Well......
This is weird............
So basically, tomorrow morning (Sunday 16th June) at 8:30am, I'll be leaving Kuitun. It sounds crazy to even say it.... I had times of being so excited to get home and times where I'm sooo sad to leave this place. But today, I have just been very emotionless. I think a big part of me doesn't really believe that I'll actually be going home because it seems like such an alien thing now!
I've practically finished packing. I still need to take down my wall of photos and memories which will take a long time. But apart from that, I'm done.
Goodbye-wise, I had my last day at school yesterday which was, again, very surreal. It was so nice to see the classes for one last time though and get a photo with each of them.
Also, last night my school treated me and Georgina to a farewell banquet! The food was great obviously and all of my favourite teachers were there. But because I was the guest of honour, I had to be the main toast-giver..... The first one was a general thank you to everybody. The second was a specific thank you to the secretary, then the vice-principal, then Mr Xu... I don't really know what exactly Mr Xu does but he is the happiest person I've met here. Every time I pass him in school, my day is just made a whole lot better! He's always smiling so much! Outside the front of the school, there's a board with photos of all of the teachers or heads of somethings on and they all have to look serious and professional, and he's just there grinning away. I just love him. Then I toasted Melanie and Kai because they may not be the big vice-principals or secretaries behind my year here but they have personally helped me a lot more. They've been helpers and taught me Chinese and just generally great friends. I found myself choking up a bit when I made that toast.......
Anyway, as you can guess... After all of these where you often have a full glass of wine per toast, we all got pretty cheerful! So after a few photos, some of us trundled over to Jasper's. Now if you've been reading these blogs since the beginning, you'll remember Jasper owns a bar/restaurant and speaks English and is very good at having a good time. So Kai, Charles, Georgina and I went there and it was just lovely! After quite a bit more alcohol, we decided at 4am that it was probably time to go home - also seeing as Georgina had to teach the next day!
It was very sad to say goodbye to Jasper but Kai especially. We hugged about 5 times and it just wasn't ever enough. When he was walking away it was torture!
I'll be going to Roxy's house very soon to say goodbye to her and her family. If you aren't aware of her, she's basically been my best friend here. She's a student of mine but is practically fluent in English and her and her family have treated me so nicely and basically taken me in while I've been here! So saying goodbye to them is going to be so hard...
Also obviously actually leaving tomorrow is going to be hard and saying goodbye to Georgina who I've lived with for a year. I guess that's a bit better though because the odds we'll be seeing each other again are higher than the Chinese folk!
I'm dreading saying goodbye to Daisy, my little dog. Completely dreading it.
Anyway! Back on track! I should pack away the rest of my things and then trundle off to Roxy's...
Weird.
I'm going home tomorrow.
Weird.
I hope you've all enjoyed reading my blogs through the year! I've had times where I really hated being here but overall, this has been such a good experience. And obviously now I know what I want to do with my future (studying Chinese) which helps a lot!
I don't know if I'll be blogging much after this, but if you want to stay in the loop then watch my videos on PrettyNiceStuff on youtube :) I'll be doing that a lot more than this!
Ok. I think that's that.....
Weird.
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Last few weeks in China!
Hey everyone!
So, to pick up from last time....
If you remember correctly (and if you do, well done, top marks, gold star) then in my last blog post I said that my family were with me and we were going to a performance at my school.
Basically, it was amazing!
I do love my classes and seeing them all on the stage having fun was a treat! Especially since Chinese students work so hard. The arts are kind of frowned upon in China as parents prefer their children to be good at sciences or maths or something. So seeing them play instruments and singing and dancing was really really nice. Also, my family had a great time watching them!
Here are a few nice photos of the day.
The last few days with my family here was also really good.
Being apart from them for so long when I'm still pretty young was strange and I realised how much I've grown up. I felt awkward and rude when they were paying for things for me because I'm just used to sorting things out for myself now! But after the first few days I got used to it a bit more and by the end of their stay I was completely dependent on them! Having to say goodbye to them for the 2nd time was ok. It was a lot easier knowing that I'd see them again in just over a month instead of 10 months this time so it wasn't too emotional.
Talking about emotional - here is a video my mum took when we saw each other at the airport for the first time. You can't really hear anything apart from happy noises and sobs but I think it's really nice. We made quite a scene compared to the Chinese businessmen being greeted by other Chinese businessmen.
Click here and it'll appear in a new window.
They left about a month ago now though and since then the weather has really improved. Today, it's 35 degrees. Now, you'd think that's nice but when you aren't allowed to wear shorts or a vest to school because it's indecent, it's made a whole lot worse!
A weekend or two ago, I went to Fukang for one last time. It was great to be there again and to see the city in the summer again! The park is much better when it's sunny compared to when it's covered in ice in winter... But Jony treated me so much and took me to Tian Shan! Tian Shan is basically the best thing the whole of Xinjiang has got going for it and it was just beautiful.
His friend also made us cake so it was just a brilliant weekend really!
I think I'll write another blog about saying goodbye to everyone next week as I've only really just begun doing that.
I will upload a video on youtube soon about the things that I'll miss when I'm home, so do look that up on my channel! And you might as well have a gander around my other videos while you're there too ;)
Click this for a link to my channel to appear in another window.
Anyway, I'll talk to you again sooner or later!
So, to pick up from last time....
If you remember correctly (and if you do, well done, top marks, gold star) then in my last blog post I said that my family were with me and we were going to a performance at my school.
Basically, it was amazing!
I do love my classes and seeing them all on the stage having fun was a treat! Especially since Chinese students work so hard. The arts are kind of frowned upon in China as parents prefer their children to be good at sciences or maths or something. So seeing them play instruments and singing and dancing was really really nice. Also, my family had a great time watching them!
