It’s finally summer!

On Sunday I went to tutor my new group of children (the last new thing I’m taking I promise!) and was supposed to use a room where I tutor on Thursday. However, the owner of the apartment was out and had left me a key, and surprisingly, I had no idea how to work Chinese electrical items. Therefore, with no idea how to even turn on the computer, we ended up in my apartment – all four children and 6 adults...it’s a good job that there’s plenty of space! The kids themselves were extremely cute, a shy boy called Ben, two twins called Stella and Caroline and a girl called Peggy, who looked like she was in a nightclub whilst dancing to Old McDonald Had a Farm!

Monday was a total waste of a day and in-between teaching and tutoring I needed to do lots of jobs, but chose to nap instead. Excellent. Tuesday was a much more exciting day, with Brooke and I deciding to visit Zhongshan Park. We met for lunch and I had this lovely beef stir fry and rice, before heading over to the park on the subway. The weather must have been at least 22 degrees but I had so many people staring at my apparent lack of clothes, whilst they swanned around in wool coats and boots. I kid you not.

Zhongshan Park

Oh I'll just take a quick selfie!

Pretty bridge

Wish I could tell you what this monument was for but the information was in Chinese...

The park itself is huge, with lakes and even theme park rides and lots of people were there, including, it seemed, half of the patients from the nearby hospital. I have never seen anything like it with people being wheeled around in wheelchairs and attached to drips, and wearing hospital gowns! After our walk, we got an ice cream and sat down to eat it and during this 10 minute period, had numerous people stop and stare and take photos of us. One guy came past and just said ‘please’. That’s fine, but you need a few more words for us to understand you. Once a group of students tried to set up a tripod for filming on the same rock as me, we swiftly moved on, much to their disappointment.

Yummy mango ice cream

We found some cherry blossom at the park, and decided to take a few pictures. We were there for ages, snapping away, until a police officer came over and started escorting everyone away from the trees. However, there really is a total lack of law abiding in China and two women were determined to keep taking pictures, even with the police officer near enough shouting at them. Hopefully, they moved on soon. We then headed to Jianghan Road and had a walk in the sunshine along the shopping street. We went to our favourite cheap shops, Domesky and Miniso and I got a very cute wall decoration before heading back to my area. We finished our day trip with a coffee at Mr Mai’s before I headed home to relax for the rest of the evening.

Cherry blossom

Disgusted by the bees in the the tree

Being escorted away from the blossom...

On Wednesday, I taught my one lesson (working day finishing at 9.35am) and was supposed to be giving them their projects to work on. However, I got far too distracted and ended up discussing rice dishes that are easy to make and the history of Berlin. Oh my life. Anyway, after my ‘productive’ teaching session, I headed to Mann coffee to meet Brooke. During our time here, a woman was obviously doing a fashion shoot and kept posing in different chairs around the coffee shop. Even better was that when the photographer was taking a break, she then proceeded to take selfies of herself! It was pure entertainment for over two hours.

Photoshoot!

 After Marie and Carley finished their class, we met up with them for lunch before heading onto my campus to see the cherry blossom. Normally, you have to pay 20 yuan to see it but as we were heading into the campus, I told the woman that we were all teachers here and she seemed very happy with this story and we kept on walking. What an excellent start. We wanted to be complete tourists that day so bought flower garlands, that made me feel about 7 years old, before heading up this steep flight of steps to look down on the blossom.

Wuhan University 

Just bought flower headbands

Cherry blossom!

Had many concerned people watching me do this pose!

 Considering people from China travel hundreds of miles to see this blossom, I think that they were wasting their time as they seemed to take more pictures of us than the actual blossom. The amount of people asking me for photos was ridiculous, and every time a sneaky picture was taken, we shouted out that they had to pay 10 yuan – they soon scuttled off. Another tactic I used was to take a picture of them, every time they took one of me. I honestly felt like a celebrity that day and after two hours, we could no longer face another phone or selfie stick being pushed near our face!

Unhappiest looking bench ever!

Taking pictures of the Chinese back!

I think this was his 9th photo...

However, the blossom itself was stunning, and the sunny weather made it even more enjoyable. We met Paul and then stopped to get our Chinese names written by this guy. My Chinese name is ‘Allisi’ and he decorated my painting with pandas so I was overjoyed. After admiring the trees, everyone headed home whilst Brooke came back to mine to relax for a while. We sat relaxing, still in our flower headbands because obviously, and I did some planning.

My painting being started

'Allisi' 

Look at my painting!

 Thursday was a very relaxing day, starting off with a huge lie-in. I got all my planning finished ready for Adele coming and caught up on my TV from the week. In the evening, I tutored my crazy children and got given a mango (of all things) by one of them. That was Friday breakfast sorted. On Friday I finally got my afternoon nap that I’d been craving for weeks and just relaxed until I needed to get ready to go out. By needed, I mean that Brooke and Marie were on their way and I was still in my pyjamas.

We had pre-drinks at mine before heading to Prison and Vox. It was one of the most random nights out I’ve ever had. We only spent around 40 minutes collectively in both of the bars and spent the rest of the night sat at a table eating food and talking to random Chinese people. Even the food sellers were getting involved with pictures and talking to us! I partook in a card game of some sort and lost immediately so my new Chinese friend wasn’t best pleased. Eventually, Brooke and I headed back to my apartment and fell straight asleep.

Midnight snack

With our new friends

Pre-drinks!

Olivi, me, Marie and Brooke

Wow

With my food guy (he even took his apron off for this picture)

 In the morning, for some annoying reason, we were both wide awake at 8.30am! Not cool. We dragged our sorry selves to my sofa to watch a bit of TV before feeling well enough to get ready. We were meeting my Chinese friend, Echo for lunch at a restaurant that took us nearly an hour to walk to because we were walking so slowly from tiredness. Anyway, we went to Grandma’s kitchen, an American restaurant selling amazing food, perfect to cure a hangover. I got a burger and oreo milkshake and we chatted about the weird habits of the Chinese...they were literally watching us eat.

Echo with her club sandwich

Oh yes...

Me and Brooke in Grandma's kitchen

 After our lunch and laughing at how hilarious we are because we were eating (astonishing I know), Echo headed to work, whilst Brooke and I went to H&M on the subway. I do mention H&M a lot, but it’s literally the only shop that sells western size clothes in China. By 3pm, I was home having battled my way through Saturday traffic and just lay on the sofa in a relapsing state.

Today, I have a super busy day, tutoring two groups of children and going to teach my adults about western culture at the university later on. Today’s topic is health – American private healthcare I’m coming for ya! And then it’s one more sleep until Adele arrives! I am so so so excited (yes, really) and so I’ll write one long blog once she leaves. So you can all look forward to our tales of laowi life and our trip to Beijing at the weekend.