別の外人

Ponderings

2009-12-08T15:14:00.006Z

Now properly in December, and need to start knuckling down to work properly, but many ponderings and exciting things are happening:

Today went for a meal at Latina (a Brazilian restaurant) with some classmates, which comprised of me, Jo, Igor, Leo, Sin, most of the Japanese students, a Korean girl and a few others :) Was really good, we got a lot of meat... it was 70kuai which did put us off and we were worried about going in the first place, because the others have gone to Hong Kong today til Sunday I think it was, but then once we said we'd go, it was fine. We spoke quite a lot of Chinese, ate Brazilian barbeque and buffet food, and then played a game which involved guessing ‘谁是杀人’ which was very fun, as well as...

CHINESE WHISPERS

IN CHINESE

This actually blew my mind.

In the rest of the week, posted my secret santa stuff as well as a few assorted packages and letters, went shoe shopping with Jo which failed as there were no shoes that fit her feet but we did get to witness the fitness of Shaanxi Nan Lu (caught the metro from Xujiahui to there and then walked along up to Nanjing Xi Lu and then to Jiaozhou Lu) and the millions of amazing shoe shops and clothes shops with some big shoes, mostly small shoes, but just generally awesome, and then went onto Marks and Sparks IN CHINA AND THE LAYOUT WAS JUST LIKE BATH'S. It occurred to me from talking to Carrie that Southgate must be near finished now... anyone wanna take photos for me when they go home for Christmas?

I've also put up my tinsel and brought out my last blanket, woo winter's here. When I was doing washing too, I thought I'd managed to lose all my clothes, but no just turned out I'd left an awful lot of stuff in Nerys' room haha. Went round there one evening last week and played some sort of Uno-like game, and then characters. Robbie was the expo blob... I love how noone outside of Shanghai really has a clue about it. I read an article on the Telegraph website though about the British exhibit, which looks awesome on the outside, but is... EMPTY on the inside. Sorta sums it up doesn't it, woo Britain. I am still missing it though.

I realised that I'm still talking to pretty much everyone I was friends with in Leeds, which is really good considering I haven't seen them for again 6 months (with the exceptions of the people who came down to Bath this summer), I think my friendships are gonna work out :) plus I've made friends with Jo who i wouldn't have known at all were I in Japan for 6 months, whereas all the people in kansai I was friends with in Leeds. Well, excluding the Japanese :P Even after arriving in shangers, I still know I wouldnt have been friends with Jo as she has actually said were she not friends with me, she would hang around with the 'church crew' far more than she does atm, coz atm she hangs round much more with the 'Leeds crewage'. So that's a nice thought :)

I've definitely got a proper routine here now, it's well fun :) Monday is Jing'an Mondays for me, I go round Jo's til late and then go straight to sleep when I get back around midnight. Georgie Thursday is Jo coming over here and staying til late... we also end up coming back to mine after morning classes when she can't be arsed to go home straightaway/wants to share fruit. Though we suspect youzi season is almost over now *shock*... oh well when we end up finding a flat altogether these special days will no longer be needed haha. And then one of us won't have to spend ages travelling home, and then we might even get into bed earlier :O

See the thing is with my waking up, is that I wake up at like 6.30am my time (10.30pm) but then I maybe can't be arsed to get out of bed til between 7.30 and 7.50... and I'm meant to leave between 8am and 8.10 oops xD So that's why I'm not around then. And I'm not voluntarily waking up at 6am... though tbf I have tried. I was so lucky on Monday, set my alarm for 10am since I had class at 1pm, but slept through it apparently, until midday... lucky or what??

I still have a total mysterious toe injury. Like my mysterious sudden acute eyebrow pain I once had in French xD Although that said, I do have my suspicions as to what caused it... I think it's bloody sympathetic pain xD Like after I met the girls after the marathon, they were really tired, and then I got really tired... and then my legs ached... and now my toe hurts and they started moaning today about toe pain. Kinda like animal false 'sympathetic' pregnancies xD I'm so weirdddd

I really want to do something in my life here in Shanghai. I'm really really bored and I haven't got any societies here (as there aren't any) so am having to resort to expat activities, such as a choir. Have found one, but the open session is too far and expensive... waiting still to hear from cheaper one. I know that it'd be more classical stuff, but I wouldn't have to solo at all which is good as my voice really isn't that good haha.

What else have I been up to this week... I bought a massive watermelon. You've never ever seen anything as big. Some woman had a load on the pavement yesterday, ie the first of December xD and was like '2 for 70p' and I'm having enough trouble eating one... they're actually really good, it's so confusing xD My fridge is full to the brim of watermelon.

I have paid for my Cambodia flights, was hoping to be paying for Beijing train tickets on Friday, but the tickets haven't been released yet. Need to buy them soooooonish though, once the others get back from Hong Kong. And I am deffo doing interrailing as well as everything else, I can prob afford it and still have a lot of spare money left :D Yay :D I had to use my UK bank card to buy flights with as my Chinese bank card was not happy but oh well.

Today I sang 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' as my Christmas carol of the day. Right now it is 10C outside and 18C in my room. Toasty :D Am also listening to Travis 'Driftwood' as we speak. I also slept 6 hours last night which is impressive for me. Tomorrow an early start, same on Thursday, then 4 lie ins in a row oh YEAHHHHHHHHHH
My dad told me he's completely redecorated the house (well still in progress but oh well) and hopes to have another job by January... this is still worrying me xD
Got to speak to Laura via her phone email (Japanese phones only email not text weirdly enough) which was cool, and briefly on MSN just now, which was nice as it's hard for us to contact each other atm as she doesn't have internet at her host family's house. Can't wait til she comes, only like 7 weeks now :D Also double checked Tori's dates of coming, so happy that we'll have a fortnight together :D

Oh and I have also bought recently: 27 dresses, 2012, and a pen with a panda on it. Didn't really buy much food though (read any) oops... gonna have a big tea to make up for it :) We decided on some awesome swear words: gobshite and knobjockey and are using them at any available opportunity. Just before my teacher asked me a question in class about what I really can't stand, Jo mouthed 'knobjockey' at me, and so when I was asked the question, literally the ONLY thing in my head was that word. I stuttered and stammered until I just said 'nothing' in answer to her question and then just blushed quietly. Now it's one of those things I can just say at any moment... along with 'do you feel the moon', 'I turn to YOU' (Mel C) and 'HI HI HI HI HI' which is a dog impression XD I'm not mental at all...

I HAVE ALSO NOW WATCHED LOADS OF CHRISTMAS SONGS MUSIC VIDEOS ANDDDDDD.... THE SNOWMAN :D :D :D It feels like Christmas is properly coming now.

Love it. This Christmas is gonna be so weird, but Beijing will make it all better. BRING. IT. ON. xxx

Approaching 3 months...

2009-11-23T17:53:00.003Z

Wow. This Sunday will be the 3 month anniversary since I left the UK for a year... it's weird, the majority of the time it feels like it is going fairly slowly, but time is starting to pass much more quickly now as we've all become accustomed to China. Last week in particular flew by... Last Monday I was moaning about only having 2 kuai in my purse (20p) and this Monday I was moaning about only having 1 kuai (10p) in it. Some things, like my poorness after a weekend, will never change...

Today me, Abi, Adele, Jo and Nerys performed our dialogue thing in front of the class, and although there were one or two corrections made by the teacher (usually to do with pronunciation variations) generally it was ok. One group comprised of some of the Japanese women did an amazing one, a mock interview for becoming a zookeeper, and one of the interviewers was a panda xD The lady actually wore a panda hat, it was incredible and so Japanese.

In comparison to one of the other groups who adlibbed it as they blatantly hadn't prepared anything, we were amazing at Chinese haha. But then the teacher found that there were 3 people who weren't in a group, one of them was poor Vera who hadn't skived or anything, but actually had cleared not being in class the previous week on cause of being in Beijing. The teacher said that during our 20 min break, she could either prepare a dialogue with the other two guys (in the style of a job interview, like everyone else did) or they could dance/sing in front of the class. In the end everyone opted for dancing... fortunately (or unfortunately?) the speakers didn't play the music, and Vera told our teacher she was unable to dance without music, so she's got until Wednesday to prepare something with the other two.

I love afternoon classes :D Even though we only have an hour of proper sunlight after classes finish, it means I get to sleep more in the morning, which is definitely my priority :D Popped across towards the centre of Xujiahui, to Metro City, to the post office on Tianyaoqiao Lu which has an international parcel collection desk. Fun times, coz the woman from the post office in England had written 'small packet' on the top of the package to indicate the shipping classification presumably, but the people in China presumed it was my name. Hmm. Obviously. Had to explain that the reason my name on my passport and the name on the paper were 'bu yiyang' was coz my name is not small. Ridiculous China. Eventually got it though, with tinsel and last birthday card and other fun things :D While in town mooched into Watsons with Nerys and bought hand cream; I have never bought it before in my life so now feel positively middle-aged... and just wait til I read Private Eye tomorrow, the world shall implode haha.

This evening, went to Jing'an with Jo for food and youzi, my meal was interesting... it sounded much nicer than it actually was and I read all the characters and everything *pride* 红烧牛肉盖浇饭 but it tasted like a beef stew bizarrely haha. Had carrots in it and everything... Oh well you live and learn.

Class at 6am tomorrow >_<

...and now today is Sunday. 3 months in. Kind of can't believe it, still getting used to some things, still doing new things (like bus transport), but in another way I feel like I'm coping fine and can do whatever without stressing bout it all too much. Have figured out which foods are actually good (I tried another dish from the Uyghur restaurant, similar to the previous but the first two characters were different and vair complicated, it was gorgeous :D So having that again), have attempted cooking glutinous rice, worked just about ok, and have adapted to bus travel. Although that said, there was an utter bus fail this morning (at like 8.30am) in Xinzhuang, was trying to get to Minhang Stadium to watch the 2009 Shanghai Marathon as Connie and Jo were running in it, and the metro from Xujiahui to Xinzhuang was fine, but then got to the bus bit outside and there were loads of stops, no bus numbers on the signs, no numbers on the buses either, and... NO BUSES. *hums Arctic Monkeys*

Eventually one turned up, it was the one that said it was meant to go to Minhang Yundong Gongyuan but of course when I double-checked with the driver, nope it didn't go there at all, I wanted the 753. There was no 753. There were millions (ever-so-slight exaggeration there) of Chinese people milling about, running to any bus that dropped people off at the metro station, demanding to be let on, but the drivers didn't let anyone on and just parked the bus, sometimes with people on, and then wandered off. Great. I waited for over half an hour at the station for a bus, there wasn't even one bus since the first one, and there were about ten different queues. Unimpressed, I wandered out onto the street and flagged down a taxi, because by this point Jo has rung me saying she's just finished which was AGH annoying, the taxi driver knew exactly where to go, and took me as close as was possible what with the road being shut for the marathon. He seemed a bit confused though:
'Oh, we can't go any further... what's going on...'
Me: 'It's the Shanghai International Marathon today, some of my friends are doing it'
'But you're not?'
Me (thinking well obviously not, I'm not in shorts and lycra now am I): 'No, I'm going to watch... just let me out here'
Obviously there wasn't much information about it going around on the news, in fact according to Connie and Jo, the motorway that was shut for it had cars on it piled well back, despite the fact that it would be closed for a good 3/4 hours, and so everyone was reluctantly out of their car, waving and saying '加油' (jiayou), like the Japanese 'ganbaru'. Dodged some policemen, arrived onsite, where the girls eventually found me watching the men's marathon winners cross the line... they both did really well, with times of around 2 hours, really good for two months of training a few times a week :D

We then got an incredibly expensive taxi back to Jing'an via Panyu Lu, like 90kuai (£9) which when you're used to paying only £2, £3 at most, is a lot... shows how far away blooming Minhang is from everywhere. Dropped Connie off, I accompanied Jo back to Jing'an as she asked me to, not really that sure why though xD We then headed to Starbucks for coffee (or in my case, yummy hot chocolate) and chilled for a bit, before me and Jo headed off for Grand Gateway mall to try and find her a coat... like it did for me, C&A pulled it off again :D And it's really nice :D

I could have gone out last night, because Abi, Robbie and Nerys did, but if I had gone it would only have been to see Abi's outfit, which I heard consisted of hotpants, a waistcoat, high heels and a hat. I hope Nerys helped to fend all the men off her and her leggyness :P Instead got an early-ish night, once I got back from Jing'an by bus. Didn't do any work last night though, but since I have been working this week it should be fine. Also had a bizarre job interview, got my friend a job offer because she's more mature than me and I am not v suitable to teach middle-aged businessmen English...

