Not another China update....

My week has been the laziest week of all time, in my life, ever. And its been glorious despite being not overly interesting. I didn’t even bother leaving my house over the weekend, with everywhere shut and a huge thunderstorm causing havoc. However, come Monday I was going slightly stir crazy and ventured out for the supermarket. With the supermarket being the ONLY place open, I had to get everything from here and their packaging ideas astound me. I wanted two cloves of garlic not the packet of 8, so the shop assistant calmly ripped open the packaging for me to get two. Also, I only wanted a tiny bit of ginger, so she just hacked some off another piece. This would definitely not open in England. Anyway, a tenner lighter and I finally had exciting food to eat.

In the afternoon, I decided to make a potato and leek soup and use my posh blender. I was obviously having one of those days as the soup went EVERYWHERE when I turned the blender on. I was cleaning soup from the walls, floor and myself for a very long time. I ended up eating my remaining soup that stayed in the blender with cold compresses over my arms and legs after burning them. Sticking to tinned soup from now on.

The incriminating soup....

On Tuesday afternoon, Brooke came to mine and I introduced her to the delights of a roast dinner. We even had stuffing – the whole pack between just us two. She loved it, obviously and then we watched films in the evening. I couldn’t sleep that night until 4am and woke up at 8.30am on Wednesday. This made Wednesday seem like the longest day of my life. To make it go faster, I made us a stir fry for lunch, with what I thought to be beef. Even the shop assistant confirmed it was beef. One bite later and to my dismay, I realised it was lamb and I could eat no more. It was vile. Brooke happily got to take the remaining stir fry and pack of lamb home with her. That day, my lunch consisted on some German cake (stollen) and 3 gummy worms – my life.

Roast dinner!

I love my panda poncho

Horrible lamb-ruining stir fry

My 'alternative' lunch

Thursday was supposed to be a productive day, venturing out to get fresh veg and draw money out from the bank all ready for starting back at work next week. Oh no.....8 days after Spring Festival, everywhere is still shut! The ATM machines are in little cupboard things and the doors were locked, the mobile shop for topping up my phone (Yes I am reliving my teenage years on PAYG) was closed and the vegetable market had huge shutters across it. What a nightmare and total inconvenience. The only shops open (1 noodle shop, 1 supermarket, 1 fruit shop and 1 corner shop) are also fast running out of stock so my late night trip out for ‘snacks’ on only resulted in some terrible version on Pringles and water.

Friday was exciting for the fact that I started watching ‘Prisoner’s Wives’ and it’s amazing! I wasn’t overly excited about it, but I decided to give it a whirl and I am now obsessed. In fact, after finishing this up, I am going to watch the season finale! I ended up venturing out to Prison bar on Friday night and even though the bar was quiet, I met a lot of people from England....where have these people been hiding for the last five months!? Just as Dean and I rolled in around 3am, it started to thunder and lightning so I was relieved not to be caught out in that!

The only photo from the night...

This weekend is being spent mourning my time off being nearly over and having a huge Subway sandwich tonight! Also, Charlotte is staying at mine tonight as she only paid her rent until the 27^th February and so she is worried about returning to her dormitory after a mammoth journey from the UK and being locked out her room. Unfortunately, that’s all that has happened this week, however, to make up for my lack of excitement and choosing to stay in and cook and clean, I’ve composed a list of ‘Things I love about living in China’ and ‘Things I miss about living in England’. Enjoy!

12 Things I love About Living in China

1) How good your chopsticks ability gets. During first few days, I resorted to stabbing the majority of my food but now I can eat most things with ease.

2) Being able to navigate the Wuhan metro like a London Commuter (still can’t pronounce any of the stops though).

3) Having 39 ‘wechat’ contacts and feeling like Miss Popular, because when I first moved here, I knew nobody. (Wechat is a Chinese Whatsapp)

4) How easy it is to make friends in daily life. Most foreigners hang around in places like Starbucks or bars and it’s perfectly acceptable to strike up a conversation and become bezzie mates whilst ordering a Caramel Macchiato.

5) The advantages of being the only female laowi (foreigner) in my neighbourhood. Everyone from the restaurant owners to the vegetable lady knows me and remembers what I will eat / buy / ask etc. Customer service at its finest.