Here are a few nice photos of the day.
The last few days with my family here was also really good.
Being apart from them for so long when I'm still pretty young was strange and I realised how much I've grown up. I felt awkward and rude when they were paying for things for me because I'm just used to sorting things out for myself now! But after the first few days I got used to it a bit more and by the end of their stay I was completely dependent on them! Having to say goodbye to them for the 2nd time was ok. It was a lot easier knowing that I'd see them again in just over a month instead of 10 months this time so it wasn't too emotional.
Talking about emotional - here is a video my mum took when we saw each other at the airport for the first time. You can't really hear anything apart from happy noises and sobs but I think it's really nice. We made quite a scene compared to the Chinese businessmen being greeted by other Chinese businessmen.
Click here and it'll appear in a new window.
They left about a month ago now though and since then the weather has really improved. Today, it's 35 degrees. Now, you'd think that's nice but when you aren't allowed to wear shorts or a vest to school because it's indecent, it's made a whole lot worse!
A weekend or two ago, I went to Fukang for one last time. It was great to be there again and to see the city in the summer again! The park is much better when it's sunny compared to when it's covered in ice in winter... But Jony treated me so much and took me to Tian Shan! Tian Shan is basically the best thing the whole of Xinjiang has got going for it and it was just beautiful.
His friend also made us cake so it was just a brilliant weekend really!
I think I'll write another blog about saying goodbye to everyone next week as I've only really just begun doing that.
I will upload a video on youtube soon about the things that I'll miss when I'm home, so do look that up on my channel! And you might as well have a gander around my other videos while you're there too ;)
Click this for a link to my channel to appear in another window.
Anyway, I'll talk to you again sooner or later!
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Catch up!
I am terribly sorry for not posting a recent blog guys!
Y'see, in the last 2 months, nothing huge has happened.
Until recently that is... Which is why I am writing now to update you!
Firstly and most importantly, I am coming home early. Now I know what you're thinking, I'm such a cop-out and all that. But I will have you know that I am finishing my teaching here and then going home after that. So I am simply going to spend the last 1-2 months which is my holiday somewhere other than China... So it's fine really. My students still get their favourite teacher until the end of term so it's all good!
Also, my family are here at the moment! So that's lovely.
They came last sunday (the 28th April) bearing a few suitcases - one of which practically full of gifts for my teachers and friends here and chocolate and things for me! So that's just great too.
They had a pretty long journey to get here (London to Amsterdam to Beijing to Urumqi) and I cried a LOT when I saw them all. China has really broken me. Then we went to Bagang to where Hannah and Alice live to drop off the heavy bags and I treated them a gotye, a fried dumpling Bagang speciality. Then we went back to Urumqi and got on the train to Xi'an! Two days later we arrived in sunny, beautiful Xi'an and over the next 4 days we went to the Muslim Quarter (my favourite place in all of China where you can buy lots of things for very very cheap), the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Xi'an City Walls, the Great Goose Pagoda and lots of lovely western restaurants!
Tessa and her mum were also in Xi'an at the same time but when me and my family got on the train back to Xi'an, we had to say farewell as Tessa is spending the next 4 weeks travelling around China with her mum and then she will go back to Scotland.
So we got back to Kuitun on sunday (5th May) and I think they were all surprised of actually how nice Kuitun is. I don't know why they were expecting it to be dirty and small and things but they were genuinely shocked how lovely it is!
So far, I've taken them to a few of my favourite restaurants. One which serves duck wraps but instead of duck, you get donkey which is soooo nice. Another which we go to fairly regularly which serves lovely homemade noodles with vegetables and it's just pretty basic but very tasty. The night before last my school took us all out with Georgina for a banquet which was also great! Kai and Melanie were very friendly and my family loved them both. We had lots of food to eat and LOTS of wine and baijiu to drink which made for a fun night all round!
Lesson-wise, I have been taking my family to my classes this week so that my students can see what an English family looks like and how they're different to Chinese families. I think my family have also been surprised at how good my students' level of English is! I am very proud of them all and I have developed a very good relationship with my classes, which is nice. The best student in one of my classes yesterday asked us if he could hug my family which was beautiful. He gave dad a lovely manly hug, mum and nice friendly hug, Geoff another manly hug then said 'so strong!' and started to go back to his seat by which point most of the class started shouting 'and Mary!!!', so I was lucky enough to get a hug too. Yay!
Tomorrow will be a good day. Grade two has a performance all afternoon where each class competes with dancing and singing and special talents. Considering most of my classes are in Grade two, I am very excited to see them all up on the stage! I will take my family to see that too so the pressure is on for my students!
I don't know what else there is to say...
We got another puppy.
When we got back from travelling somebody lost our cat so we were pet-less for a few weeks which just wasn't good enough! So now we have a beautiful, small, lovely puppy called 'Daisy' and she is the light of my life. Georgina will be staying in China for another year so Daisy will stay with her, so fear not, we have planned this!
Future-wise, I got an unconditional offer to study International Relations and Chinese at Nottingham Trent University which is the only one I really wanted to go to. My spoken Chinese is at a pretty good level now actually, I can understand a lot of what people are saying and I am even talking back a lot more now! I am also slowly learning how to read and write - I'm getting there! But at uni, I plan to study Spanish as a module in IR and French as an extra curricular thing. Then in year 2 I'll add Portuguese to the list and maybe if that's still not enough, I want to learn Arabic too. The plan for after uni is to be either a translator or work for the EU or the civil service or a journalist or something that gets me travelling!
