). Now, as I am writing this, my arms are aching like I've never even considered doing exercise before. It always amazes me how quickly the body can revert once you stop using it.

My "Mii" on the left in the blue, I ingeniously called him Chriis.

On a different topic, in my previous class at Web, we were asking questions which somehow got around to the t-shirt I was wearing. I told them it was bought in England, and they thought it was probably made in China, possibly even Wenzhou. I looked on the tag but there was no sign of the country of origin. Then, to my amazement, one of the women in the room said, "Why don't you take it off and you can have a really close look then?". I sat there stunned as she smiled back at me.