6) Haggling is acceptable for every single thing. I have been known to barter the price on blankets, Ugg boots, my weekly veg shop and even a seat cushion. In addition, being a foreigner, who is trying to haggle, gives you extra kudos and they’re normally so surprised that you’re attempting it, they just give you it cheaper.

7) Most of the cocktail menus are in English. So despite the fact that the food menu is in Mandarin, the cocktails are always easy to order #liquidlunch.

8) Burger King is so much cheaper. Like £3.50 for a large Whopper meal cheaper.

9) Random people will come up to me and tell me how beautiful I am. Nothing like a 7.32am compliment to make my day (they don’t know I’m wearing yesterday’s make-up).

10) Everyone loves me because I’m British – even other foreigners. Apparently, our accent and our obsession with drinking tea makes us adorable. Excellent.

11) There is always somebody looking worse than you in China. Their fashion sense is incredibly questionable and many of them are currently favouring quilted pyjamas and slippers as daywear. Therefore, nipping to the shops in trackie bottoms and a pyjama top is perfectly acceptable.

12) And finally, something makes me smile everyday. The culture is so different that even though the country sometimes drives me insane, there is always something to stare at, laugh at or smile about #becauseitsChina.

6 Things I Miss About Living in England

1) The food. Of course this was going to be number one. I am aiming to be shopping in an Asda or Tesco within an hour of arriving in England. Pie, Yorkshire puddings, casserole and dumplings, scones with jam and cream, Nandos and toast are what I dream about most nights *dribbles*.

2) The social normality of my own country and having everyone around me doing the same cultural things like queueing and being polite. A particular bug bear over here is the way they eat – it is like feeding time at the zoo with vomit, various bones from meat and fish and general snot being let out freely over dinner. Not cool.

3) The general level of ease when wanting to get something done. I could only get my foreign medical exam done between 7am (yes you read that right) and midday but then had to sit and wait outside the building, whilst it closed for lunch. At 2pm, I was allowed back inside to get my results. What. A. Pain.

4) The countryside and nature. There probably are lots of beautiful species of animals in China but with the pollution, constant construction and general untidiness of the people (oh, the litter), these animals have absolutely no chance. Also being in a huge city – the most populated city in South East China to be exact – feels like I’m always on the go. The streets, shopping malls and public transport are always busy whatever the time of day.

5) The language barrier. Yes, I’ve learnt enough to get by in daily life and can order taxis, buy food and order drinks in a bar but when my bathroom gets a leak it just becomes a lexical nightmare. And before anyone says to learn Chinese – have you tried reading this language?! After battling through their 6000 characters, you then have to learnt the appropriate tone......never gonna happen.

6) Finally, probably the most important one....seeing friends and family. The first month is the hardest as you’re thrown into a completely new culture and despite the jetlag, trying desperately to figure out how an 8 hour time difference is going to work. But it does, you get a routine with the ones you love and Skype becomes your best friend. And it actually never feels like I’m 6000 miles away when you talk face-to-face...I still feel like I’m away at University and hungover on my bed. Sadly, the hangover situation is still the same...

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Friday was one of those days, which went far too quickly. I had only this day between my parents leaving and travelling to Chongqing, so I had a domesticated day of washing, packing and food shopping. After packing for a year abroad in just two suitcases, I am now an expert at capsule wardrobes and easily fitted six days worth of clothes into my hand luggage bag....excellent.

In the evening, Will came to mine as we were travelling to Chongqing together and we had malatang and watched Gravity, which was really sad! I also used his Chinese knowledge to help book a trip to Beijing for me and Adele. This took us over 3 hours as the website wouldn’t book tickets for foreigners! Eventually the website worked but we will still have to collect our tickets from a ticket office and show our passports – nothing is easy in China for foreigners! At least Bejing is booked and travelling on Easter Sunday will mean five glorious hours of chomping on Easter eggs. I may even do myself an egg hunt in the carriage...

Saturday morning started at 5.30am *yawn* as we had to get up in time for the first metro to the train station. Baring in mind that we’d not gone to bed until 2.30am, the walk to the metro seemed to take forever. We cruised through security (it’s like being at an airport) and then had a quick McDonald’s breakfast before queuing to get on our train. Now the journey to Chongqing took nearly 7 hours and unfortunately, Will was in a different carriage as he booked his ticket after me. This left me sat next to a Chinese man, who in the scheme of things wasn’t too Chinese. I did however, come back from the toilet (a very long trek to find the western one) to find him perusing my ‘Pick me Up’ magazine! I have no idea if he understood the article but he loved it when I gave him it after I’d finished reading.