Also, slightly unrelated but it's still a recent thing in my life, I recently weighed myself and I am not happy. I seem to weigh quite a bit more than I did before I left for China so once my family are out of my hair, I am going to start and extra healthy lifestyle! The plan has been foiled slightly in that my family have brought me chocolate and biscuits and crisps and EVERYTHING bad for you but I will persevere. I want to get back into swimming and cycling in a big way so I'll make a few trips to the gym.
Right. I think that might actually be it then.
I think I'll write a blog post soon after my family leave saying how the last few days with them went and how my school performance went so there'll be something else up soonish!
Again, I'm sorry for being so quiet for so long...
But if you are still reading this blog after 8 months of me being here, then thank you for taking such an interest! It really means a lot to me that you care so much to read me waffling on.
Lots of love!
Y'see, in the last 2 months, nothing huge has happened.
Until recently that is... Which is why I am writing now to update you!
Firstly and most importantly, I am coming home early. Now I know what you're thinking, I'm such a cop-out and all that. But I will have you know that I am finishing my teaching here and then going home after that. So I am simply going to spend the last 1-2 months which is my holiday somewhere other than China... So it's fine really. My students still get their favourite teacher until the end of term so it's all good!
Also, my family are here at the moment! So that's lovely.
They came last sunday (the 28th April) bearing a few suitcases - one of which practically full of gifts for my teachers and friends here and chocolate and things for me! So that's just great too.
They had a pretty long journey to get here (London to Amsterdam to Beijing to Urumqi) and I cried a LOT when I saw them all. China has really broken me. Then we went to Bagang to where Hannah and Alice live to drop off the heavy bags and I treated them a gotye, a fried dumpling Bagang speciality. Then we went back to Urumqi and got on the train to Xi'an! Two days later we arrived in sunny, beautiful Xi'an and over the next 4 days we went to the Muslim Quarter (my favourite place in all of China where you can buy lots of things for very very cheap), the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Xi'an City Walls, the Great Goose Pagoda and lots of lovely western restaurants!
Tessa and her mum were also in Xi'an at the same time but when me and my family got on the train back to Xi'an, we had to say farewell as Tessa is spending the next 4 weeks travelling around China with her mum and then she will go back to Scotland.
So we got back to Kuitun on sunday (5th May) and I think they were all surprised of actually how nice Kuitun is. I don't know why they were expecting it to be dirty and small and things but they were genuinely shocked how lovely it is!
So far, I've taken them to a few of my favourite restaurants. One which serves duck wraps but instead of duck, you get donkey which is soooo nice. Another which we go to fairly regularly which serves lovely homemade noodles with vegetables and it's just pretty basic but very tasty. The night before last my school took us all out with Georgina for a banquet which was also great! Kai and Melanie were very friendly and my family loved them both. We had lots of food to eat and LOTS of wine and baijiu to drink which made for a fun night all round!
Lesson-wise, I have been taking my family to my classes this week so that my students can see what an English family looks like and how they're different to Chinese families. I think my family have also been surprised at how good my students' level of English is! I am very proud of them all and I have developed a very good relationship with my classes, which is nice. The best student in one of my classes yesterday asked us if he could hug my family which was beautiful. He gave dad a lovely manly hug, mum and nice friendly hug, Geoff another manly hug then said 'so strong!' and started to go back to his seat by which point most of the class started shouting 'and Mary!!!', so I was lucky enough to get a hug too. Yay!
Tomorrow will be a good day. Grade two has a performance all afternoon where each class competes with dancing and singing and special talents. Considering most of my classes are in Grade two, I am very excited to see them all up on the stage! I will take my family to see that too so the pressure is on for my students!
I don't know what else there is to say...
We got another puppy.
When we got back from travelling somebody lost our cat so we were pet-less for a few weeks which just wasn't good enough! So now we have a beautiful, small, lovely puppy called 'Daisy' and she is the light of my life. Georgina will be staying in China for another year so Daisy will stay with her, so fear not, we have planned this!
Future-wise, I got an unconditional offer to study International Relations and Chinese at Nottingham Trent University which is the only one I really wanted to go to. My spoken Chinese is at a pretty good level now actually, I can understand a lot of what people are saying and I am even talking back a lot more now! I am also slowly learning how to read and write - I'm getting there! But at uni, I plan to study Spanish as a module in IR and French as an extra curricular thing. Then in year 2 I'll add Portuguese to the list and maybe if that's still not enough, I want to learn Arabic too. The plan for after uni is to be either a translator or work for the EU or the civil service or a journalist or something that gets me travelling!
Also, slightly unrelated but it's still a recent thing in my life, I recently weighed myself and I am not happy. I seem to weigh quite a bit more than I did before I left for China so once my family are out of my hair, I am going to start and extra healthy lifestyle! The plan has been foiled slightly in that my family have brought me chocolate and biscuits and crisps and EVERYTHING bad for you but I will persevere. I want to get back into swimming and cycling in a big way so I'll make a few trips to the gym.
Right. I think that might actually be it then.
I think I'll write a blog post soon after my family leave saying how the last few days with them went and how my school performance went so there'll be something else up soonish!
Again, I'm sorry for being so quiet for so long...
But if you are still reading this blog after 8 months of me being here, then thank you for taking such an interest! It really means a lot to me that you care so much to read me waffling on.
Lots of love!
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Gallivanting around China
Well then! Hello again to you. It has been a fair while since I wrote a blog post but I have been rather busy... I got back from my long trip around China last week, so I shall fill you in on where we went and what we did!