Tonight will be a night of relaxation and sleep, as it's starting to get cold again. Currently sitting huddled in a hoodie on my bed, planning tea tonight (people be impressed with me please) which will probably be 蛋炒饭 (egg fried rice) accompanied by vegetables on a stick with nice spices on them :D Yay warming and healthy food. My water is all working again, no building works hopefully for a few weeks, even though there is someone with a gong a few floors down... I hope it is a gong not a man with a hammer. And then tomorrow is Jing'an Monday Studying yaaaay ^__^

Once more, well done Jo and Connie, very very proud of you both for your fantastic achievement :D xxx

Still more builders, and it's COLD

2009-11-22T17:30:00.005Z

Last two weeks have been weirdly busy, despite doing very little indeed, I do apologise. Well I have done something every day, but usually that something has turned out to be hanging out with Jo, eating youzi and watching British comedies. That little reminder of home is really helping :) Thinking about my daily routine, most days have been spent either in Jing'an with Jo or here with Jo, woo :D

Everyone is still struggling a little atm with missing home, especially with Christmas approaching, and lots of people are talking about going home for the week we get off for Christmas. On the other hand, my plans are to go to Beijing to stay with Rosie, Bonny and Egle and see Jess lots :D Which should be really fun if it works out. Can't wait to see Jess, I wish she had come to Shanghai, as it seems that she's a bit left out there in Beijing; her 'crowd' as she put it are spread all over East Asia but come February when Laura arrives and we go visit her, it'll be a bit more like the old crowd reunited :) Been looking at a lot of old photos as well recently, well I say old, as in pre-China photos. Watched the epic video of Becca with the pepper grinder haha as well as the amazing one of Laura dancing and stealing my phone... haha.

Currently got a picture of the White Horse at Cherhill (pronounced Cherrill) set as my background, love it :) It is such a gorgeous view, and brings back memories of my Dad with disastrous kites, my brother climbing the obelisk or threatening to run down the ridge at full speed across the White Horse. Ah memories... Also watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, loved how it was filmed in Lacock, was literally bouncing up and down on my bed in my excitement 'ahhhh me and Jess stood there... ahhhhh me and Laura went to the pub just down that road' :D Made up for the fact that loads of people met up in London WITHOUT ME which is most sad... looking at their pics on Facebook made me quite jealous.

So, events here in China... Connie and Jo are still in training for the half marathon which takes place on Sunday, good luck to them :D It's blooming nasty trying to train now, we've had some rather epic torrential rain and it has definitely gotten cold now. On the plus side I discovered (after spending a while with Jo's aircon before getting it to become 'warm') that mine also acts as a heater :D I have also now officially shut my curtains to keep in the heat. Have written a long itinerary (or in Westcountry itiner-rary) of my planned travels of the next few months. I need to book Cambodia flights THIS WEEK AGHHHHH

We went to Suzhou, it's about an hour away by train, it was pretty but empty. Actually properly empty... we went to the temple of mystery, and ordinarily I love temples, I love the sense of spirituality, of peace and tranquility, the same as I get in old churches in Britain to be fair, but yet in this one, there was nothing. It gave me quite a feeling of unease, as if something quite horrible had taken place. I know that the temple is all reconstructed in the design of the original temple that stood on that spot pre-Revolution but there should have been something left of the original in terms of atmosphere, but no, not one thing. The other thing is that I have decided that I really don't understand Taoism: Shintoism has bowing and clapping yes, but I don't know, it feels right? At Nikkou it felt how it should. But here people properly kowtow to these hundreds of statues, and I hope the reason it felt weird was just because it was all artificial. We also got horrifically lost somewhere in the vicinity of a main road and Suzhou University down a backstreet, and found some more fake pagoda things. Least we didn't get ripped off by rickshaw people... unlike some people mentioning no names Abi : It would have been nicer were it not RIDICULOUSLY cold, with epic amounts of rain, and were I not suffering from some horrific cramps. We had to walk from one side of the city to the other, which took about an hour and a half, in the cold windy rain. Fun times.

The builders are still faffing round but fingers crossed they are at last DONE, PROPERLY DONE HUZZAH. They came round at 6am this morning (which isn't even funny), rang the doorbell at 7am which made me distinctly unimpressed. It said on the board downstairs the water would be back on by 7.30pm, but I checked at 8pm and not only was there still no water, but also a massive space where the final pipe was supposed to be. Which even to my unmechanically minded brain didn't quite make sense... Went and rang the landlord, had a whinge at him, located some plumbers (called them 'shui gongzuo ren' haha) and had a whinge at them, result being... WATER FINALLY HALLELUJAH. I'm getting quite irritated by everything constantly being under repair. I swear the whole of China is under repair.

Some things give me hope though, such as a 25p corn on the cob, all hot from being freshly cooked in the skin, yum yum yum eating it while wrapped in a big coat, walking down a Shanghai street :D Getting on a bus and understanding when the stops are announced in Chinese. Going for food at a nice restaurant with my language exchange partner and her roommate, even if they did insist on ordering nasty tofu dish. Curling up in bed and sleeping for 12 hours, as I did on Friday night. Yay :D

Last night (Saturday 21st November) went to a flat party for a classmate's surprise birthday party, which was really nice as there were loads of our classmates there who are mostly Japanese and Korean, so it was necessary to speak for the most part in Chinese. I can feel myself very very very gradually improving (as my exam results also would seem to indicate, yay 62%, 60%, 80% :D) at speaking Chinese... who knows, maybe by the time I get back to the UK I might be able to hold down a proper conversation ahaha.

Have to do a group presentation tomorrow in class, well it's more a dialogue, our version of a job interview. It might go ok, who knows, but me and Nerys (and Abi before church) spent the day writing it and writing it out, so fingers crossed that our grammar is up to scratch. Have spent a lot of time also buying lots of random cute stuff while Jo bought the best thing I have literally EVER seen. Discovered the joy of Nutella hot chocolate too, purchased from a foreign supermarket in Jing'an metro station. Need to buy an advent candle and go to the post office tomorrow to collect a parcel, and also have to buy some last stuff to send to England as part of my 'Secret Santa' so watch out, Bath people :D Hopefully this impending cold will hold off long enough to let me do everything I need to do... also need to speak to Laura soon, has been too long. Miss you all xxx

Annoyances in China

2009-11-10T10:06:00.004Z

A quick summary of last week: studying. That's basically it, all in preparation for midterms (well also went to a bar and had a cocktail, and spent much time in Kesongfang with Jo but that's it really) which are all this week.

This week, the one word summary is:

Builders.

EVERYWHERE I LOOK THERE ARE BUILDERS.

THEY BUILD ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT.

I have had the grand total of 5 hours sleep in the last two days, due to builders waking me up early/building late. I don't even know what they're doing... There's a sign downstairs in my block which says something but the handwriting is so messy and there are so many handwriting variants it's ridiculous. It said something is going on on my floor...

So yesterday was in bed, then the door goes, and my flatmate lets them in, they ramble on in Chinese, she calls me over so I'm trying to speak Chinese to them while ridiculously tired, it fails, we call the landlord who of course isn't there, while all the time the builders are STANDING IN THE BATH gesticulating at the wall hinting that they want to drill a hole. No apparent reason why they would want to do that... I just say 'bu keyi' (you can't) til they go. They however have now done the same to every flat on my floor, there are all these pipes sticking out of the walls and stuff it makes no sense... they want to come back and do my flat but I don't want to be home when they come agh >_< They were doing stuff out in the hallway til 4am last night, this is getting stupid now.

It has also been raining horrifically today and yesterday, and of course yesterday it was also a thunderstorm. I was wearing jeans, a tshirt and thin shoes, and have not been that drenched in quite some time. It was quite dramatic though, with thunder and lightning overhead and torrential rain... though I swear every single Chinese person we walked past on the twenty minute walk to the others' flat laughed. They must have been thinking 'hahaha stupid waiguoren can't use an umbrella'. I tried to make the best out of the situation by saying to the baozi shop lady (before she could say anything) 'I think it's raining a bit today...' while looking like a drowned rat. She laughed.

Then was in a bad mood on the walk home with my shoes leaking water (but I now have new waterproof boots :D) and cyclists and motorcyclists everywhere splashing me, so kept shouting at them in English 'FINE JUST TRY AND CYCLE RIGHT INTO ME I DON'T CARE' or 'OF COURSE YOU MAY DRIVE YOUR MOTORBIKE INTO ME EVEN THOUGH IT'S A RED LIGHT FOR TRAFFIC WHO NEEDS TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE RULES ANYWAY'. Made me feel better.

Had first midterm today, listening exam, which was to be fair the exam the least likely to go well... Didn't help that the teacher is technologically inept so we use cassettes, there is only one player so she plugs in a special headphone thing so we can hear it through our individual headphones. It's worse than GCSEs, sound quality is awful, like someone speaking underwater through a gas mask with a bad head cold, and no control over the tape, so you can only hear it once. She arrived 5 mins late, everyone groaned in unison which was hilarious xD She also didn't get the tape working for about fifteen minutes xD so we were just sitting there in silence, looking confused, til Snow said 'laoshi, bu xing' and she looked all shocked that it wasn't working. The teacher kept faffing for ages until eventually it works. As for the exam, the first bit was ok (but it was multiple choice which always helps) except you hear the passage and then you hear the question (no the questions aren't written down, that's far too sensible for China), but the second bit made no sense, there were three questions so I thought there would be three passages, but apparently nope only one. So that was two answers guessed. The third part involved writing, but I had no idea what the question meant let alone the answer so I just wrote 'dui' and 'bu dui' haha. One exam down, two to go D:

I bought boots, they are very Chinese but they are waterproof so definitely needed in this weather. Also got phone topup card, had a conversation with the woman who sold it me's friend who seemed very shocked that I asked for a topup card in Chinese haha. Then went and 'revised' (did characters but also listened to music and chatted) with Jo, fun times :)

She's given my details to her boss who wants someone to do tutoring, but this also involves tutoring GCSE equivalent level Maths so I'm gonna quickly look over the syllabus and get myself back up to scratch haha. Speaking exam tomorrow, wish me luck :D

How my life is like a comedy

2009-11-02T18:28:00.002Z

Today has been... fun? No that can't be the right word for it. Bizarre. Yes I feel that sums it up nicely.

Woke up this morning at 9am even though I didn't have class til the afternoon, with a phone call from a weird unknown, unidentifiable number, so of course my poor confused brain wasn't ready to speak anything, let alone FAST CHINESE with just a touch of Shanghaihua. I have NO idea what he said, except there were a few words...:

Him: 'blahblahblahblah haven't given me the money yet blahblahblahblah haven't paid blahblahblah' (when blah represents how my tired self hears Chinese)

Me: '... shenme shenme????? -_-' *feeling stupid*

Him: 'blahblahblahblahblah'

I think I just gave up at that point and said 'dui dui dui' and 'hao de hao de' til he shut up and went away. Forced myself to get out of bed... and realised it was a bit chilly. Bit weird considering it was 27C (80F) yesterday and today it felt more like 15C (58F)... though it quickly got to 11C (51F) :O

Could no longer hear any bird sounds either, which is either good or worrying as a bird got stuck in my air conditioning pipe earlier. Yay just my luck *unimpressed*

Went to ask my block lady where I should pay the electricity bill, as the phone call had freaked me out, she told me to go to my local 'youju'... oh joy, the post office of the GLUE incident. Massive queue coz of course the woman in front of me doesn't want to pay bills, she wants to complain and moan and faff and take about half an hour. >_< Then the assistant looks at me, tells me I have to pay with cash and serves someone else, so I run to an ATM then return, queue again before finally paying the sodding bill. But now I will have electricity for Nov, yay :D

Then it was time to go pay rent. Just in case the phone guy was my landlord pretending to be Chinese I dunno wtf but heh better safe than sorry. Once more epic queue, a very fat assistant saw me and laughed (I like to think in nervousness and awe of my sexy AS Leeds hoodie which is purple and says LEEDS UNIVERSITY on the front just like that, in biggggg letters :D) and then I filled out the form WRONG like the noob I am aaaaagh I suck >_<

Class was... class, long, bit boring, the teacher I don't think registered me coz I was 5 mins late >_< but it's good for my Chinese ability so heh just gotta keep going. Also had hot chocolate naicha which went down a treat :D No jinjus though thank heavens :D

Went to the post office after class, the bigggg one down Tianyaoqiao Lu where you have to go to collect international parcels, Abi sent a parcel and wrote every form out in triplicate heh, I had a gorgeous parcel off Chloe, I adore her so muchhhhh :D <3333 Then walked to Kesongfang in the freezing freezing cold (can't wait to wear my coat) for a cake, faffed, 'studied' (well did a bit but not enough) before going back to the others' flat to watch Spooks (two seasons down now :D), study and then went home.