A couple more interesting highlights of the journey included the man behind me who non-stop snacked for the WHOLE seven hours. You name it, he ate it. At one point, I swear he was tucking into a whole, dried duck. Whatever it was, it smelt so bad that I had to wear my scarf over my mouth. Also, I had to use the toilet again during the journey and so plodded through a million carriages to reach the western toilet, but it was in use. For at least ten minutes. By this point, I was at the hopping about in a desperate state and as we were waiting at a station, I thought I’d chance my luck in a squat toilet. Oh no, as soon as I went to squat, the train pulled away and I weed all over my shoe and sock. Brilliant – scrubbing my converse with hand sanitiser and water wasn’t what I’d envisaged at 11am on a Saturday morning (don’t worry, I’ve machine washed them since getting back to Wuhan).

We finally arrived in Chongqing and after catching the subway to the city centre, had an emotional reunion with Olivi and Dean. They looked amazingly tanned after 5 weeks in Indonesia, but my dismay at this fact was lessened by the gifts they bought me, handmade soap, coffee and an anklet. We checked into the hostel and because it was Valentine’s day, I got a special reduced price. It’s so helpful being female sometimes - £20 for five nights. The hostel itself was lovely; clean and spacious but I struggled with my top bunk bed for at least two nights! As we were pretty tired from travelling all day, we headed out for some famous spicy hotpot before having drinks at Helen’s bar. Typical that I travel to a different city and end up in the same bar that I go to in Wuhan! The hotpot itself was horrendously spicy and my stomach hurt the whole evening, but the food inside it was good!

Chongqing metro

Hostel lounge area

Our room - Yes I had to attempt the climb to bunk A for two nights!

Those bits floating on the top are peppers and chillies!

Favourite bar

Sunday was a really smoggy day in Chongqing (the pollution here is pretty terrible anyway) but we wandered through the centre and down to the river, after a quick stop for lunch – clay pot fried pork noodles if you’re interested. The river itself has a confluence (where two rivers meet) and you can see the colour change of the different rivers. There was also a great opportunity to see the skyscrapers of the city. It definitely reminds me of New York, with the river and tall buildings and they even have yellow taxis! The only difference is how hilly this city is compared to New York.....my thighs were burning by the end of the afternoon!

Down by the river

City skyline

Enjoying candyfloss

The confluence of the two rivers

Where the two rivers meet

We headed back to the hostel before going out for dinner to a speciality duck restaurant. We’d met a guy backpacking and he’d previously been, so he came along and we had the best food. We had duck pancakes and a sour and spicy soup filled with delicious things like dumplings and meatballs. It was so good. After that I needed dessert (obviously) so I got a cheeky oreo milkshake and then we sat at an outside bar people watching for the rest of the evening. I was surprised by how many foreigners I saw coming and going, more than I have ever seen in my whole time in Wuhan!

Our soup!

Duck pancakes - they were incredible

Oreo milkshake for dessert

 Monday was a super lazy day, where I didn’t wake up until after 1pm. Whoops. Our room didn’t have a window so the pitch-black darkness meant that you could easily sleep in all day. Anyway, Olivi and Will had long gone out sightseeing so Dean and I headed out for some lunch. I finally got to taste a Chinese hamburger (a cross between a kebab and a Greek gyros) and it was delicious. That was a mere starter, of course, so then we went to a small restaurant and I tucked into some shrimp and mushroom wontons in a broth. They were incredible! We were both not feeling up to sightseeing so just headed back to the hostel to watch a film (Hostel 2 for the pure irony).

Shrimp and mushroom wonton soup

City centre - they even had Tiffany!

Art gallery

Skyscrapers

We had a late dinner that evening, in a restaurant that charged us for just sitting down! For that upsetting charge I stole a little bucket to use a pencil tidy. On the plus side, I had my first taste of sweet and sour chicken in over 5 months and there was pineapple and peppers and onions and I was just so blissfully happy. To top of my evening, we found a cocktail bar called Flavour Lounge and they made THE BEST cocktails. I had a pina colada and it made me want summer to arrive immediately.

Sweet and sour chicken!