If you read my previous blog post, you would've seen our plan of where to go. This was followed almost exactly however towards the end, we found it very difficult to book the trains going to the various cities. Because Spring Festival is the biggest holiday in China, there were millions of people trying to get around, which obviously made it mad when we were trying to get from A to B! Because of this, we couldn't go to Harbin at the end and because there weren't any trains back home from Xi'an, we had to buy a flight! It turned a 40 hour journey into a 4 hour journey, but it did cost a LOT more. Which was money we didn't have.........
Anyway! I'll get on and tell you what each city was like and what we did.
Xi'an - 西安
Our first stop was Xi'an for 4 days. We had already been to Xi'an before so it was lovely going back to a place we knew. As soon as we pulled into the station, we could feel how warm Xi'an was compared to Xinjiang! It was up to 5 degrees, which when we're used to -30, it felt really hot. Also, because we're all very competitive (/childish), we had a race from the train station to the hostel we were staying at. It was boys vs girls, so Jono and Jony against me and Tessa. It was a really fun way to start our holiday, so here's a link to that if you'd like to see who won!
The video will open in a new window.
After we checked in at the hostel, we went straight out across the road for a Subway to officially start the holiday. After a shower and getting clean and settled, we went for a walk through a really old and very traditional Chinese street. It was just beautiful. There were colourful stalls scattered about selling Chinese paintings and wooden flutes. The whole way down the street, you could hear an old man playing on his flute and it just felt so Chinese.
We then made our way to the beloved Muslim Quarter which sells absolutely everything. I got myself an Abercrombie hoodie, over-ear beats and vans and for the lot, I spent around £25! Oh China, how I love you. We headed back to the hostel via Starbucks (thus a carrot cake) and decided to start the holiday well, so we started drinking the worst baijiu ever. Baijiu is bad as it is, but when you buy it for 4 kuai (40p), it is possibly the worst thing in the world. Anyway, it did the job and shortly after, we headed down to the bar where we made friends with some Spanish and American guys. It was so nice being around other white people! The night went on and we went to bed at about 6/7am.
The following morning was spent watching various unmemorable videos filmed the previous night - hilarious.
The rest of our stay in Xi'an rotated around going to the Muslim Quarter, eating various non-Chinese food and generally loving life. At one point though, I ordered chili, chips and cheese from the hostel restaurant but they said they didn't have any chips... So instead I ordered a burger. Then when it arrived, I had everything OTHER than an actual burger... So, bun, lettuce, tomato, bun and even chips. When I complained, they looked confused as to why I would want a burger in my burger. So they took it back and a few minutes later, it came back out. Exactly the same but with a half cooked, half raw burger sat in the middle... I was not a happy girl.
Life went on and the day we were due to leave was spent having an Indian and sitting around the hostel singing and listening to Jono playing the guitar.
Photos from Xi'an:
Jiujiang - 九江
This made us very jealous. We were in Juijiang for almost a full week and it was just lovely. Our friends Ella and Nicole live there, so we moved into their house for the week. We spent most the time eating 'real' Chinese food - the food more like the food served in Chinese restaurants in Britain.
We did also teach a few of Ella's classes how to ceilidh which was brilliant! Very hectic when there's around 60 children running around the sports pitch but we just about managed...
While we were staying here, we also made it our mission to do a few of the 'Miranda' games. If anybody watches that show, you'd be please to know we made a great deal of fruit friends.
On the weekend, we went into Nanchang - the nearby big city. We met up with Hannah, Beth and Catherine there and went straight out to H&M. We spent quite a lot of money there... We then went to Papa John's for supper which was VERY expensive! The next day, we went back to the shops and then to Pizza Hut... We really like Italian food. Then we got the train back to Jiujiang and left for Guangzhou the day after.
Photos from Jiujiang and Nanchang:
Guangzhou - 广州
Our first impression - SO HOT! Our hostel was beautiful. It was sitting just next to the big river in Guangzhou on the well named 'Bar Street'. One of the first things we noticed about where we were was that there were plants and trees and GRASS everywhere! It was the first time we'd seen foliage since November, so it was a bit of a shock to the system but a very welcome one. We began to explore and stumbled across a beautiful quiet park where we sat and soaked up the sun. We ate at Subway and Jony told us off for doing so when we were surrounded by such good food. So he helped himself to a spring roll instead.
The next day, he was really ill so couldn't come out! Us girls went to this big nature park which was beautiful. We found a place where you could rent out a small boat on the big river in the centre of the park, so we made full use of that. It was so relaxing and serene. While we were on the boat, we spotted what looked like a small water park in the distance so that was our next stop. The day walking around this park was just really nice.
That night, Ella, Hannah and I had a party. We found a bottle of vodka which was relatively cheap! When we powered through that, we headed out. Now obviously, as we were living on 'Bar Street', we didn't have to stagger far to find a place to go.
The rest of our stay in Guangzhou was filled with seeing the sights, catching the ferry across the river, catching the night boat from one end of the river to the other (at night believe it or not - beautiful), playing with various cats and hiring roller-skates.
Towards the end of our stay there, Tessa found out that one of her good friends from home had sadly died from cancer, so she flew out back to Scotland in time to make the funeral. It was really odd being away from her. It was the first time we had spent more than a day apart since we got to China!
However, we did have some fun when we met up with Jono and Alice at the station... 'Oh no! We left Tessa at the hostel! "Tessa? What train did you get? Well where are you now...? You're in SCOTLAND?!"' The fun never ended.
We hopped on board our bed bus (a mixture of such fun and complete uncomfortableness) and started our journey to Sanya.