Popped by the barbeque stand men to get some bean things on a stick and a glutinous rice, yum yum, though did have to wait in the freezing cold for ages as I swear everyone, their dogs and random assorted stray animals all wanted to buy like 20 things each, and then there was me with my 3 measly sticks, yay.

Now, SLEEEEEEEEP kthxbai

a list of things it is best not to question in Shanghai... and things that have gone down

2009-10-31T15:36:00.005Z

To sum up, this is my list:

a) People in pyjamas on the street
b) Old men with very long nasal hair, and COMBING IT
c) Old men inserting toothpicks into their ears and looking very pleased
d) Fat men cycling shirtless
e) Fat men walking along with their shirt half up, stroking their bellies
f) Meat on a stick
g) 'Assorted pizzle'
h) Kids in arseless clothes
i) Kids in crotchless clothes
j) Kids wearing the above, scratching their bum on dirty polystyrene
k) People going to the loo in the street
l) Squat toilets, the bane of my life
m) People selling plungers and string on the street... odd combo
n) The lack of razors
o) Policemen coming up to you and saying hello, but then just staring...
p) Streetsellers addressing you as 'Xiaojie' (otherwise known as a word for 'whore')
q) Stirfry dishes which have some unspeakable substances in them
r) Spitting
s) Nose clearing into gutters
t) Chinese rubbish collection... aka the men with bells???

And this was just today. :3

But I have still been having fun times here :) Had a bit of a rubbish start to my birthday, with my flatmates LOCKING ME OUT and all, but then it picked up with my wonderful Bath friends sending me that powerpoint which was really appreciated at that time in the morning and while I was in that emotional state :)

Then also had this wonderful video made for me by Laura: Click here

It meant so much to me, so thank you so much you guyssss you're all too lovely for words. Also everyone who wrote on my Facebook page as well, I felt so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of love that was going down, really really thankful :)

As for actual birthday celebrations, had class and calligraphy, got to speak some Japanese which pleased me to no end, and then went back to mine to get ready. Then went across to the other guys' flat, which they had decked out so beautifully, with epic corkscrew balloons which we fenced with (though not as epic as me and Jo's random pole vs a pen fencing match), beer, streamers and banners :) Lovely turnout of people, both from Leeds and Shanghai, which was wonderful, and I got the very well-loved gift of ROSE AND WHITE WINE from the others, went down a treat. Also had a gorgeous 'Shanghai Survival Kit' in a box from Vera and Igor, including breakfast cereal, chopsticks, kitkats, M&Ms and a brolly :D

Then went onto M2 which was fun, and then me and Nerys headed back to her flat as I was planning on staying over... cept the small problem that she had forgotten her keys, it was 4am and the only person home was fast asleep. We tried for about half an hour, gave up, and walked towards KFC for late night junk food... It was shut :O We were very disappointed, so then walked the long way back round to get to my flat as I had my keys. I ended up also buying some sort of eggy pancakey thing, and got into mine at about 5.15. We faffed about, Nerys still moaning 'I HATE CHINA' before eventually sleeping at about 5.45... class requires getting up at 6.30, so this was so not happening. Meh it's only your birthday once a year :P

Next day realised I'd left a load of clothes round the others flat, as well as my survival kit and the WINE but Nerys came down with a cold so we just lolled about on my bed and watched BBC Three on iPlayer til Jo came over. She had apparently rung me earlier that day bout a possible job, I saw my phone ring but it was about 10am at that point and waking up was really not an option. :P

Friday went into class, which was just generally longwinded and not too difficult, saw Igor and Vera and apologised for my ridiculous behaviour and not showing up to class yesterday to say thank you to them for helping make my birthday amazing... turns out that noone in my class who went to my party turned up on Thursday, not even Jo xD Made me feel much less guilty, coz she never ever misses class haha.

And today... have lolled about again, starting to reply to an epic backlog of Facebook messages, I'm so rubbish at remembering to reply, and received a lovely email from Becca :) Also did work, which is good, doing more studying tomorrow :D Bit of a weird Hallowe'en but I don't mind :) Tomorrow also have to go pay bills and rent, agh not so fun times :\ But oh well, take the highs with the lows and all that :)

Oh, and a mention to the lovely people I chatted to recently who I'm so glad I did... thanks to Peter, Becca, Katy, Ella, Laura, Tori, Jess and Smitsi :)

The last two weeks coz I just utterly fail at updating

2009-10-25T13:46:00.004Z

So, for a recap of my life. My stupidly busy unorganised basically 'disheveled' life.
I have been once more horrifically busy aaaagh why can I never find any free time in which to write a blog... examples of how I waste my time:

one. list of disney villains
two. talking about random stuff on skype
three. finding places in Shanghai where I can buy cheese
four. looking up stuff about random languages
five. researching cults
six. trying to solve the VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT SERIOUSLY WHY EVERYONE HAS FAILED THIS IS NOT GONNA WORK
seven. buying random stickers

... so yes.

Anyway, vague recap.

Class: interesting, good for my characters, but otherwise too much, too slow, too boring. Apart from calligraphy which is hysterical because everyone else there basically is Japanese and can already do it, while we are still not that confident in holding a paintbrush. And taichi involves mosquitoes and looking like an idiot in some abandoned storage area in an abandoned area of uni hidden from the natives.

Food: not enough of, probably... I keep forgetting to eat ^^;; half the time I'm busy, the other half I can't decide what to eat til 3am and then it's a bit too late. I need to buy a rice cooker really but I again can't be bothered and don't have the time. But have had fun corn on the cob from a street seller, gongbao chicken (yum yum) and a 'flabby thing on a stick'... the best policy is actually not to ask what you're getting.

Also wanted some dried banana chips the other day, and didn't know the word for gram, only knew the Chinese measurement 'jin' which is like half a kilo or something and that was obv not what I wanted... so just said 'a bit of that please' to the guy... he gave me the right amount to start with but then he kept adding more, I asked him to stop but he carried on. I ended up with like 300g which was quite a lot and I was a bit worried but then I only ended up paying 50p so wasn't too worried :) Yay :D

Friends: really really REALLY REALLY REALLLLLLLLY miss everyone in Japan.

a lot.

more than I can say.

Already in a way looking forward to going back to Leeds in order to see everyone... :)

But then at the same time, am really enjoying getting to know everyone better... yes there have been problems, a fair few problems I will admit, but I don't think it's time to go back yet.

Plus there will soon be Beijing people coming to visit, us Shangers lot going to Beijing, Laura coming over, which is something I seriously can't wait for, going to Cambodia, going to various Taoist places in late February, doing the tourist thing in March with Tori...

This introspection is probably a result of the fact that it's nearly my birthday, and I'll be the furthest away I've ever been from home. I had my 18th in Leeds, and it was fine, but still this is so foreign and there is an 8 hour time difference and everything.

We are starting to make Chinese friends now, which is great and all, and really improving my oral language ability, but all the same it's not anything near the same as having my other friends with me. I want my best friends here with me, I want to be able to ring them up, go round theirs, text them, without having to think about the time difference or whatever. But I am in China for such a relatively short period of time that I shouldn't be moaning bout it, I should just get on with it, surely?

But before anyone feels neglected, I also miss all the Bath lot and then just other random UK friends in general. However, it's in a completely different way, as I didn't really see the Bath lot during termtime, I only saw Leeds people. At Christmas, I reckon I'll miss you lot so much more, although at the same time I mostly missed you lot when I was in a familiar place, like when I was in my room, as that's what I associate you lot with. You are missed though.

Introspection over :P Well at least until my birthday.

Nights out: Large amounts of nights out but a very limited amount of money spent on said nights. We have now found Western things, even Cadburys :O It's quite expensive but in an emergency it'll be amazing. Oh yeahhhhh

We seem to be in a pattern of going out on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, so much less than I did in Leeds, but still really fun. Last two nights I have spent in the other guys' flat, quite looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

Speaking of the other guys' flat, it still saddens me a bit... they're all living together til the end of July when we leave the country, and they said it was they couldn't find a shorter lease contract and maybe but the people were seemingly desperate to rent and short term rents here are still quite common... ah maybe this is silly. I'm actually writing this from their flat but it's like, the entire time I'm here, I still feel awkward coz I know I don't belong here, and then in the morning I just knew I needed to be out of there, they seemed a tad uncomfortable with me lurking around. And I know I shouldn't keep coming round but being stuck alone in my flat isn't that appealing, and then like Jo who also doesn't live with the others is often around here so I come round here partially because of that. Looking forward to when Laura comes, we can live together as long as she still wants to by then :P Might have a word with Jo and check she doesn't want to move out of her place in Jing'an early.

Thinking now about living arrangements for third year... Jo has offered, as has Dan, and I know Rakhee and Laura want to as well, but atm it's still all up in the air, depends on whether people are going to continue doing a second language or not. Fingers crossed something will get sorted soon, I just wanna know who's definitely not gonna drop another language so will therefore be around for the whole of third year, not just the first two semesters.

Right, I need to go and buy food now. Sorry for the rubbish update, will PROMISE to update properly more regularly from now on. Honestly. ...maybe.

Holiday in Qingdao then back to Shanghai

2009-10-12T04:39:00.004+01:00

QINGDAO PHOTO GALLERY :D Click here to view :D

We were all ready to go on holiday, then, two days before class ended, I started to feel really rotten, started to get a fever and aches... the following day, I had to miss class as I was not really able to move, had a fever and stuff which was really unpleasant, I ended up ringing NHS Direct (I was not gonna go to a Chinese doctor, come on :P) who over the phone were pretty certain I had swine flu. I quarantined myself, stayed in bed for two days without moving or seeing anyone, and looked up info about it on the internet... apparently once the fever has been gone for twelve hours or something you're no longer contagious. I was still in bed when I realised I was going on holiday the following day :O Fortunately the fever disappeared during the night, so when my friends came round to collect their food and me, I was no longer contagious, although still a bit snuffly. We left at 10 for the train which left just after midday.

At Shanghai train station, we had two randomers stop us and ak for a photo with us, very bizarre. They came over when we were sitting down later and started chatting, and then literally every Chinese person within earshot was staring at us and listening to this conversation, and there were about 20 people in a circle surrounding us bearing witness to this conversation with the foreigners :O We got on the train, it was really cheap (£15) for a 800km journey, so we got a hard seat each. We all sat together, but there were a lot of people standing who kept asking to share our seats, as they had't paid for a seat, and there really wasn't much room. This train was an overnight train, arriving at 6am. Oh the pain. We hardly slept, and when we arrived in Qingdao at 6.30am, we were just all dazed and half asleep. Nerys rang the hostel owner who said he'd come pick us up, though she didn't believe he understood her so we tried to get a taxi from the rank, got a non-metered one and, even though we haggled, still got ripped off, and taken to the wrong place. We were all tired, dirty, hungry and needed a Western loo (the squat on the train was the worst thing I've EVER seen in my life) and we couldn't find this hostel... we wandered down backstreets past fruit sellers just putting their wares out, and... eventually...

there it was :D

Some people showered, I just kinda slumped and stretched my legs, then we went to the first place that was open for breakfast, which turned out to be McDonalds xD We went to the beach then, me Abi and Jennie were sitting there and there were a load of guys on like a viewing point above the beach staring at us, a group of teenagers asked for their picture taken with us... We went back to the hostel at midday and slept. It was wonderful.

That evening, there was the Shanks incident; there was this random Scottish British-Indian guy who used to go to Leeds Uni, and he was chatting with us even though this wasn't his hostel. Most of us weren't keen on him so when Nerys and Connie were talking about going out, we decided we'd rather sleep. They went out and got back safely, after having put him in a taxi to his hostel since he was very drunk, but then, about 5am, there was epic banging on the door.

He was OUTSIDE the hostel trying to get in. The hostel owner is woken up by this and goes down to see, and Shanks forces himself in and was saying that he needed somewhere to sleep and he'd just sleep in our room (I was quite worried by this point), the hostel owner grabbed him and pulled him down the stairs away from our dorm room, he then tried to get into bed with the two female staff members, and when he was stopped, started getting really verbally abusive. At this point, the hostel owner called the Chinese police xD who came round and took him away. In China, if you're arrested and you're a foreigner, you're usually deported with your visa revoked... guess his teaching job is gone now then.

The following day we went to another beach which involved getting a bus to it. The bus was fun, I gave a positive impression of English people to people by giving up my seat to elderly and kids and pregnant mothers etc, they looked shocked but pleased. The beach itself was beautiful, big waves, sandy beach... apart from the jellyfish, was perfect. We again had people, Chinese tourists, come up to us and ask for a photo with us, I still find it bizarre.

