Spring Festival travel plans and VIDEO!

What's this? Two posts in one week? Wow.

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...

Where we will be travelling for the next 7 weeks

Spring Festival in China has started, so this means we get an uber long holiday to celebrate Chinese New Year and to travel! Jony, Jono, Tessa and I start by leaving the -20 degrees Kuitun (labelled 'I'), hopping on a train which lasts 39 hours to go to -3 degrees Xi'an (labelled 'H') for 3 nights. We went to Xi'an for a few nights on the language course and it was the best city I've ever been in, so we just had to go again!
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.

Christmas, New Year and general merriment!

On 22nd December, Tessa and I went to BaGang where Hannah and Alice live to being our epic two weeks of fun. When me, Tessa, Jamie and Jony arrived, Jono and Patrick from Gansu were already there with a busy Alice in the kitchen beginning work on a tomato pasta.
It was lovely seeing everyone again after a few weeks of loneliness and the pasta was loooovely. Western food was missed dearly. We spent that night watching movies, playing hide and seek in the dark and playing Britain's Got Talent - which involved a few of us strutting in front of the 'panel', talking to 'Ant and Dec' and putting on a brilliant show. Much fun was had by all.
The following morning we all left for Fukang where we spent the next few nights. Jony and Jono spent a merry few hours cooking and singing and us girls had a lot of time to catch up. Since we're all poor volunteers though, we didn't have a Christmas tree. So through the next few days, some of us helped to make the best Christmas tree China has ever seen. Not being biased or anything......
Through the next few days we were stuffed with Jony's chili con carne, pasta bolognese, breakfasts (including BACON) and lots of other delicious foods. My mate Jony's a pretty good cook.
We woke up after all sleeping on the floor-beds on Christmas Day at about 9am and all sat around the 'tree' opening gifts sent to China from families and our secret santa's to each other. It was really lovely everyone being so happy and I got a good few gifts from my parents!

Be jealous of our artistic talent.

One of the pressies from my family

Tessa and me with our oh-so-festive Christmas tiaras

Christmas Lunch didn't really begin until about 5:30pm and we didn't finish it until past 7:30pm... There was a lot for Jony to do but with Jono as his little helper, it sped the process along - even if it was just a little bit! The starter was a loooovely vegetable soup, the main course was chicken, roast and boiled potatoes, veggies and salad and for pudding, Jony managed to make an apple crumble! Considering every meal listed so far was practically 100% homemade, I was so impressed! The evening was spent watching The Muppet's Christmas Carol and Love Actually and talking to loved ones back home via the magic of Skype.
Saaadly.... Just before we went to bed, I was rolling around on the floor with a really bad stomach ache and half way through the night (on 5 different occasions...) I had to run to the loo with a really bad bug... It was pretty spectacular to be honest! We think it was because of the richness and volume of all the meals I had in the past few days and my body just wasn't used to the food any more! So I'm scared of going home now.. I'm going to want to stuff everything my Mum cooks into my mouth but I'll probably get ill because of it..!
Because of this, we had to stay an extra night than was planned as I wasn't in a travelling up to 7 hours state..  But the following day (the 27th now) I felt much better, so we went home.

We had just over a day to recover from everything and then off we went to BaGang again for New Years! We left on the 29th and again, when we got there the girls were busily getting things ready. The same group was there but minus Jamie and Patrick. But the rest of us had a really good few days by watching more films, eating more food (I managed to keep it all in this time) and drinking a lot as we saw in the New Year.

Jony, me and Tessa on New Year's Eve

Mine and Tessa's beautiful side-faces just before sleep.

We also decided to become 'Yes Men' to follow in Jim Carry's footsteps and live our next year in China to the fullest! So due to this, on the 2nd we all went to Urumqi (the capital of Xinjiang) and had an amazing meal at the TexMex restaurant, Hannah bought an IPad and we all took a spontaneous trip back to Kuitun for another night! We all obviously just cannot bear to be apart from each other.

TexMex dessert joy.

The following day, Jony, Tessa, Jono and I all booked the train from Kuitun to Xi'an which will start our travels for the 9th Jan and we all had a KFC lunch followed by a trip to the huge games arcade. Then we realised how late it really was and everyone had to rush off before they missed the last bus out of Kuitun! So Tessa and I were left alone with the cat and a big floor-bed taking up our sitting room.

I got a late Christmas package when we got back though full of lovely pressies which gave me a second Christmas! Here are a few photos of what I got (I loved every single one of them).

4 bars of Dairy Milk! Beautiful sight.

All of my pressies put together. What a lovely family I have!

Tessa having no idea what the similarly shaped and sounding pressie to her was  (Maltesers of course)

My portrait of Tessa - I can't decide if it's more beautiful than the real version or not...

It was a lovely couple of weeks filled with non-stop things happening and lovely people. Now, we are all utterly excited to leave for travelling as it's now Spring Festival! Read my next blog to find out what exactly I'll be doing and where exactly I'll be going!

Happy New Year to you all and I hope you all have a great 2013 - say yes to things.