Photos of Guangzhou:
Sanya - 三亚
Sanya is the best city in the world. There was a strangely high number of Russians there..... But it was amazing. We were staying at a hostel called Sanya Backpackers which was run by Chris and Linda. They were the most friendly and helpful people I think we've ever stayed with.
Sanya was really hot. It was around 25-35 degrees every day and we spent a lot of our time at the beach! One of the first things we did in Sanya, was going straight to the beach and just walking into the sea fully clothed. It started out just seeing how far we'd go - it turns out, pretty far! We went until we couldn't stand any more and thus began to swim and thus got completely soaking. Luckily, it was so hot we dried off really quickly!
Because Chris was lovely, on one of the first days he drove us, an American couple and a young Chinese guy to one of the beaches further away from the city. It was beautiful. Clear blue sea, clean beaches and only a few other people. The first day we were there, he taught me and Ella how to surf which was brilliant! In the evening, the sun burn began to come through. It looked a lot like I had very fetching red sleeves and long socks.
The following day, I woke up and could not open my eyes. I made my way to the bathroom and squinted into the mirror and the elephant man looked back. Brilliant. My face was red and had swollen a lot. I asked Chris for help and after an hour of rest, I went to the hospital with one of the workers at the hostel. I got an injection in my bum, was put on a drip for 3 hours and was given 6 days worth of pills. I was also instructed to come back the following day for the same thing. I got back to the hostel just after lunch and because Ella, Hannah and Jony were doing a jungle trek, Jono and Alice came and gave me company. They arrived with a beautiful toy hermit crab and a cornetto for me, lovely people. I removed my shades and Jono loved it. Apparently they weren't expecting it to be that bad so it took them a bit by surprise!
After the hospital the day after, we had a scavenger hunt! It was the girls vs the boys (Alice, Hannah, Ella and me vs Jono and Jony) and the list went as follows:
1. Best photobomb
2. Best owling
3. Best awkward whale
4. Best thing stolen from where you had lunch
5. Shittest thing to buy for 5 kuai
6. Weirdest looking person
7. Most random place
8. Best place to get your bum out
9. Weirdest thing to put in your mouth
10. Most money raised for 10 minutes of busking
We had a whale of a time.
Sadly the boys won overall but we had such a fun day doing all of these weird things! I especially enjoyed it when I had a Chinese baby's foot in my mouth.
A day of beautiful memories... I got quite a few funny photos too which I shall share with you now!
The rest of Sanya was spent by trips to the beaches, trips to Starbucks, trips to the Dolphin Bar (a really good Western restaurant which served the best food I've had in 6 months), walks to the park, picnics and cornettos.
It was really sad leaving Sanya. I definitely plan on going back some other time!
Some photos of Sanya:
Shanghai - 上海
To be honest, we weren't that excited about Shanghai as we thought it couldn't compete against Sanya, but it was really amazing. And it was so British! The buildings and even some of the roads looked like we were in the middle of England. It was brilliant :')
It was lovely seeing the whole group though. When we arrived at the hostel, we were reunited with Naomi, Pete, Nold, Henry, Beth, Catherine and Ella and it was so good being in one big group again!
I spent the first day with Alice, Naomi and Hannah in H&M getting a few things to wear for Chinese New Year and spent the evening with Alice, Naomi and Beth having a lovely long chat about life, the universe and everything.
The next day, Jony, Jono, Alice and I found an M&S so obviously it was the best day in the world. It was on a really long street which seemed to have everything. We even found a bookshop which sold British books! Thrilling. We had supper at Burger King and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.
It was Chinese New Year that night so we were all planning to go to the Bund. It was freezing but that didn't stop us all wearing our new dresses! Sadly, the fireworks were really really bad. You expected them to be amazing because it's Chinese New Year in SHANGHAI but yup, it was really disappointing. They lasted for just under 5 minutes and my world didn't change. We were also really tired, to myself, Jony, Jono and Alice went back for an early night.
The day after was the day that Tessa came home! We had lunch at M&S and then jumped on the subway to go to the airport. I got completely stressed out because the subway was taking a lot longer than what we planned and we got to the airport 45 minutes after she was due to arrive..... Luckily though, her flight was delayed by 1.5 hours! So that was handy. It was lovely seeing her again and she told us all about Britain and reminded us how brilliant everything at home is. To treat the boys, we got the Maglev back to the city. It's a train with no tracks, it runs completely by magnets. To be honest it was pretty cool... And it turned a 1 hour 45 minute journey to an 8 minute one! I think we reached 350kmh at one point.
That night, to celebrate Tessa's return, we went out to partaay. Everyone went to a club called G+ which was brilliant. We got back fairly late and we were all definitely feeling it the next morning!
Jony, Pete and I went out for a hangover Burger King which improved matters quite a bit. Sadly we didn't learn by our mistakes and we went out again that night!
The following day was our last in Shanghai, so we said our farewells to the group and made our way back to Xi'an.
Some photos of Shanghai:
Xi'an (again) - （再次）西安
Ok, so this time, we didn't really do much AT ALL. Our lives for the next week revolved around eating at Subway or the hostel restaurant, watching various films, skyping various people and making friends. I think the only time we did anything else was when we went into the city to top up our phones. Thug life.
It was really nice though, very relaxing. Also, we were lucky enough to meet 4 British guys who were staying there the same time as us. They were our age and were doing a trip around Asia! I was very jealous. Towards the end of the stay, Hannah, Alice and Jono left leaving me and Tessa alone, but luckily the guys moved into our room just as that all happened! So we were never alone. On the last night, we went out once more in Xi'an. We played a few drinking games in our room together and then headed to the bar where we saw a lot of the friends we made the previous time! The Spanish guys were there and they invited us all to a club, so we had a very fun night!