The following day was our final day in Qingdao, and we went to the brewery. It was amusing coz of the omitting of certain historical events... We also got free samples and then we bought some Chinese stout. Fun times. That evening we went out with a random German guy from the hostel to a club with a bouncing dancefloor, met up with another German guy when we were out, and also found some SJTU people in Qingdao, coincidentally. Was a fun night :)

The next day, our train back was at 10.30am, so we woke up at 7.30am... only to have Abi run into our room and tell us Jennie had collapsed and she was going to the hospital by ambulance. So we packed, packed Abi's stuff too, tried to contact Leeds, find insurance company, get hold of team leader etc etc, and then ran to the train station. Fortunately Jennie was let out of the hospital in time so her and Adele made it to the station in time. The train back was much more comfortable, and much faster, as we got home for 9.30pm. I was in a bad mood, but after spending time alone, was fine :)

For the next few days basically all I did was try and sort out my bank stuff and locate my money which had gone missing during the transfer of it from the UK to China. Very worrying stressful time, but it's all sorted now :)

Had my first T'ai chi chuan class, it was awesome and I loved it :) Apart from the mosquitoes though.

Got class again this week, the holiday time is over until Christmas now, will update again soon :)

Third Week in Shanghai...

2009-09-28T19:24:00.006+01:00

BEFORE I POST ANYTHING, MAIN THING IS THIS:

Click to view my photo album from Shanghai

PHOTOS OF SHANGHAI SO FAR :) Enjoy :)

Right, so once again LIFE has gotten in the way agh why am I so busy this makes no senseeeeeeee... I thought people said the Year Abroad was like a holiday, but it so isn't, there's always something important to do. Or people to see, or emails to write, or people to ring, or places to go... yeah I imagine you get the picture.

So, last week.

Monday:

IT RAINED, SRSLY. Very surprised, as it's pretty much been consistantly warm here since arriving (although smog has made the blue sky non-existent, but then again this is China, not THIS IS SPARTA and should be expected). Got all wet, realised I left my Converses in the hotel (though John and Claire have them in their apartment now) so I wore some flats, and the top of my feet got all wet... Plus it was too warm to wear a coat or even a cardi, so going out into the rain in my epic

GURT LUSH

t-shirt seemed a tad foolhardy, but there we go. Ate muchos food which was definitely needed, shenzhen bao (or however you write it in pinyin) were awesome even though once again Nerys spilt hers everywhere. We went into uni and tried to sign up for optional classes during the break, but we weren't able to for some unknown reason. It said on the sheet of paper (yes another one) that it would take place in Room 222 but that grumpy-arse woman said in Chinese that only HSK stuff could be registered for today. Meh.

Had my first proper speaking class, and it was AMAZING I felt really positive and proud of my Chinese level for the first time. Now I know anyone who sees this is gonna bring me down, but I do honestly feel myself improving here and I'm so happy about it. Eeeeee ^_^

Went to buy cakes from Croissants de France as a treat, and also to do homework out of the rain. Sitting on the chairs, I almost fell off mine with laughter when some really fat Chinese man proper walked BANG into a glass wall that he thought was the door, looked confused, touched it, then tried to regain dignity and walked away. Hahahahaha

Tuesday:

Adele came round with her laptop and we had a geeky moment of her on her game on my bed, me downloading an update for Ether Saga and on my DS playing Phoenix Wright, yays :D We're just that cool, obviously.

That evening, we went round to Jennie's to meet her flatmates, but as it turned out we wouldn't be going for tea with them as they were a bit afraid of us, presumably coz there were SEVEN GIRLS who suddenly appeared in her living room. It was fine though, we ended up going to this hotpot place which looked really expensive, so we didn't pick too much food as we were afraid it'd end up costing us like £10 each, which we didn't have... Nerys thought it'd cost us £15 including drinks and optional extras. We had to pick the sauces, meats, vegetables, dipping sauces, noodles as well as drinks, though we did turn down

'SHEEP PIZZLE' (never seen Jo laugh so much)

and duck blood for 60p. Oh and we could have had a frog too... It was really good, though we didn't quite order enough due to our fear, but it only cost about £3 each, result :D I was satiated but not full. On the way back from Jennie's we walked past a live animal supermarket... well, amphibians and fish mostly, with the occasional reptile. Nerys was freaked out.

Wednesday:

Finally signed up for optional classes :D I am studying Calligraphy which starts next Wednesday, on the 30th Sept, and Taijiquan which starts after National Day Golden Week holiday. We went shopping for new shoes, I bought some gorgeous high heels which aren't too high, amazingly fit perfectly (though I am the largest size it is possible to buy for in China) and only cost £5, then went to an expensive shopping mall but found some good stuff there in the sales, got two tops for about £3 each and one top for £13 but it's really nice and good quality so it's ok. Adele went and bought a DS as she's wanted one ever since seeing me play on mine, while people discussed arrangements for going out.

I got dressed up, went round to Connie's... but in the end realised I was just too tired to go out, and ended up going home and sleeping. Definitely the right choice; it sounded like fun, but I would have been no fun at all.

Thursday:

We had class starting at 8.30, like every day except Monday and Friday, and... only me and Jo showed up in our class, the majority of people who went out the previous night ended up sleeping in to try and recover from the hangover. Jennie who's in the other class managed to drag herself in on 2 hours sleep, while Adele who went to sleep at 10pm I swear, didn't even come in til 10.20... Very very funny seeing everyone in such pain xD We bought them a BLT, while we ate baozi or xiao long bao. Yum.

That evening, everyone came over mine and we ended up having a random conversation about us being like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, continuing it on from another day in CDF, but then it got onto the topic (probably from Marco 'he's so sleazy') of a new Snow White for a more mature audience...

Originally,

Snow White = Jennie
Doc = Jo
Grumpy = Adele
Sleepy = Adele (she's both)
Sneezy = Connie
Bashful = Abi
Dopey = Nerys
Happy = Georgie

Hilarious xD Best new names were 'Sleazy' Connie, 'Boobful' Abi, 'Humpy' and 'Creepy' Adele, though 'Slappy' Georgie wasn't too bad :P

While we were cackling, we had my landlord appear round at my flat as well as a mechanic to fix our bathroom cabinet, which would have been fine except Jennie was maybe kinda asked out by the landlord... oh bad timesssss xD

Friday:

Eventually had a day with a 1pm start which meant a LIE-IN which was so badly needed it was ridiculous. Wait, NO, no lie-in, had to get up early as today was the day we had to get the forms from SJTU for passport collection and then get to the other side of Shanghai to collect passports before 11 which is when the exit-entry bureau shuts for lunch, and we have class every Friday afternoon. Plus the bureau is shut at the weekend, so yeah, way to make it easy for us to get our passports back...

Went to the international office at uni, gave them our receipts and they gave us our medical results as well as the form to take to the exit-entry bureau... but wait, what's this, oh, of COURSE we can't go today, of COURSE we can only go on Sunday now as that's when they'll be ready, and of COURSE it'll be shut for National Day. That makes perfect sense. We really couldn't wait much longer either as we needed to book our train tickets to get to Qingdao before they all sold out. Aghhhhhh Chinese bureaucracy annoys me. Also found out that despite giving the uni money which I thought was for residence permit, no, I need to take another £40 along on Sunday. :(

That evening, people came round for food and a beer :) Nice and relaxed, getting ready for our ONE DAY WEEKEND which we were so gonna make the most of , going out OH YEAHHHHH

Saturday:

Did my washing, yay :D Clean clothes :D As whenever I go out, I seem to come back with clothes smelling of cigarettes which is sad. Dislike. We booked the hostels at last, though we didn't have any train tickets, but at least we'll have somewhere to stay... was a bit of a nightmare booking them as there wasn't enough room for us on just one night out of 6, so we booked a hotel for 3 people for that one night.

That sorted, we went out to a place called Paramount in Jing'an. It was AMAZING:
£8 entry and drinks
Random bouncy things with a light inside them
Polystyrene glow sticks
A fake plastic syringe with a daiquiri inside it
A cage in the middle of the floor...
Falling on the DJ
Dancing on the stage in front of everyone
Really fat Canadian guys trying to find a Chinese girl >_<
A long grey-haired guy >_<
Sweaty guy
Empty bar upstairs :D With seats :D
Loos which didn't lock, so interesting techniques required
Meeting cool people from University College Dublin, including Lou from Manchester

... Got back about 3.45, bought noodles from a street seller, prob fell asleep at 5am...

Sunday:

Was supposed to wake up at 7.30 in order to shower and get ready for passport collection, but in reality woke up at 8.40 when Adele rang me asking if I was on my way...

Adele: 'Georgie? Are you ok?'
Me: '[incoherent]'
Adele: 'Are you on your way?'
Me: '...whaaaaaaa [mumble] eeeeeeeh [groan]'
Adele: '...you're in bed aren't you?'
Me: 'Uhhhhhhh sdhdkjfskdfjhksdhfks'
Adele: 'I presume you're not gonna be ready to meet us right now... shall we meet up with you later?'
Me: 'Ghhhhhhhhhhaaaa okaaaay [incoherent babbling]'

...Oops. Still, as it turned out, I arrived just as they'd finished, so they waited for about ten mins, and then we were done. Though I was so tired, I was like the living dead... I gave up on going to the station, luckily Abi bought my tickets for me, and I went home and slept. Ick.

But I now have my PASSPORT

and a YEAR LONG RESIDENCE PERMIT YAAAAY

I'M A LEGAL ALIEN :D *hums Sting*

Happy timessssss :D

And now I've been abroad for a month. This is a very weird feeling, as simultaneously it feels both like it's been much longer, but also that it's flown by. I do miss the UK, I also really miss Japan, but I like it here. I miss things like cheese and fresh milk desperately, but I am developing a liking for naicha and beer. Highs and lows I guess. *sigh*

I'll leave you with this Pudong landscape, which illustrates why I both love and fear China... answers on a postcard :P

The last week, mass update :)

2009-09-20T18:21:00.001+01:00

Right, so this week was my first week at class.

Monday, ended up getting up early (again AGH I HATE THIS SO MUCH) for the medical, which was... let's just call it interesting and leave it at that. Well actually that's no fun xD

We arrived at the building at the godunearthly hour of 8AM SO NOT NATURAL and parked outside was a bus type thing. The first thing that came into my head was 'death bus' o_0 then we thought it might take us to the hospital, but no, apparently it WAS the hospital... which was odd. We had to show a random pamphlet (though I'd lost mine and talked my way past it), were given a number on a piece of paper, and had to queue. Then we were given a checklist to make sure we had our:
passport
visa
residence permit
passport photos x 3
student card

which of course we all did, and then in groups of 5 we had to move chairs and sit on chairs in a hallway, where they checked we had all the right shiz, and then we were moved in small groups into another room with tables and chairs (SO MUCH MOVEMENT) and given long and complicated forms to fill out (do you have TYPHOID?? WELL DO YOU?? What about the PLAGUE?? I felt so medieval... and wanted to sing Weird Al 'get medieval on your hiney' lalala). You'd be half way through the multiple page form, and then someone would finish and get to go and talk to someone about the form, so a seat would become free, and instead of getting new people to sit there, they'd make everyone move up a seat. CONSTANTLY. Eventually I went up to the desk, they took things off me, gave me more things, sent me to the next person... times by 5,and eventually you end up with a form the medical people have to fill in (apart from your temperature, height and weight which we're meant to know, and Jo guessed her weight and the guy CHANGED IT how harsh T_T)

Then we went to someone who took away our passports and residence permits, who then sent us to the SURPRISE BLOOD TEST woman which was not nice. She tied a piece of plastic cable round my arm, then quickly stuck the needle in and took blood (no idea how much, I wasn't looking, after I knew she had a clean needle I shut my eyes and repeated 'bu yao bu yao' over and over again). We then were given cotton wool and told to hold it on the site for 5 minutes, but yet we had to instantly move from one wooden chair to another. Then we sat on more corridor chairs, and then were sent to the medical van. We had to put on sterile blue plastic things over our shoes to keep the van sterile, but we put them on OUTSIDE and stood on the dirty ground in them before going in... First thing, bras off and time for chest x-ray. I had to take off my St Christopher pendant, first time I've done that since leaving, not doing it again. Was a bit weird, and then I went for an eye test and blood pressure test. I took a while to answer the eye test questions as I can't do left and right very well normally xD Finally was ultrasound (I saw my insides on a tv screen, was so bizarre) and an EEG which felt like being clamped to a table before torture. Then, we were free xD Went to go get food (pink wafers, yum...?) coz was feeling a bit faint as you're not allowed to eat beforehand, and then it was time for class.

Class. We were told this level would be perfect for us... how ridiculous. We 'learnt' as our grammar point,

'tai hao le' which means 'how good'. We did this at Christmas in Leeds... plus we spent an hour and a half (one period) on one lesson, and didn't even finish it, whereas with Ning Yi we did 2 lessons in an hour. We came out bored out of our minds as we even knew all the vocab. In the afternoon, Adele and Jo decided to go sit in on someone else's class to check out that level, but me, Abi and Nerys stayed and studied. That evening, we panicked and researched how to switch classes.

