Having travelled for months and with the temptation of a city promising eternal spring, we decide to rest. Yet as our hopes for a temporary working visa fail, we head for a student life and put ourselves into the arms of a university for a semester of Chinese. Many stories of an exciting and funny life with our strange but beloved flatmates as well as our friends and classmates from around the world could be told. But if I would do so 'I will still sit here tomorrow'. So instead for our home for 4 month a few more pictures.. about being 'actor', days in slightly overpopulated city parks or more generally the joys of living in a random Chinese metropolis that is strangely reminiscent of a small countryside town. 
We soon settle into a routine, classes in the morning until 10, visits to local restaurants where we can fulfil our various Chinese food addictions, getting £2 roast ducks from the local market, walks to near-by parks and lakes to feed the vicious sea-gulls and so on. We quickly realise the character of society here, both good and bad. The level of government control is clear, not only by the blocking of facebook, youtube and even our blog but by the reluctance of people, even good friends, to talk about controversies such as Taiwan or Tibet. Despite being one of the safest countries we have visited, it is clear that if you step out of line here, you are in the no-mans-land that is the dark underbelly of China.
Intermittently we have our little excursions away from the city. As an actor for a 1930s' TV series (earning 10 times as much as our Chinese counterparts) I got tricked into a journey into the distant Dali. A little wonderland gem in noisy grubby China which preserved (or reconstructed) its beautiful antique style. In between hundreds of tourists beats a lively rhythm of hippies living from selling their self-made hacky sacks in this lake and mountain surrounded scenery.
Our steady reliable horse Jinlun also takes us on another trip, to the famous rice terraces of Yuanyang and the tea growing region of Pu'er. Perfect examples of how even the steepest hills may be used. Left with miraculous reflections the landscape is brought alive by its diverse minorities (which account for a mere 110 million of China's population).
After four months in the city, and the promise of rainforests and beaches to the south, we are finally ready to move on. Literally swapping our electric heater for a mosquito net, we pack our bags and move out of the city of Spring and into the world of never ending Summer.
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