It was really sad leaving Xi'an in the end. I think it's my favourite city in China. I'm going to go at least once more before I leave! However, we did have that plane ride back to Xinjiang to look forward to.
We worked out that if you take away what we would've spent on the train from the price of the flight, there was about a 1700 kuai difference. But the meal on the flight was really nice, so we're saying it was worth it (a normal meal is around 15 kuai...).
Anyway, we got back just over a week ago and I've already had a lot of my classes. My timetable's changed so I have less lessons per week which is nice and it was lovely seeing my students again! Also it was my birthday on the first sunday back and I received a lot of chocolate from my family, a few really nice meals from my friends, chocolate and tuna from Tessa (she's a strange one) and quite a few birthday cards. So that was nice!
Sadly though, when we got back, I discovered that the family who were 'looking after' our cat had in fact lost him a week before we came back. So I was very upset about that... I think we're going to be getting another cat soon though! Don't judge me. Life here gets hard sometimes and cats make it all better.
It seems as though this has been a very long blog... Sorry about that but there was a lot to fill you all in on!
If you read my previous blog post, you would've seen our plan of where to go. This was followed almost exactly however towards the end, we found it very difficult to book the trains going to the various cities. Because Spring Festival is the biggest holiday in China, there were millions of people trying to get around, which obviously made it mad when we were trying to get from A to B! Because of this, we couldn't go to Harbin at the end and because there weren't any trains back home from Xi'an, we had to buy a flight! It turned a 40 hour journey into a 4 hour journey, but it did cost a LOT more. Which was money we didn't have.........
Anyway! I'll get on and tell you what each city was like and what we did.
Xi'an - 西安
Our first stop was Xi'an for 4 days. We had already been to Xi'an before so it was lovely going back to a place we knew. As soon as we pulled into the station, we could feel how warm Xi'an was compared to Xinjiang! It was up to 5 degrees, which when we're used to -30, it felt really hot. Also, because we're all very competitive (/childish), we had a race from the train station to the hostel we were staying at. It was boys vs girls, so Jono and Jony against me and Tessa. It was a really fun way to start our holiday, so here's a link to that if you'd like to see who won!
The video will open in a new window.
After we checked in at the hostel, we went straight out across the road for a Subway to officially start the holiday. After a shower and getting clean and settled, we went for a walk through a really old and very traditional Chinese street. It was just beautiful. There were colourful stalls scattered about selling Chinese paintings and wooden flutes. The whole way down the street, you could hear an old man playing on his flute and it just felt so Chinese.
We then made our way to the beloved Muslim Quarter which sells absolutely everything. I got myself an Abercrombie hoodie, over-ear beats and vans and for the lot, I spent around £25! Oh China, how I love you. We headed back to the hostel via Starbucks (thus a carrot cake) and decided to start the holiday well, so we started drinking the worst baijiu ever. Baijiu is bad as it is, but when you buy it for 4 kuai (40p), it is possibly the worst thing in the world. Anyway, it did the job and shortly after, we headed down to the bar where we made friends with some Spanish and American guys. It was so nice being around other white people! The night went on and we went to bed at about 6/7am.
The following morning was spent watching various unmemorable videos filmed the previous night - hilarious.
The rest of our stay in Xi'an rotated around going to the Muslim Quarter, eating various non-Chinese food and generally loving life. At one point though, I ordered chili, chips and cheese from the hostel restaurant but they said they didn't have any chips... So instead I ordered a burger. Then when it arrived, I had everything OTHER than an actual burger... So, bun, lettuce, tomato, bun and even chips. When I complained, they looked confused as to why I would want a burger in my burger. So they took it back and a few minutes later, it came back out. Exactly the same but with a half cooked, half raw burger sat in the middle... I was not a happy girl.
Life went on and the day we were due to leave was spent having an Indian and sitting around the hostel singing and listening to Jono playing the guitar.
Photos from Xi'an:
Jiujiang - 九江
This made us very jealous. We were in Juijiang for almost a full week and it was just lovely. Our friends Ella and Nicole live there, so we moved into their house for the week. We spent most the time eating 'real' Chinese food - the food more like the food served in Chinese restaurants in Britain.
We did also teach a few of Ella's classes how to ceilidh which was brilliant! Very hectic when there's around 60 children running around the sports pitch but we just about managed...
While we were staying here, we also made it our mission to do a few of the 'Miranda' games. If anybody watches that show, you'd be please to know we made a great deal of fruit friends.
On the weekend, we went into Nanchang - the nearby big city. We met up with Hannah, Beth and Catherine there and went straight out to H&M. We spent quite a lot of money there... We then went to Papa John's for supper which was VERY expensive! The next day, we went back to the shops and then to Pizza Hut... We really like Italian food. Then we got the train back to Jiujiang and left for Guangzhou the day after.
Photos from Jiujiang and Nanchang:
Guangzhou - 广州
Our first impression - SO HOT! Our hostel was beautiful. It was sitting just next to the big river in Guangzhou on the well named 'Bar Street'. One of the first things we noticed about where we were was that there were plants and trees and GRASS everywhere! It was the first time we'd seen foliage since November, so it was a bit of a shock to the system but a very welcome one. We began to explore and stumbled across a beautiful quiet park where we sat and soaked up the sun. We ate at Subway and Jony told us off for doing so when we were surrounded by such good food. So he helped himself to a spring roll instead.
The next day, he was really ill so couldn't come out! Us girls went to this big nature park which was beautiful. We found a place where you could rent out a small boat on the big river in the centre of the park, so we made full use of that. It was so relaxing and serene. While we were on the boat, we spotted what looked like a small water park in the distance so that was our next stop. The day walking around this park was just really nice.