The next day, I was suffering a bit from some dodgy food from a street noodle seller near the university, and didn't go in. By the evening, was feeling a lot better so studied ready for class the next day. Jo went to the office to try and switch classes, and ended up being moved into the complete beginners class, aka the 'ni hao' class. This is ridiculous, as she's so good at Chinese.

Wednesday morning, we all got up early to go to the office and try to move class, we eventually got through to the guy that we needed the timetable for another class after the first period was over, so we decided to go and buy our new textbooks for the new class instead of launching into the harder class with speaking class, which is definitely our weak point. Then it was off to Kesongfang (Croissants de France) for cakes and naicha/other random drinks :)

On Thursday was our first day of class at the correct level... it was definitely the correct level. There are some lovely Japanese women in our class, our friend Snow from Guam is in the same level, and there's a cool guy called Igor. Which is an awesome name. However very quickly class gets boring because we move so much slower in China than we did in Leeds... sadly enough. Listening class was actually really hard as well as really boring, and we've been told we should buy the cassette tapes so we can do the work outside of class... come on, 20th century and all, why not CDs?? Still, we're learning new stuff now, so yay :)

Friday we only have class in the afternoon, which was nice, but we ended up having to get up at 8am because we had been told that in order to transfer to a higher level class, we'd have to sit another placement test, so all week we had been frantically revising for this exam. We arrived, and were told that in fact we didn't need to do a test at all. I think it was thanks to Jo, who mentioned the fact that the teacher from the lower level class said we should move and the teacher in the higher level class said we'd be fine in her class, and since we haven't really stood out as not being up to scratch, we're all officially now in Elementary 3, like pretty much everyone else from Leeds, bar I think 3 people. Yay ^_^ Class made us quite sleepy as we'd been up for a fair few hours already, and after class we went to the supermarket and then back to our respective homes to get ready for the night out :D

Night out was epic: first we went to the hotel and drank some beer there, then went to a student night bar thing which Connie had been given a flyer to previously, which was a 5/10 minute walk away from campus. It was pretty good, packed, but they had a 15RMB offer on on some drinks which was good. We got some seats, I saw some people I recognised from class, then I saw Connie talking to people who I thought were randomers, so thought 'I wanna talk to randomers too' and wandered on over to some random guys who turned out to be HORRIFICALLY posh, (prob didn't help that they went to Durham for BA and Masters) in Shanghai to 'rediscover themselves' (their words not mine) and in suits. I left quickly :P Ended up chatting in French for about an hour to this half French half Chinese guy, and kept trying to make Abi talk to him in French too, poor girl was not happy xD Nerys got to speak German to a Swiss German bloke, and then I think the bar was shutting as everyone went outside to a pavement and tried to get a taxi, we ended up, all 5 of us, fitting into one taxi, going a long way to this random bar someone had told us to go to, I think it was Sophie, and eventually came out of the taxi onto this fairly deserted street in the middle of nowhere. There was a bar, we went in, and lo and behold there were some of the people we knew.

Turns out the bar was in Jing'an (which is FAR from Xujiahui), but we got free drinks and the bartender was awesome, if very random. He was called Ian and he bust a rap for us (well several) which was bizarre. We then got another taxi and went to a club and danced for a bit, til some random Chinese guys came and started being pervy, at which point we left and ran up and down the taxi queues asking them if they'd take 5 girls in one (there must've been a police station near by as they all refused). In the end, me and Jennie got one together to my address and she walked back from there. A very cheap night :D Fell asleep after 4am... whoa.

Next day was woken up at 11am, all confused, by an AIR RAID SIREN. Seriously. Air raid sirens. Incredibly loud, the siren itself must have been nearby as it seemed to permeate everywhere. This was terrifying. It was apparently the first time since 1946 that there has been an air raid siren sounded anywhere in the world, but yet weirdly enough I still was able to recognise exactly what the sound was... And then I panicked. Didn't know whether to run to a metro station, stand in a doorway like you do for an earthquake, didn't know how to tell if it was a drill or a warning... so I looked out of the window. THERE WAS NOBODY ABOUT AND ALL THE CARS WERE DRIVING IN ONE DIRECTION. I then proved my geekiness by... checking on Google. Luckily 2 weeks ago in the Independent, they said that there would be a city-wide drill in Shanghai. It is apparently the first 'National Defence Awareness Day' and this drill will happen every year from now on... Just my luck that it was the first one when I was here. It's basically a macho show against Taiwan.

That afternoon, after I'd recovered a bit more, we went to People's Square to go shopping... I think I need to change my standards a bit, as I wanted to buy clothes but while looking around could only think of the Western-style stuff I wanted to buy. We ended up going and sitting in People's Park, drinking naicha and eating meat off a stick. We then saw lots of pieces of paper attached to hedges and walls with people reading them and other people standing by them, so we wandered over to one poster that was all by itself. They were lonely hearts adverts, well sort of... they were for parents to go along and look at, to find a partner for their child, introduce them, and hopefully get them married before they got too old. We were looking at this one sad poster, of this fairly unattractive 30 year old guy, when this old guy wandered up to us, and then we realised he was this guy's dad... and even worse, his son was standing nearby!!! We were terrified we'd end up with some sort of Chinese husband, so we hurriedly left, and ended up walking into this massive queue for Haagen-Daaz who were selling commemorative Moon Cake flavour icecream at an extortionate price. How random. We eventually left, went home for a nap then everyone came round mine for food from the street sellers near me, and then beer :) We also had some fun discussions about the previous night, including being told that we were singing crap songs in a taxi at 3am xD Mostly cheese, so we listened to a load of cheese til everyone went home at about 1am.

Sunday, today, I actually did nothing, which was wonderful. Was in bed til about 4pm, went out to get food, then came back. Some of the others came over for a bit (and food) but that was it. I really think I needed a day of just nothing, as I've been busy every day since leaving England on the 28th August. And now I feel much more well-rested. Tomorrow I don't have class til the afternoon, so I'll get lots of sleep tonight too. We've made vague plans for next weekend, we'll see if that ends up happening :)

And a quote... "Oh, he's Kazakhstani? Is his name actually Borat?" - oops *blush*

Last few days before class started... new apartment!!

2009-09-19T19:39:00.000+01:00

Right, so sorry for serious lack of updating... it's been an entire week, I'm frankly appalled with myself, although I understand why I haven't, everything has been so epically busy.

Last time I wrote, it was just coming up to the weekend. We ended up trying to go out, but as we didn't know where was good to go to, we ended up wandering for miles and miles (about 5/6 in total) looking in vain for a bar. Nothing special, just a bar... we eventually found a jazz bar, but drinks were about £7 so we were not impressed. We walked back to People's Square (this was Friday night), I wandered through the underground bit to get to my exit and went back to the hotel. I love that hotel, it's so gorgeous :D If only I could afford to live there permanently... well I say that but I do actually want to live proper Shanghai life, not just 'rich businessman/expat' life.

On Saturday, ended up having to wake up early (which was unpleasant since we were out late the night before) as I needed to catch John before he went away for a few days. Spoke to him and Claire, gave the kids their presents (Lara loved her doll, and Liam apparently liked his toy, but he didn't open it while I was there as he was sleeping) and then went to the apartment block to meet the landlord. I arrived there, and the landlord was not there... I was like WHAT as he said he'd be there at 1.30. I ended up getting lost trying to even find the block, as I'd only been there once before, and then when I found it I had to negotiate my way past about a million building sites and piles of rubbish/construction detritus. Got there, he wasn't there, and it was 1.33pm. Very unimpressed, I rang him:

Me: Where are you?
Him: I came, you weren't here so I left.
Me: But I'm 3 minutes late, why didn't you ring?
Him: You weren't here.
Me: How could you leave the building in 3 minutes?? It takes 5 minutes to leave it.
Him: Come back at 4pm.

... I didn't really have much choice in the matter. Connie and Nerys and everyone were going to the Carrefour, and I really wanted to go, but I had to now wait around for another 2 hours. I faffed around on this road, getting to know it all a bit better, went to the hotel where Adele was for an hour or so, played Phoenix Wright (now COMPLETED OH YEAH AS BECCA WOULD SAY 'I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN') which was ace, and then went back to the flat for 4pm. At 3.50pm, got a phone call:

Him: Where are you?
Me: I can see the apartment building.
Him: You need to be here now.
Me: Why? I said I'll be there for 4 to sign my contract.
Him: Oh, you're not doing that today, come back tomorrow for contract... today there is a man coming to change the locks, you need to be there. He's outside now.
Me: I'll be there in one minute...

... Got there, the locksmith only spoke Chinese and needed the keys to the flat... WHICH I DON'T HAVE. AGH. He seemed surprised I didn't have them, but as I was meant to collect the keys from the landlord today, it was a bit confusing and annoying. Passed my phone to the key guy... who also was a shit locksmith as locksmiths are meant to be able to open locks if you've lost the key. This guy was scared bout breaking the lock but we were meant to get a NEW LOCK. Made no sense... my new flatmates apparently came along later in the evening and gave the keys to the crappy locksmith.

That evening, went along to the hotel on campus for a bit, before going back to the hotel for my final night there... so sad, but I was only registered with the police to live there until Monday anyway, so only miss out on one night. Packed, and went to bed at about 1am.

The next day, got up at 8am, brought my massive suitcase (only half full though) to the metro station, slid it under the ticket turnstile, dragged it onto the metro, up stairs the other side, then wheeled it along for the 20 minutes until I got to the flat. When I arrived, my flatmates were there who gave me the keys to the flat, and I started to doss around until the landlord arrived at about 10am. I went through the contract with a fine toothcomb, made sure he had filled in all the specifics himself before I signed it (even though he told me to sign it first, I was NOT having that), specified my terms, negotiated the price, reminded him of what I still needed, and after all that, gave him the money and received a receipt for my payment. I now have an apartment :D

It's pretty nice, my mattress is rather hard (though it's softening up now after having friends come over all week), bathroom isn't very clean and I didn't have my sofa chair when I moved in (though I have it now), but otherwise it's good. Went to the hotel again, the others came round and helped me pick up my stuff to take it to my new flat. After that, me and my flatmates had to go locate a police station as you only have 24 hours to register with the police after arrival (although they had illegally been here for a week), and we tried so many places...
Place A: Really small, full of smoke, 3 people inside who all wittered at me in Shanghainese, said I couldn't register here, wrote an address down in very messy writing.
Place B: We couldn't read the address, so we tried the police station on campus, but we weren't allowed to register there.
Place C: Was near Shanghai stadium and we got a taxi from campus to this one, it cost 22 kuai which means it was about 4/5 miles away. We were on the right road, but this police station wasn't right.
Place D: Other end of the road, was the correct place :D Though just getting the residence permit was hard...

When we arrived, we got constantly redirected from room to room, it can't be that hard surely, every single foreigner has to do this ffs!! Eventually arrived, told they were shut for lunch so we sat down and waited... then this random woman entered, told us in Chinese that the other woman was the Chief of Police of this section and that we needed to go with her. We needed to have a photocopy of our passport, a photocopy of our visa, our temporary residence form from a previous hotel, our passport, our visa, a form from SJTU, a copy of the contract we signed, a copy of the landlord's contract, a copy of the landlord's residence permit and a copy of the landowner's ID. So much stuff... I ended up making friends with the Chief's 7 year old daughter who was fascinated by the fact I was Western, had never met anyone Western before, and liked my Chinese name. I gave her an old train ticket I found in my purse, which was from Bath Spa to Chippenham, so she ran off to show her mum, who came back in, said a few words to me in Chinese and then decided not to charge my flatmates the fine of 500RMB (£50) a day for every day that registration was overdue. They were pleased about this! At the end of all that, got my passport and this document with a stamp on it back, and I couldn't even keep it, as I had to hand it in the following day at my medical in order to try and obtain my year long residence permit and try and extend my visa.

After that, went to Shanghai Indoor Stadium metro station by metro to meet Jennie, as we both needed to go to IKEA. I bought some pillows, a duvet cover, a lamp, but I still need to go and buy a bin, another pillow and some lightbulbs... Yes I forgot to buy lightbulbs. I'm special... I thought there were lightbulbs in it but no of course not. That night, went to bed about midnight in my new flat, as I had to wake up early the next day to be on campus for 8am to go for our medical.

My first week of class will be in the next update :)

Trips to Jing'an, Qipulu, and IKEA ^_^

2009-09-10T14:41:00.003+01:00

Again, sorry for the delay in posting, have fallen behind a bit with the last few days of hecticness... gah really actually can't wait to start class and get a bit more time (maybe) :P Though that said, I know that as soon as we start, I'll get tired and run out of time and agh yeah.