Flavour Lounge

My amazing cocktail

 On Tuesday, everyone left our hostel room so it was just us lot left...you could definitely tell that Chinese New Year was approaching! I had a chill morning watching Mean Girls 2 (the first one is definitely better), whilst waiting for the guys to wake up. Will left to catch a plane back to his hometown for Chinese New Year, which left me in charge of Dean and Olivi. After some dan dan mian (a famous noodle dish from the region) and spring rolls, we caught the subway to Ciquiko, which has an ancient village there. There was a lively atmosphere as people were making noodles and singing and crushing nougat up. I bought a few souvenirs to take back, as everything was so cheap and then we ended up wandering into the unknown part of the village. Here, an old man was making his own wine and before we knew it, we were sat on tiny little seats sampling homemade fruit and rice wines. They weren’t exactly to my taste, as I’m classy and prefer Lambrini, but he seemed so overjoyed in our presence that I drank them for this reason alone. The metro back to the centre involved me feeling extremely tipsy and giggly.

Dan dan mian

Ciquiko town

Making noodles

Packed with Chinese tourists

Such a brilliant shop

Leading down to the river

Quirky signs

This house was covered in posters and signs from bars and clubs

The 'wine' shop

 Before dinner and after I’d sobered up, we headed to Hongyadong, an 11 storey complex with food levels and craft shops, all built into a cave. I had an obligatory Dairy Queen whilst the boys set about buying hideous things like dried sausage and chilli peanuts....bleurgh. I wasn’t feeling great when we got back so I ended up having a nap and by the time I woke up, it was too late to go for dinner, so we ordered food at the hostel. Definitely had a hangover at 9.30pm – judged entirely by the fact that I ordered triple carbs (dumplings, rice and chips). By the time our food arrived it was after 10pm, so we decided to just stay in and watch films. A Dutch guy, called Yoeri joined us and we watched The Hangover 1 and 2, to the delight of the other Chinese guests! Their censorship laws mean that these types of films are banned in their country. FYI, Titanic is missing the nude scene in China.

Hongyadong food street

Which dried meat to choose....

The horrible dried meat

Nougat and flavoured nuts

View from the top of Hongyadong cave

 On Wednesday it was Chinese New Year Eve so the majority of the shops were now closed. After yet another lie-in (I swear all I did on this trip was sleep), Dean, Yoeri and I headed out to search for food, and found a noodle shop open. We had zhajiang mian, which is a pork in soybean sauce noodle – it sort of resembles Spaghetti Bolognese! The afternoon was spent finding drinks and snacks in a supermarket for the journey home and packing up our belongings. I bought nothing of substance or nutrition but I did find German instant mashed potato so I was beyond happy.

Reliving my childhood

In the evening, there was only a few foreigners left in the hostel, so after a quick selfie stick photoshoot with Olivi (had a few with the stick precariously dangled out the window) and shots with the hostel staff, Dean, Olivi, Yoeri, Charles and Jason (from Australia) and I headed out for a last hotpot meal. On our walk to the restaurant, we kept saying ‘Xin Nian Kaui Le’ (meaning Happy New Year) to all the Chinese and they replied back in amazement, wondering why we were speaking Chinese! The meal was amazing, lots of meat and dumplings and vegetables and it was less spicy, so a winner all round.

Hostel selfie!

Enjoying my hotpot

Chinese New Year's Eve meal

 The rest of the night was messy and crazy. We headed back to Flavour Lounge, where they were playing the New Year show broadcasting on Chinese TV. Dean decided to create his own cocktail, which included four types of alcohol. Baring in mind, we’d already had at least 7 shots in the hostel and beer with dinner, the boys plan to drink copious amounts of this new cocktail was never going to end well. Dean fell asleep at midnight, said he was going to the toilet and never returned...that was after trying to pay for his drinks with his hostel room key! Olivi lost everyone and his selfie stick and couldn’t get into his top bunk when he arrived back at the room. Charles ended up with the bar tab from the others to pay at flavour lounge. Jason and I walked home to find Dean asleep on the sofas, minus an Iphone. Luckily, I was absolutely fine and made lots of noise the next morning to make their heads hurt even more!