That night, Ella, Hannah and I had a party. We found a bottle of vodka which was relatively cheap! When we powered through that, we headed out. Now obviously, as we were living on 'Bar Street', we didn't have to stagger far to find a place to go.
The rest of our stay in Guangzhou was filled with seeing the sights, catching the ferry across the river, catching the night boat from one end of the river to the other (at night believe it or not - beautiful), playing with various cats and hiring roller-skates.
Towards the end of our stay there, Tessa found out that one of her good friends from home had sadly died from cancer, so she flew out back to Scotland in time to make the funeral. It was really odd being away from her. It was the first time we had spent more than a day apart since we got to China!
However, we did have some fun when we met up with Jono and Alice at the station... 'Oh no! We left Tessa at the hostel! "Tessa? What train did you get? Well where are you now...? You're in SCOTLAND?!"' The fun never ended.
We hopped on board our bed bus (a mixture of such fun and complete uncomfortableness) and started our journey to Sanya.
Photos of Guangzhou:
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| The most Chinese looking man I've come across... |
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| Bed bus! |
Sanya is the best city in the world. There was a strangely high number of Russians there..... But it was amazing. We were staying at a hostel called Sanya Backpackers which was run by Chris and Linda. They were the most friendly and helpful people I think we've ever stayed with.
Sanya was really hot. It was around 25-35 degrees every day and we spent a lot of our time at the beach! One of the first things we did in Sanya, was going straight to the beach and just walking into the sea fully clothed. It started out just seeing how far we'd go - it turns out, pretty far! We went until we couldn't stand any more and thus began to swim and thus got completely soaking. Luckily, it was so hot we dried off really quickly!
Because Chris was lovely, on one of the first days he drove us, an American couple and a young Chinese guy to one of the beaches further away from the city. It was beautiful. Clear blue sea, clean beaches and only a few other people. The first day we were there, he taught me and Ella how to surf which was brilliant! In the evening, the sun burn began to come through. It looked a lot like I had very fetching red sleeves and long socks.
The following day, I woke up and could not open my eyes. I made my way to the bathroom and squinted into the mirror and the elephant man looked back. Brilliant. My face was red and had swollen a lot. I asked Chris for help and after an hour of rest, I went to the hospital with one of the workers at the hostel. I got an injection in my bum, was put on a drip for 3 hours and was given 6 days worth of pills. I was also instructed to come back the following day for the same thing. I got back to the hostel just after lunch and because Ella, Hannah and Jony were doing a jungle trek, Jono and Alice came and gave me company. They arrived with a beautiful toy hermit crab and a cornetto for me, lovely people. I removed my shades and Jono loved it. Apparently they weren't expecting it to be that bad so it took them a bit by surprise!
After the hospital the day after, we had a scavenger hunt! It was the girls vs the boys (Alice, Hannah, Ella and me vs Jono and Jony) and the list went as follows:
1. Best photobomb
2. Best owling
3. Best awkward whale
4. Best thing stolen from where you had lunch
5. Shittest thing to buy for 5 kuai
6. Weirdest looking person
7. Most random place
8. Best place to get your bum out
9. Weirdest thing to put in your mouth
10. Most money raised for 10 minutes of busking
We had a whale of a time.
Sadly the boys won overall but we had such a fun day doing all of these weird things! I especially enjoyed it when I had a Chinese baby's foot in my mouth.
A day of beautiful memories... I got quite a few funny photos too which I shall share with you now!
The rest of Sanya was spent by trips to the beaches, trips to Starbucks, trips to the Dolphin Bar (a really good Western restaurant which served the best food I've had in 6 months), walks to the park, picnics and cornettos.
It was really sad leaving Sanya. I definitely plan on going back some other time!
Some photos of Sanya:
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| 'Best place to get your bum out' - all the way down a 6 floor glass lift... |
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| 'Weirdest thing to put in your mouth' |
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| 'Weirdest thing to put in your mouth' |
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| 'Weirdest thing to put in your mouth' |
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| 'Shittest thing to buy for 5 kuai' |
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| 'Most random place' |
To be honest, we weren't that excited about Shanghai as we thought it couldn't compete against Sanya, but it was really amazing. And it was so British! The buildings and even some of the roads looked like we were in the middle of England. It was brilliant :')
It was lovely seeing the whole group though. When we arrived at the hostel, we were reunited with Naomi, Pete, Nold, Henry, Beth, Catherine and Ella and it was so good being in one big group again!
I spent the first day with Alice, Naomi and Hannah in H&M getting a few things to wear for Chinese New Year and spent the evening with Alice, Naomi and Beth having a lovely long chat about life, the universe and everything.
The next day, Jony, Jono, Alice and I found an M&S so obviously it was the best day in the world. It was on a really long street which seemed to have everything. We even found a bookshop which sold British books! Thrilling. We had supper at Burger King and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.
It was Chinese New Year that night so we were all planning to go to the Bund. It was freezing but that didn't stop us all wearing our new dresses! Sadly, the fireworks were really really bad. You expected them to be amazing because it's Chinese New Year in SHANGHAI but yup, it was really disappointing. They lasted for just under 5 minutes and my world didn't change. We were also really tired, to myself, Jony, Jono and Alice went back for an early night.
The day after was the day that Tessa came home! We had lunch at M&S and then jumped on the subway to go to the airport. I got completely stressed out because the subway was taking a lot longer than what we planned and we got to the airport 45 minutes after she was due to arrive..... Luckily though, her flight was delayed by 1.5 hours! So that was handy. It was lovely seeing her again and she told us all about Britain and reminded us how brilliant everything at home is. To treat the boys, we got the Maglev back to the city. It's a train with no tracks, it runs completely by magnets. To be honest it was pretty cool... And it turned a 1 hour 45 minute journey to an 8 minute one! I think we reached 350kmh at one point.