On Tuesday, we decided to all go to Jing'an, where Jo lives, to go look around, see her flat and just generally explore a new area. We met up for breakfast of dumplings (I think a pattern is starting to emerge now) and then went to try and get a mobile phone or a sim card etc from the large market we have in Xujiahui, called Metro City, but there were so many really crowded floors, full of fake merchandise (and overpriced at that) that we ended up going next door to the Best Buy, where we all came away with a phone and sim card for about £30/40 :) Pretty good really... I mean yeah we could have got it cheaper in a market, but I don't think any of us wanted to run the risk of ending up with a fake, crappily made one which would fall apart within a few days. After that, we reemerged from the massive building, and went to find a bus stop.

Now, none of us knew this (except Jo and Connie most probably), but Chinese buses have no rhyme nor reason. There are 1000 different bus lines in Shanghai, but no central record, and no way of knowing where each bus goes from a certain stop, and no way of knowing which stop has which buses unless you find the stop you want. We wanted bus 830, but we couldn't find a stop this bus stopped at anywhere. Plus you don't put your hand out to summon them, they just stop and you run to it, jump on and drop 2 kuai into the box. We ended up getting on a random one that some guys said went to Jing'An, and we made it safely :D We walked along some small streets, some street seller streets, and some busy roads, before going up to Jo's apartment. Inside it's gorgeous, outside it's very Chinese, and the lift is a bit scary, but meh mine will be like that :P She seemed so at home there, and I can't wait to move in my place now, and finally unpack my suitcase :D

We got lunch in Jing'an, from some random street-side cafe, for about 50p, which wasn't half bad. In the evening, went out for Jennie's birthday, which kinda failed... we went to a nice restaurant on a street near me, and then walked all the way along Nanjing Xi Lu towards the Bund, walked down the Bund, and saw very few bars (and the ones we saw were like £5 a glass of wine). We know there are 100yuan all you can drink offers out there, we just haven't found them yet... We saw many touts and this one beggar girl with a mother. I think she had no legs or something, Connie and Abby thought she was just standing in a hole xD We ended up walking about 5 miles, doing the veryyyy long way round back from the Bund, but ended back up in People's Square which was good. Adele, with her blisters, was especially pleased we made it back before the Metro shut.

On Wednesday, after I went to see my new flat (have changed from the previous one as the girls dropped out and it would have been all boys) which is on Guangyuan Lu, still pretty nice with a double bed etc, we went to Qipulu, a massive 'fake' market area, and when I say massive, I mean massive... all the streets around this massive store complex with lots of complex narrow corridors selling everything for an alright price, better once you've haggled them down, were selling loads of random stuff. The entire area was buzzing with life, people shouting for customers, dodgy looking guys siding up to you to offer you 'DVD, watch'... unnerving. When we all met up at the metro, Jo was already outside waiting for us, accompanied by a Chinese lady. We all presumed Jo knew her, and so chatted along to her in Chinese... turns out the woman had randomly started talking to Jo, and we're almost definite she was trying to sell us her cheap Maybelline-ripoff makeup, Mary Kay. We were a bit nervous she was gonna try and charge us for being a guide, as she did lead us to the general area we needed to go to, though we haggled the prices ourselves (Roxy flipflops for £1.70, cute parasol for £1.40). Once we got into the large market, me and Connie managed to get rid of the lady, but very politely of course, and we wandered through the narrow corridors of stalls. There were 5 massive floors... so intense.

Every time we stopped at a shop, the owner sitting at the door would jump up immediately and presume you wanted to buy it. The expression 'women keyi yidianr kan kan ma?' proved very useful. We got an entourage of sonme sleazy looking man who wanted to sell us his shit watches, and some woman who kept trying to lead us to her stall. We mostly ignored them, because we didn't want them to become our guides, but if they got too forceful, we did do the whole 'bu yao' thing, though these people just ignored it. Eventually we lost them, and came away poorer, but with clothes (me and Abby managed to haggle this one skirt she really liked down from 95yuan (expensiveeee) to 50, basically half price :D SO impressed, as she offered us 65 as her last offer, we went to walk away, and so got it for 50.

Walking down the street, people needed the loo... turned out it was a communal squat trench, or as Nerys called it, a 'canal'. The door was propped open... I didn't even venture in xD We then tried to find a Western shop with western style toilets, saw a KFC and that also turned to be a squat, but in its own cubicle. We then caught the metro back (though while walking through the station, we came across some shops that sold these demonic-eyed barking dogs... SO FREAKY).

When we returned, we dumped out stuff in people's hotel rooms, then ventured on out to find the supermarket. I have a supermarket fairly near my flat, yay :D Not that I'll be buying much from there, but some things were great value... 29p for the large size bottle of beer, anyone?? :D Fish so fresh that it was still alive, interesting fruit and veg...
...and all I ended up buying was a bar of 'Dove' (like Galaxy) and some washing liquid. What an exciting life I lead xD Went back to the hotel, washed my clothes from the flight, Japan, ferry and China, and felt very proud.

Thursday, we arranged to meet outside Shanghai Tiyuguanzhan (Shanghai Stadium Station) at 1pm, so I was fully intending on getting a proper lie-in... but for some mental reason I woke up at 8.30am. Pain :( We went first to a roadside seller for some xiaolongbao, and then to IKEA, bought some cheap nice things, and I bought a duvet for my new flat :) Jennie has now got a flat sorted, with my landlord actually I think, which is great :) We then explored campus a bit, went to locate the swimming pool, which was fairly abandoned with lovely green water (it's only open June til August), sorted out Abby and Nerys' internet and tried to sort out their keycard problem, before me and Jo went home. Stopped off on the way to pick up some mantou, yum yum, then ended up walking all the way from Huaihai Xi Lu down Panyu Lu before getting onto Guangyuan Lu (my road) and then Huashan Lu for the metro and bus stops. Jo went off to try and find a bus stop for her bus, and I came back to the hotel and chilled. Tomorrow is the entrance ceremony, and I think we get our student cards, yay :)

Arrival in Shanghai

2009-09-08T10:34:00.003+01:00

Well, what a busy two days these have been. I arrived in Shanghai early on Sunday morning, got off the ferry at 11am and was ferried away to the customs check and all that malarkey. Our bags got scanned, then we went through immigration (queues fairly small and straight-forward, I was convinced the guy would say something considering my embarkation card said I was here for study although my visa said tourist) and then passport check... Even the British guy who was travelling with me on the ferry and whose visa was no longer valid since he accidentally went through security in China while flying to Japan got through safely, thanks to the Chinese guy called Joe who acted as interpreter. We then waited in this lobby area for the bags to come off the ferry, then you had to show your luggage card to a lady to be allowed into the area, find your bag, and then go back to the lady who checked the numbers were the same. My bag was fine :D Then we walked up, had our luggage scanned again, and then after that, walked up a slope and we were finally in China :D

The temperature difference wasn't such a shock, as I had been out on the top deck of the ferry at about 9.30am, and felt the heat and humidity. At the top, was a guy in a smart suit, holding a piece of paper saying 'JW Marriott, Miss Georgie' on it xD which I found highly amusing. The guy took my bag, wheeled it through the dusty, broken street to the big car, where I found some water and a phone so I could call John to confirm I had arrived. The car then whisked me away for half an hour to the hotel, and driving through was surreal:
a) For the first time, it really hit me I was actually properly in a foreign country, not just in a place where people didn't speak English
b) Chinese drivers are NUTS: srsly, they just drive wherever the hell they like, and if there should so happen to be an unfortunate pedestrian crossing, well it's their life...
c) Pedestrian crossings apparently mean nothing. People wander across the road whether or not it's on green, taxis and cars go whether it's on red or green...
d) The meaning of poverty has altered in my mind now, after seeing rickshaw drivers, and guys on tiny bikes with masses of rubbish that they can get a few mao (10 mao = 1 yuan, 10 yuan = £1)
e) SO MUCH SMOG
f) Pavements in a state of collapse
g) People in pyjamas and slippers in the backstreets
h) Spitting
i) People just doing whatever they like, like cooking on the ground/road/roof/roof of a car or playing with a baby in the middle of the road

So... yeah.

Then I arrived, and I'm in the Chinese equivalent of Oxford Circus. I'm on the 34th floor, in my own executive apartment (oh yeahhhh) with a view over the city. I can see the tallest building in Shanghai and its cool changing rainbow lights when it's nighttime :D

Stayed here for about 2 hours, then went to the pub with John, Claire and their two kids. We went to a German pub and met up with a load of other expats... by Chinese standards the food was very expensive actually, and they didn't really speak/use any Chinese... but meh I can't complain, each to their own.

Then I was allowed to take the driver (they have two, I had the non-English speaking one) who took me to the airport to meet the others when they arrived. I waited at the arrivals gate in Terminal 2 (bit fun trying to tell the driver I wanted Terminal 2, he was dead set on going into 1 xD though I realised I can NEVER hire staff, I don't like telling people what to do if it's just something I want them to do, like drive or clean etc) and met Abi, Adele and Nerys :D Was lovely to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar city. We then had to find Connie, but none of us remembered which flight she was on, so me and Adele went searching, found out she was in Terminal 1, did the massive 15 min walk to the other terminal, found out her flight was delayed and would arrive in an hour, so walked all the way back to Abi and Nerys, who then came with us, and they sat at the Meeting Point while me and Adele went to the arrival gate of this terminal... no Connie. She had wandered off somewhere, but luckily bumped into us xD

Abi and Nerys went on the Maglev (magnetic levitation, goes up to 350mph) train back into the centre of Shanghai, while me Connie and Adele went back to Terminal 2 to where my driver was parked and they came back to my room to have a look. They got a taxi back, and I slept on stationary ground, with a PILLOW. It was amazing.

The next day, woke up at like 7.30am, got changed, faffed around a bit before braving the metro for the first time to get to Xujiahui. Found out it was 5 stops on Line 1, takes about 20 minutes, and luckily I found the correct exit (there are like 14) in Xujiahui to end up on Huashan Lu. Walked along it, southbound at first, before realising I was meant to go northbound, and carried on, trying to find the university. Fortunately, I spotted Jo waiting near Ke Song Fang (Croissants de France), who was waiting for Jennie, while I was meant to be meeting Adele and Connie at the Huashan Lu gate. Jo took me there, and then the 7 of us all went to register together.

It was a bit of a nightmare, registering actually, since I had none of the right paperwork, since it was all out of date, so I didn't even have a letter of acceptance and everyone got confused as my student number is a 2010 number. Ended up running up and down 4 flights of stairs inbetween getting photo taken for student cards and doing the placement test, I'm in the Primary Intensive class which means we are going to learn 800 characters this semester and move into Intermediate :D Still a lot of problems, but eventually it worked after I found Ning Yi (my Chinese teacher)'s mate Gu laoshi :) Still not completely convinced that everything is ok, but meh we'll see :)

We went for lunch at a little restaurant near campus, pretty good food, bit overpriced but still good, and then we wandered around, trying to buy a phone and stuff (we all have Chinese phone numbers now :D) before heading back to mine. When back in People's Square, we walked up some side streets for food, before finding a street seller who made us egg fried rice for 50p, not bad :P tasty too, though I think there was a lot of MSG xD

Eventually slept at about 11pm last night, once everyone had gone. Will post about Tuesday and Wednesday on Wednesday :D xxx

Ferry to China...

2009-09-07T16:49:00.002+01:00

Adapted from an email sent to Tori:

So, the boat... well, getting to it was the first problem xD After I stopped talking to Tori on msn while in the youth hostel on Thursday evening, I ended up staying up til 2am writing the backlog of blog entries, oops :P The French guys were still lurking around, giving me booze from some of the stash they had (Japanese beer isn't great but meh I wasn't complaining, plus one can is hardly gonna do any harm), which helped me to stay awake til it was all written. Went to bed, the hostel was nice, my room was basically empty except for one Taiwanese girl, only problem was that the lights in each bed didn't seem to work, and I could hardly turn on the main overhead light and wake her up, so I ended up fumbling around in the dark to make sure I had everything ready for the next day, packing my bag and so forth. Woke up on Friday at like 7am which was nastyyyyyyyyy but loads of people were already up faffing about, and I figured if I got up early enough then the communal showers would be empty (and they were THANK GOD you know I don't like communalness and baring my NEKKID self to strangers isn't my idea of fun EUGH NOOOOO) even though they're as weird as all hell. Managed to swipe some rice from the counter which was my breakfast... so much rice... I miss potatoes. And CHEESE. AND MILK. Three portions of rice a day... not so fun.