Anti-Japanese monument

Counting down to midnight at Flavour Lounge

Couldn't hack the DIY cocktails

Thursday was Chinese New Year and we spent the majority of it travelling back to Wuhan. The train journey itself was full of screaming, whiny children, which I did not appreciate. The woman next to me kept trying to lay her child’s head on me but I was having none of it and used my super pointy elbows to keep nudging her. Stupid Chinese woman, stop being stingy and buy your child a seat so that I can enjoy the whole of mine. I won as she eventually moved to some empty seats further back and I was able to unravel myself once more. Getting off the metro in Wuhan was the oddest experience, as Wuhan was a ghost town. There were no cars on the road and no shops or restaurants open! We found one wonton place open, that charged us extra money because it was open on New Year....not impressed. At least the wontons were yummy, although at that point I would have pretty much taken 12 hour old street food. Anyway, I flopped onto my sofa in my apartment at around 11pm that night and fell asleep soon after.

After two weeks of having my parents over and then a week in Chongqing, I’ve been catching up on all the cleaning and washing since coming home. How I had three loads of washing to do with just my stuff is beyond me. The weather has also been awful with thunderstorms so I’ve been enjoying relaxing in my warm apartment. My plan for this final week off work *sob* is to relax some more and catch up with friends, although my only confirmed outing so far is a trip to Subway. Living the off-work dream. This evening, I am watching catch up trashy TV and enjoying a spicy veggie chilli (probably finished off with a bar of Dairy Milk). Sorry, not sorry.

xxxxx

I still can’t use chopsticks....

By the time this is posted, we shall be nearly back home in the UK ready to enjoy some familiar food, and where Tudd can have his Gregg’s sausage roll with tomato ketchup – something he has been dreaming about for the last few days!

It has been lovely to spend time with Ellis over the past two weeks, but I don’t think we were quite prepared for the culture shock. The Chinese people have three past times; eating, shopping and using mobile phones – usually all at the same time. The majority of people seem to have a pull-along suitcase with them, which is fine, but when you are crammed onto the metro, it can be a bit of a squeeze. One young man offered me his seat on there the other day – I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or grateful (I’m not 50 yet!).

I still can’t understand how a country that has produced high-tech gadgets use two little sticks to eat with and rice and noodles are tricky at the best of times! However, I have found that ordering something large, like a dumpling and then stabbing it with my chopstick has worked quite well, usually to the amusement of the locals.

Poor Tudd has been ill with a bad chest infection and so has spent a couple of days ill in bed. Luckily, you are able to buy antibiotics over the counter so they certainly helped. To give him some peace and quiet, Ellis and I decided to visit the zoo...I wasn’t coming all the way to China without seeing a panda. It was certainly an experience sitting and watching the circus. There were five rather large tigers doing tricks and the only thing separating them from us was some flimsy looking netting. Once the tigers started pressing up against it, we decided to make a hasty exit. Walking around the zoo, we appeared to be more interesting than the animals with everyone trying to take photos of us. At one point, we were tempted to stand in an empty enclosure and hold a sign saying ‘lesser spotted laowi’ (foreigner)! I hope that when they show off their photos, we rank next to the panda and golden monkey.

Meeting Wei Wei

All the children wear trousers with a hole in the bottom, so that when they need to go to the toilet, they can just squat and it’s less hassle for the parents, (who are usually on their phones) as they don’t need to undress them. I saw first-hand how convenient this is when standing and waiting for the subway. A mother dashed off the train and held her young child over a bin to have a wee. No-one batted an eyelid and it was the recycling bin, so I suppose it gives a whole new meaning to recycling – not filling landfills with nappies!

Another interesting experience was visiting one of the local night markets, where you can purchase anything from handbags to padded toilet seat covers – not really sure who would use these as most toilets in China are squat ones. I have got the hang of them but I don’t think it would be quite as easy or pleasant in the summer wearing sandals and linen trousers (leggings and boots have been great). Anyway, I think you get the picture. At the market, there are many food stalls, which Tudd walks past holding his nose but I am not sure whether the food on offer is to eat or buy as a pet. There was one stall selling little, fluffy rabbits and mice and right next to it, flattened frog skewers. I don’t think China has a food hygiene system but saying that I haven’t been ill so it can’t be that bad.

The past two weeks have certainly been an experience – our next holiday is definitely going to involve a beach and sunbeds, unless Ellis decides to go and work in another distant location. I want a location where the only turtles I see are swimming about in the ocean, and not deep-fried in a shop window! We are both looking forward to going home and seeing Laura and getting back to normality. We will also enjoy reading Ellis’ blog for the next few months until she is home.

Bye xx