That night, to celebrate Tessa's return, we went out to partaay. Everyone went to a club called G+ which was brilliant. We got back fairly late and we were all definitely feeling it the next morning!
Jony, Pete and I went out for a hangover Burger King which improved matters quite a bit. Sadly we didn't learn by our mistakes and we went out again that night!
The following day was our last in Shanghai, so we said our farewells to the group and made our way back to Xi'an.
Some photos of Shanghai:
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| I love the Chinese langauge. |
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| Chinese New Year on The Bund |
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| The boys looking VERY excited about being on the Maglev |
Xi'an (again) - （再次）西安
Ok, so this time, we didn't really do much AT ALL. Our lives for the next week revolved around eating at Subway or the hostel restaurant, watching various films, skyping various people and making friends. I think the only time we did anything else was when we went into the city to top up our phones. Thug life.
It was really nice though, very relaxing. Also, we were lucky enough to meet 4 British guys who were staying there the same time as us. They were our age and were doing a trip around Asia! I was very jealous. Towards the end of the stay, Hannah, Alice and Jono left leaving me and Tessa alone, but luckily the guys moved into our room just as that all happened! So we were never alone. On the last night, we went out once more in Xi'an. We played a few drinking games in our room together and then headed to the bar where we saw a lot of the friends we made the previous time! The Spanish guys were there and they invited us all to a club, so we had a very fun night!
It was really sad leaving Xi'an in the end. I think it's my favourite city in China. I'm going to go at least once more before I leave! However, we did have that plane ride back to Xinjiang to look forward to.
We worked out that if you take away what we would've spent on the train from the price of the flight, there was about a 1700 kuai difference. But the meal on the flight was really nice, so we're saying it was worth it (a normal meal is around 15 kuai...).
Anyway, we got back just over a week ago and I've already had a lot of my classes. My timetable's changed so I have less lessons per week which is nice and it was lovely seeing my students again! Also it was my birthday on the first sunday back and I received a lot of chocolate from my family, a few really nice meals from my friends, chocolate and tuna from Tessa (she's a strange one) and quite a few birthday cards. So that was nice!
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| My chocolate and sweet collection looking very handsome. |
It seems as though this has been a very long blog... Sorry about that but there was a lot to fill you all in on!
Sunday, 6 January 2013
Spring Festival travel plans and VIDEO!
Ok so, my school let me stop working on the 1st Jan so I've got all this lovely spare time! I've been writing blogs, editing and uploading videos, writing packing lists and many more thrilling things like that. What an exciting life I lead...
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| Where we will be travelling for the next 7 weeks |
Then we will go on a 19 hours train to get to Jiujiang (labelled C) where our fellow PT volunteer friend, Ella, lives. We will stay there for around a week where she'll show us the delights of her city and other cities nearby. Ella will then join us and we will all go to Guangzhou (labelled D) to explore. We don't really know anything about Guangzhou so it'll be fun trying to find things to do! Hannah from a city near us in Xinjiang, will meet us in Guangzhou and will join our group of travel buddies.
Then after a week there, we will get on a tiny little 15 hour train to Sanya (labelled E) where will spend 10 nights because it is the best place in the world. Sanya is known as the 'eastern Hawaii' and rarely drops below 25 degrees - even in the winter. So we are really looking forward to that! The hostel we're booked into is also the best one around apparently and every review raves about the friendly staff. If you want, look up 'Sanya Backpackers' - all you'll see is people talking about how amazing 'Chris and Linda' are! Apparently Chris gives you free tours into the rain-forest as well as taking you scuba diving and jet skiing etc. Also the hostel is a 5 minute walk from the best white sandy beach around, with warm, clear sea water... I'm rather excited for that. As you might tell...
THEN we will get a 36 hour train up to Shanghai (labelled F) where we'll spend Chinese New Year for 4 nights and then a 32 hour train up up up to Harbin (labelled G). Harbin is one of the coldest places in China (obviously apart from Kuitun...) but due to that, every year they hold the 'Ice Festival'. This is where hundreds of huge ice sculptures are made and at night coloured lights are shined onto and through them to create huge, shining, colourful statues. Look it up. I am very excited.
Then, because there isn't a train from Harbin to Urumqi or to Kuitun as it's just TOO FAR, we will take a 34 hours train back to Xi'an for 1 night (it's just so beautiful) and then a 39 hour train back home to Kuitun.
My birthday falls on the last train journey - so I will wake up on the train, spend the day on the train and go to sleep on the train... Not the best way to spend a birthday really but I'm allowing it seeing as the month or so before hand sounds like it's going to be pretty good!
So those are our plans for travelling! The trains are really long as China is pretty large believe it or not.. So it looks like we're going to spend a maximum of 5000 kuai (about £500) on transport and hostels which is pretty good going for an all-round-China's-best-cities thing. I will be receiving 3000 kuai from my school for my January and February pay soon so that can contribute to my spending money!
I will take a lot of photos and I plan on videoing bits here and there to make into another video when I get back. But for now, feast your eyes on my most recent video. It's a blog showing an 'average day' here in Kuitun. You might think that life here is exciting and non-stop adventure but to be honest, most days are pretty standard.. They just happen to be in China as opposed to England!
But yes, please give this a look as I'm pretty proud of it!
Click here to see 'A day in the life of China' on youtube - it will open in a new window, don't you worry.
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