Left the hostel at like 8.30, braved a Japanese commuter train (well actually three) with my 10kg backpack, 4kg handbag and 30kg holdall, which was interesting to say the least. I kept getting stared at, it's so weird, coz Osaka is like Manchester in size and international-ness, but yet from the way I was stared at you'd think it was bloody Biddestone haha. There was a massive gap between one of the trains and the platform, and all these commuters just pushed past me Sad times. Eventually I got to Bentencho, which is a station on the Osaka loop-line (I had to go from Shin-Osaka to Osaka, Osaka to Bentencho and Bentencho to Cosmo Square) and I discovered that
a) THERE WERE NO ESCALATORS OR LIFTS: IT WAS TOTAL HELLLLLLLLL
b) the subway platforms were somewhere completely different, not in the same station, and of course there were no signs telling me where to go, so I had to ask the station manager in Japanese, who looked puzzled (coz it was actually /that/ far, but of course the maps don't give any such indication) before giving me vague directions of 'cross the road, go straight for a bit then turn left'

I wandered along, discovered the only way to cross this busy city road was via an overpass, again with what do you know but NO FRIGGING LIFT AAAAAGH so I dragged the suitcase up about 30 steps, so much pain, then down the other side (there were about 8 exits, thank god I ended up picking the correct one in the end xD), got to the other side, wandered on down left and there was still no indication on a subway being anywhere nearby, so I ended up asking more random Japanese people where it was. Eventually found it, wandered on through, found a weird ticket machine; I needed a ticket for 240 yen, but I only had a 1000 note with me, and I couldn't see any option indicating that you didn't need exact change... Eventually some woman came past and I did the old 'TASUKETE' (help meeeeeeeeee) on her, and it worked, thank God xD Found the platform... and what do you know but there was only a 30 STEP FLIGHT OF STAIRS

I got half way up, and physically couldn't go further, fortunately some kind Japanese guy saw me struggling and helped me lift it up the remaining steps. He looked very shocked when I told him how heavy it was... I think he was also proud he could carry that much weight xD Subway itself was fine, packed with commuters fun fun, got to the terminus station and tried to find this bus stop with a free shuttle bus to the ferry... except there were 4 exits, obv just north, south, east and west. Ridiculous. I chose East, came out and saw a bus stop, except it said chocolate something on it (in my mind's eye I pictured a Japanese chocolate factory xD), and so got very confused... that was until an English looking guy (who later turned out to be from Nottingham) came wandering up behind me with a massive backpack on. Then out of nowhere some very excitable Chinese guy ran up to us at top speed and told us to wait while he brought the bus. The bus turned out to be like a Faresaver minibus, with like 5 steps to get onto the bus with xD Bad times... but the bus guy excitably again grabbed my bag and hoisted it onto the bus before I could say anything.

Got onto the bus, arrived at the port, which was a bit shit to be honest, it made me think that I'd be travelling to Shanghai on just some old fishing tug, gave the suitcase to them to put in the hold, and went through security. Despite the customs problem in Japan, I reported it in Japanese to the customs guy, and thank GOD he ripped the paper out of my passport. I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee...

The ferry itself is really cool, pretty big, three decks, it's more like a boat than a ferry. I am staying in a Japanese style tatami mat room with 6 others... that might not sound great, but it's a fairly big room which is built to hold 16 people so you know Actually the entire passenger contingent of the ferry is very under-booked, I reckon they must make a large amount of their money through freight transportation. There are probably about 50 passengers and there are supposed to be 350... so yeah, very empty. It's nice though

First day and night, pottered around, ate various meals in the restaurant, chatted to the English guy I met who is going round the world for a year and has just started, and to two Australian girls who are travelling for 4 months round Asia. In my room there is also a Japanese/Chinese joint national lady and her 3 year old daughter (cute but annoying when she keeps running over your bed, as we're only sleeping on thin futon mattresses on the floor), a Japanese lady who just wanted to see how far it was to China (good a reason as any xD) and a French girl who's travelling with her boyfriend for a year and a half, after having worked 2 jobs for 3 years to save up enough money. The room itself is like... well, have you seen Spirited Away recently? The room where Chihiro/Sen sleeps is very similar to this.

Second day and night, this is when it got interesting. I am now writing this on Sunday morning my time, and I am now 7 hours ahead of you. At breakfast, chatted to the first English guy and the Australian girls, we looked over my guidebook to Shanghai. Lunch, got chatting to another British guy who's from Kent, and an Australian guy from Perth. We ended up all going up onto the top deck to watch the sunrise and drink beer (I'm having to force myself to drink beer, as they don't really have much else, and what they do have is either baijiu which tastes like a mix of liquorice and nail polish remover, or really really expensive wine) together The French girl and her boyfriend joined us, and for a while an elderly French couple also joined us, who are cycling round the world for 2 years. We ended up having a massive 'gaijin' (foreigner) gathering out on deck, with every non-Chinese/Japanese person joining us there. We then all counted our remaining yen, which only had to cover one more meal, and I had the equivalent of 9 quid left, and a 500ml can of beer was £1.30 in the vending machine...

Went and had seared beef with rice for tea which was tasty, then went back up on deck with more beer. We all got through a can or two, chatting about random things like Australians always saying 'eyyyy' or serial killers in Tasmania, before someone decided we should go liven up the karaoke going on in the posh bar downstairs. It was pretty much empty, with about 5 Chinese guys there singing Chinese love songs... until the Australian guy decided to sing 'Golddigger' followed by 'Sexual Healing' and it went downhill from there. During the Marvin Gaye song, some Chinese couples came in and danced... so bizarre xD We then all sang 'Livin on a Prayer', well the Australian guy, Andy, screamed it. Hilarious xD As the last song, we did 'Let it Be' as the Chinese guys seemed to know some of the lyrics, and we were all swaying together xD There was one very creepy Chinese guy though, who wore a red t-shirt and kept videoing us and trying to get really close to us, aghhhh. Karaoke shut, we were kicked out, and we all went back up out on the top deck to continue with the drinking.

We all pooled together our last few yen and wiped the vending machine completely out of beer, ended up taking off our slippers so the soles of our feet got stained green, and had Andy teach us 'Soulja Boy' under the light of the full moon xD

It got to about 1am, and we all decided to call it a night except for one British guy and the Aussie, so I went to bed and fell asleep so quickly.

Right now it is 8am Chinese time, 9am Japanese time (I have just put back the clock) and we're bout 3 hours away from arriving, so I have started to pack up everything. I was originally so nervous about this boat, but now I'm so glad I did it xD On board, there is no time pressure, you have as long as you want to do whatever you want, so it's quite surreal when you can think 'Hmm, shall I go put some socks on? Meh, I've got 2 hours to decide...' and if we had more yen, all the British and the Aussies agreed that we'd have stayed for a few more days in the No Man's Land of the Sea of Japan.

~At the time of posting I am in Shanghai, will post that tomorrow :)

Leaving Utsunomiya

2009-09-04T00:23:00.003+01:00

Leaving Utsunomiya and travelling

Today was my last day with Mayumi. Last night, I said goodbye and thank you to Mr. Toyoda, and Kotaro came to see me, he really hasn't changed a bit, except a tad taller and facial hair now, since 2002. I woke up fairly late as Tuesday involved a lot of walking around Nikkou, and the others were awake by the time I came downstairs. Mayumi was doing her work at the table, making fuses, and Kotaro was slouched across the very low sofa watching the television. I had yaki-onigiri with something mysterious for breakfast, which was still tasty :) I chatted with Mayumi for about 2 hours about my experiences in Japan, when she told me that I would always be welcome to come back to see her and stay with her, a room would always be available for me, and she now considers me like an honourary daughter :) She said that if I had time at Christmas, I could come and stay and we could go to Disneyland Tokyo together, which was very sweet :) I was pleased my Japanese was sufficient to be able to communicate with her without too many problems. I then showed her an old Japanese song that a TV gameshow about recognising song artists/titles had reminded me of: Kawa no nagare no youni. It's a beautiful song :) She then showed me her favourite song, a Kyushu folk song, from the area which she comes from. We then somehow go onto the topic of X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, as there apparently isn't anything like that in Japan. I showed her Susan Boyle, a few really awful auditions from this year's X Factor, Danyl from this year's X Factor, Diversity from BGT and George Sampson. I think she was impressed, she certainly seemed to like it.

Kotaro then came downstairs, and we all went to dinner at a small local restaurant around the corner from them. I'm still in shock at the fact that people are still allowed to smoke indoors here, even on public transport :O

After dinner, which was sashimi bento, and delicious to boot, we chatted to the chef and the hostess who had never had a gaijin in their restaurant before. Wahay.

Kotaro then drove me and Mayumi to the station, where we said some sad goodbyes before I got on the Shinkansen.

In the youth hostel today, I have had a very strange multilingual experience, where there was a Japanese girl who only spoke Japanese, Japanese who were learning French, a Japanese guy who spoke English, a French guy who spoke some Japanese, a French guy who only spoke French, and me. I seemed to be the only person capable of acting as interpreter if needed... it was so surreally amusing xD

I will not have internet again now until I arrive in Shanghai. Thank you Japan for treating me so well, ja ne :D <3 <3

Nikkou

2009-09-04T00:08:00.002+01:00

Nikkou (Nihon no hikari ha Nikkou)

Japan is not just trying to hold the olympics, you know 日本だから、できる：　あたらしいオリンピック
But also is Japan's sunlight:　日光 - amazing pun :P I actually laughed out loud on the train.

On Tuesday, Mayumi and I went to Nikkou-san, which is a Shinto holy site, and also a World Heritage Site. You could sense the spirituality from the moment you entered the park. We saw a lot of shrines and statues of gods and stone lanterns... apparently part of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi is based off this site, and I could see that. We also saw Ieyasu Tokugawa's grave... I really seem to be doing a Tokugawa related tour atm xD

We got the bus to the station again, this time discovering that it was a JR bus and I could use my pass (result :D) and then got on a teeny tiny touristy train (yay alliteration) to the actual place. For once, I wasn't the only gaijin, there were many others on this train; a lot of Italians, some Irish and some people I think were Russian. Yay. The train was fairly slow but meant we got to see lots of rural Japanese villages from the train, and we also went through a bamboo forest :D Which was pretty damn awesome.

Upon arriving, there was a fairly long walk to be done to get to the actual site, then you had to walk up some very steep stone steps before arriving in the old heart of Nikkou. People even now live around the shrine, which I thought was amazing.

As for what is actually there, words do not suffice, I'll add some pictures...

later :P

We went to a tiny local restaurant for dinner, there were two other tables occupied, and three empty... it was definitely a Japanese restaurant, not like one of the many 'gaijin-friendly' ones around. It reminded me of how different it was here to the Katsudonya in Tokyo, coz there they tried to foist the more expensive gaijin menu on us.

After food, we got the bus down to the station, which was definitely overpriced, and when we arrived, we discovered we'd missed the train by 5 minutes, so there was a 55minute wait. Me and Mayumi chatted in the station, I showed her some fun videos I had on my camera of my mum singing along to Abba's Dancing Queen in the kitchen, but of course changing all the lyrics :P She was very amused by 'Mrs Chris'' behaviour.

When we got back, Mayumi informed me that she had told Kotaro that I was staying and he had expressed an interest in coming to visit, so he came around 6pm. We ate ebi tempura together, as well as renkon tempura and 'okura' which was a bizarre vegetable:

Mr Toyoda, Mayumi, Kotaro and I chatted for hours, before it was time to go to bed. I would leave them tomorrow, very sad :( I packed my bag, sorted out my belongings, then went to sleep.

Tokyo

2009-09-03T14:32:00.002+01:00

Right, this is ever so slightly late but better late than never...

On Monday, I went into Tokyo. Woke up fairly early, breakfast was good, well yaki onigiri, some random really bony fish, and some stuff in some mysterious brown liquid. Chatted to Mayumi over breakfast, in very slow, stilting Japanese, and then we got ready to leave the house. It was amazing to leave my massive suitcase at her house xD I slept really well, even though I had to wake at about 8am. We caught a bus at about 9am from Ishi-Machi (just down the road from where she lives) to Utsunomiya-eki. The bus itself was rather epic, as it was pretty damn small, had several floors, the driver had the world's largest moustache, and I'm not even kidding, and you took a ticket from the bus machine which had a number on it, but you didn't pay. The number was meant to signify a zone, and then there was an electronic automatically updating LED display which told you how many yen a ticket from that zone would be at any particular point. The ticket we picked was a 6, though it could have been a 9, we just weren't sure, and after we had decided that indeed it was a 6, you got the correct amount of money and dropped it through a hole onto a little conveyor belt with a clear plastic covering surrounding it. There was a thing at the end of the conveyor belt that ate you money... Dunno if it even counted the correct amount of money, but regardless we were allowed off the bus and we were at the station. Me and Mayumi wandered around the shops (98000yen kimono anyone?) and I've never seen so many shops in a station, even more than Paddington :O Eventually we arranged where to meet in the evening when I returned (I would get collected by car from the pick-up/drop-off point) and off I went, through the Shinkansen barrier.

