IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (to my parents visiting).....

So as promised, I walked to Han jie (the western shopping area) on Sunday. I first met Marie in my neighbourhood for a pre-workout meal of dumplings and vegetable noodles, and then we set off. The walk was beautiful as we went all through my campus and then around East Lake, which is so big, you can’t see from one side to another! To put into perspective how far we walked, let me give you some fun facts: we walked to a place which has a completely different subway line from where I live and I also got a blister.

East Lake - Donghu

Steamed dumplings and vegetable noodles

Marie and I

Very excited at being able to see the city because of the good air quality

Still got the Christmas tree up...

Nearly there but just having a quick rest

Anyway, we arrived (I hobbled) and went to Marks and Spencer in search of Percy Pigs and THERE WERE NONE! I was gutted but I found solace in H&M, where I then wanted to buy everything. I had to quickly look and then move on before I ended up trying something on. After getting annoyed with how busy the place was (Wuhan is always crazy on a Sunday), we attempted to catch the subway home. In the evening I skyped my parents and then skyped Stella, Sam and Enzo the tortoise!

Hi Enzo!

Monday was a very nondescript day of planning lessons for next semester, and making carrot and coriander soup with my new blender. The soup was probably the highlight of the day, although I did tutor my new group of children. I have 5 boys and 1 girl, all 7 years old. It’s actually a nice age group to tutor, as their attention span is relatively long and they enjoy colouring! That takes at least 15 minutes...

Look at that soup....

On Tuesday, I started with such good intentions. I woke up early and aimed to plan some more lessons. However, I only managed 1 ½ PowerPoints before my boss called with exciting news of getting a free bookcase from the empty apartment upstairs. However, my boss clearly hadn’t planned on getting the bookcase down to my apartment and it ended up with me waiting with the abandoned bookcase on the stairwell, whilst she went to find a random person to help me carry it! After 30 minutes of keeping watch over the bookcase (because otherwise someone would have probably taken it), it arrived safely into my apartment.

My new, FREE bookcase...

The successful morning led into a successful afternoon. I met Brooke and Marie for lunch near Guangbutun and went into this food court, where the food was ridiculously cheap! I got 12 dumplings for 40p, which is madness, although the woman was getting very upset at my broken Chinese and kept getting my order wrong. Whoops! Brooke and I then ventured to Metro, my favourite foreign supermarket, on the subway. I have only been previously in a car and on a moped, so I had to go off internet directions but we made it! The highlights of this trip involved spending nearly £10 on bread (I like bread okay), dancing to Meghan Trainor’s ‘All about that bass’ in the aisles and relaxing on massage chairs when shopping got too much for us.

My bargain lunch...

Trying out the massage chairs...

We paid for our items and went to walk back to the subway, when we saw the most random and clean public toilets out on the street! There was a traumatic incident to the day though. I bought some speakers for 20 yuan (about £2) and was extremely excited to take them home and see how useless they were but after unpacking my bag, I realised that I had left them at Metro! Even worse was that I’d paid for them. I’m not sure how I’ll get over this but after telling my mum, she understood my pain as she had recently lost some celery after supermarket shopping. This lessened the blow slightly.

Public toilets complete with proper doors

On Wednesday, Marie, Carley, Brooke and Paul came over to relax at mine. Brooke and I ordered pizza, although working out what was on a ‘Black Pepper Supreme’ was an interesting moment. It involved the worker of the pizza shop using my Chinese dictionary app to tell us the ingredients! (Sweetcorn, tomatoes, beef and green pepper – so now we know). I also gave a cultural lesson in British humour to my lovely American friends, by playing episodes of ‘The Inbetweeners’. I had to translate a few words but I think they liked it.

Me and Carley

,Me and Marie

So much food...

Thursday was also a super boring day spent disinfecting my apartment and then feeling very proud of my achievement. I tutored my younger children in the evening, and it is my last class with them for a while because of Chinese New Year coming. One of the children, Eric, was poorly but insisted he still came. I am now sick myself so thanks Eric for spreading the illness. On my way out, one of the kids, Rose, started walking down the stairs with me and then cried when her mum took her back! She said (in Chinese), I want to go to England! So my 4 year olds think I head back to England after each class.....

Friday rolled around and after a relaxing morning, I went to meet Charlotte for a cheeky Starbucks. We then headed back to mine and I made us a roast dinner! It was actually amazing, and involved having to stack the food because there was so much of it. It was mostly vegetables though so totally healthy. After our British afternoon / evening of Starbucks, English food and catch up TV, I went to sleep.

Chicken, mash, veg and gravy!

Charlotte looking extremely excited

The weekend has been mostly spent feeling sorry for myself because I have a cold, fever thing and I want to do nothing but lay on my sofa. I did make it to Mr Mai’s yesterday to volunteer and actually felt better for the walk and some social interaction. Today, I’m going to venture out to buy some antibiotics as you don’t need a prescription in China – excellent. I have also downloaded A LOT of TV to catch up on so that’s my Sunday sorted.

xxxxx

P.s. MY PARENTS COME IN 6 DAYS!!!! So Wuhan, please change your predicted weather forecast of heavy snow and sleet to something less chaotic. Kthanksbye.