Went up the escalator, onto the platform number 4, and caught a Tohoku Shinkansen, a Kodoma, to Tokyo. The journey took just over an hour and a quarter, and when I arrived, I was 5 minutes earlier than the time I had stated to arrange to meet Miles, Katy and Rob on the platform. Too late, I realised that not only was the platform stupidly long (16 cars, each of which was double the length and wider than your average FGW carriage) but also that to be able to get onto the Shinkansen platform, you have to have a ticket. I ran down the stairs to the Shinkansen gate, only to find that for some reason, there are two. I went to the other one, still no Leeds-tachi. I then went to a phone booth in the station and tried to ring Miles' mobile number, but it must have been wrong, as I ended up speaking to some random Japanese dude on the other end of the line who definitely wasn't Miles. I then went to the gate and asked them if they could do an announcement, midway through and who should tap me on my shoulder but them lot. Here I was, thinking it was my fault, and it turns out Katy was just late. She actually is turning into Peter, along with her new favourite phrase (hahaha)...

We left the station and went outside into the boiling hot humidity to see the Imperial Palace. It was majestic, and I swear I must've gabbled on about it for a good 10 minutes, though in my defence I hadn't been able to speak English for a while :P The sky was beautifully clear, the trees and the moat around the palace gave it a feeling of completely serenity and tranquility, even though we were in Tokyo. We then realised we were far too hot, so after getting lots of photos, including one of Rob (now Nob) the giant with the midget, some disgusting dead bug on a wall we tried to shock Miles with when he came out of the loo (such a woman) and a cicada on the floor, not to mention numerous other cicadas being very loud, and koi swimming around in the moat, we went into a station to buy some water from a vending machine and then the others bought a subway ticket to go to Akihabara. There, we ate katsudon which was delicious (me and Katy saw a picture and then dragged the guys around until we found somewhere that did oishii looking katsudon. Katsudon katsudon katsudon.), then went into a MAHOOOOOOSIVE technology shop to buy Katy a new camera. We also played with the foot massage machines and the shakey-plate thing and the thrust-o-matic. Hahahaha. After about an hour of accidental tax evasion related problems... /that'll teach us/

DUTY FREE JYA NAIIIIIII

Oh and there was also an

ELECTRIC ROMANCE

between me and Katy. Much RUB ga arimashita. Rub rub rub.

We got back on the subway and went to Shinjuku, where we went to the Muncipal Police Headquarters and went up to the 51st floor from where you are supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji, but it was too overcast. Still a nice view, even if Rob couldn't get a cheap milkshake like he wanted. Outside were some street entertainers who had attracted a fairly large crowd, there was a magician and a juggler (crusty jugglers... 20 points if you get the reference), and then a teeeeeny ginger cat appeared, with a collar on. It was very cute, and the first ginger thing I'd seen in Japan xD Then it was back on the train, towards Harajuku.

Upon getting off the train, what struck me was how busy it was, but yet the majority of people seemed very normal... then a whole gang of gyaru went past, closely followed by several loli. Oh Japan... Lots of overpriced loli outfits, weird looking dresses, guys that look like girls... and one guy with pink underwear and his jeans round his knees; was like being in Chippenham haha. Lots of fun Engrish, Rob was telling us about the amount of African-Americans street sellers around who picked on him, and he was proven correct. There were so many of them, all selling crappy hats and t-shirts... suffice it to say we didn't buy anything there. At one end of Harajuku was the most bizarre shop ever, Condomania. I have some photos of it... we were told afterwards we shouldn't take photos inside, but I got one :D We were gonna go to a large shrine in Tokyo, but it was shut. Boo.

After that, we did our second to last subway ride, this time to Shibuya, where we did the famous road crossing, went through the crowds of schoolgirls towards Shibuya 109 :D Inside was pretty damn awesome, loads of cool, chic clothes and stuff, I want some, but I am vair poor. Katy said it wasn't her style, but I can see her in it. Actually, I can see Miles in it more... haha. It became dark, and since I had to catch the train back at 7.30, we did the famous crossing at night one last time, tried to get on the rush hour subway, because we hoped we'd get pushed onto it but sadly not, our carriage was actually empty, and then I got waved off at the Shinkansen gate. When I got back to Utsunomiya, it was about 9pm, and I actually went to bed early.

Thanks guys for an awesome day and a fantastic whistlestop tour of Tokyo :D

Nagoya and Utsunomiya

2009-08-31T06:35:00.003+01:00

I made it to Utsunomiya, safe and sound :D Woke up on the 30th at 7am, as that's when the shower/bathroom opened, had a quick shower (was in awe of the fact that the entrance to the room was covered by a big curtain saying ゆ on it) and then went for breakfast with some of my roommates, ie a Japanese girl from Yokohama and a Chinese lady from Taipei. We ate breakfast together, talking in a weird mixture of Japanese, Chinese and English, talking about how Taiwanese people eat vegetables and how the Japanese girl fancied Gordon Brown o_0, while eating the interesting Japanese style breakfast which consisted of fish, rice, tofu, egg roll, seaweed and miso soup with bits of tofu floating in it... and I swear it had exactly the same acidy nasty taste that vomit has. Eugh.

Went back to the room, packed up my stuff, checked out of the hostel (and was given a cute little memento keyring, aww) and walked back towards the train station, pulling along with me my giant suitcase. Found the Nagoya Shinkansen, and went to Nagoya. Chika greeted me at the platform, although she told me to meet her by the West Exit from the platform, and there wasn't one xD Went down the escalator, met up with James and Hugo, Marie and Mari also joined us, and we tried to find a coin locker to put my massive suitcase in, but since there were no lockers left, Chika found out we could leave it in the cloakroom of a department store for free. We then went to a ramen-ya for lunch. I had a really good ebi tempura ramen dish :D

We then all went on the bus (on which we discussed Marie's devil smile) through Nagoya to the Tokugawa museum and the Tokugawaen, and looked at the exhibits of Edo period armour and saw copies of the Genji Monogatari. We were amazed by the swords, but even more amazed when me and Marie watched some of the others get scolded by a information lady for walking across a map too much, as it seemed like they were children again xD Hugo was desperate to get back to studying, and since the rest of us had all had enough of Genji Monogatari, we went to the gift shop, where we taught Chika how to pronounce 'hubba hubba'. We then went outside, into and around the gardens, which were truly beautiful, but we weren't out there long before the heat (must've been above the 100 mark) and humidity got to us, so we sat on some benches in the shade and ate milk sweets.

Before long, it was time for me to leave Nagoya, leave the others, and get on the Shinkansen again and go to Utsunomiya. I swear I have now mastered the Japanese train system, as at the time of writing I have been on 3 Shinkansen, a local train and a limited express train, and even understand all the overhead announcements! We said a sad goodbye on the platform, the others surprising me with a little gift which was so sweet, and hopefully I'll see them again if I can come back to Japan in my holiday. I then got on a Hikari train going to Tokyo, lugged my suitcase onto it, and departed. I kept dozing off on the train, which really was not a good idea as upon arriving in Tokyo, I had 10 minutes to find my train to Utsunomiya, and obviously I needed all the time as the signs for the destinations were all in Japanese. I had to actually ask a security guard where the Tohoku line departed from, and with 2 mins to spare, got on the train and did the last leg of my journey.

On the train, a torrential downpour started, cooling me down considerably. I arrived at about 9.15pm, called Mayumi on a payphone, who was obviously expecting my call, and told me she'd meet me by the Shinkansen gate in 20 minutes. I sat down, just to the side of it, and tried to keep an eye out for her coming in through one of the 4 different exits. It reached 20 minutes, and I hadn't seen her so was getting slightly worried, when I heard an announcer ask for 'Georgina Kura-ku sama' to come to the Shinkansen gate. Since I was sitting just next to it, I got up, started to walk towards it, then saw Mayumi running towards me xD She seemed much smaller in height than I remembered, but obviously I was only 11 last time I saw her. We walked out through the rain to her car, loaded my suitcase into it with some difficulty, and then stopped off at a supermarket to get me something small to eat.

We arrived at hers at about 10.15pm, I met her husband, was shown where everything was in the house (and it is so Japanese xD), and it feels a lot like a homestay experience would. I tried some of Mr Toyoda's curry rice, which was really tasty! I went on Skype, and then got into bed about midnight. While dozing off, I suddenly could feel the entire ground moving, the house moving, the bed moving... There was an earthquake!!!! My first 'proper' night in Japan, where I didn't have to worry about my bags, and there was an earthquake! I wondered what I should do, whether I should do the earthquake procedure of standing in a doorway, but since I didn't hear Mayumi or her husband moving in the room next to mine, I presumed that it was simply a light earthquake and just carried on lying in bed. It earthquake and just carried on lying in bed. It lasted about 20 seconds, and was quite weird.

Today, I woke up fairly late, but Mayumi had told me I was allowed, and I should have, a lie-in to recover from the amount of solo travelling I had done since arriving, which is true xD I gave her the Biddestone apron, the Twinings tea and the Lacock fudge, she liked the fudge and loved the tea, (I told her she should have it with milk) was amazed that the Queen drinks the same stuff, and is now wearing the apron. I still can't believe I actually survived the most difficult part of my week in Japan! I have about 9000￥ left, which should be fine as all that is only for food really. Mayumi had a friend round for a crossstitch related conversation (haha) so I have retreated upstairs... this computer is like my sanctuary of Englishness! It's weird being here though... Again I am pretty damn far away from everyone and everything, I can get the gist of a sentence spoken in fairly fast Japanese, if not the words, but I really do have to think hard and carefully to be able to understand it. Hard work T_T

Still, I am lucky to be here, even if there is an epic time difference! Ja, mata!

...and in Japan :D

2009-08-29T13:39:00.004+01:00

Wow, I can't actually believe it, but I am now here. Currently sitting in a youth hostel in Shin Osaka (which I would coincidentally really recommend to anyone thinking of travelling this way...) with a load of mad children running around and Japanese game shows playing. Oh and there is the largest amount of manga I think I have ever seen... an entire wall is covered. Think of the size of Michael Sadler LG 17, take a wall and cover it in bookshelves. Yeah... too much kanji for one girl to handle ^^;;

Been enjoying the Engrish as well so far, had a little 2 year old Japanese boy with a t-shirt on that read 'D is for dreamy. O is for openness. G is for gentle. LABRA' ... Dunno why they missed the DOR off LABRADOR or maybe there's a secret meaning... Who knows.

Saw an epic vending machine in the train station at Kansai International Airport:

"Drinks packed in paper carton
are kind to the environment.
They will surely put you
who drinks them in a kind mood
Won't you too refresh
with a delicious soft drink?"

... It was not just juice cartons of date juice, but also icecream cones. Wow.

Back to the actual journey to get here...
Before we left my house, I had a minor stress attack about the weight of my luggage and my hand luggage. Turns out all that worry was for nothing, as my luggage weighted 30.3 (I think the guy ignored me being over the limit by 0.3) and hand luggage I think was 7kg, but they never even weighed it. Thank god :D Weird though, coz people who flew from Birmingham had their hand luggage weighed...

I didn't set the security alarm off, yay :D Wandered around Heathrow, ate a carrot cake and a sandwich, went to the boarding gate but couldn't board straight away as the luggage guy had put both mine and Laura's luggage receipt on my boarding pass, and this really confused the check in lady, who made us see the supervisor (who blatantly didn't actually care xD)

The plane was SO big and it had STAIRS though we couldn't go up them sadly enough coz there was a velvet rope barring the way... SO many films and tv shows we could watch and music we could listen to, even multiplayer games on every screen on the back of every seat haha. Took 7 hours, we were tired by arrival, though the airplane food helped to perk us up a bit. Arrived in Dubai in the middle of the night, had the problem of some places only accepting UED when we had every other currency, but met up with Juni, Anna and Camilla which was nice :D Found Jamie eventually down the steps after we had checked in, though we had temporarily lost Peter at that point :P Dubai arrivals security was so much more laidback than Heathrow was, my liquids could stay in my bag, all I had to do was take off my jumper. Result. But yeah was pretty good. Though I did manage to get moaned at by a scary looking Dubai police officer in his army-esque uniform for loitering... least I presume it was loitering, the command was in Arabic.

The plane to KIX took soooooooo long, from 3am Dubai time to 5pm Japan time, so you've no idea if you should be awake or asleep. We all tried to sleep, but, with the exception of Peter, none of us really managed it that well. I napped on and off throughout the journey, but kept getting too uncomfortable, or getting woken up by a really annoying child who kept doing this throat clearing sound, but which was about 5 seconds long each time. And then he'd scream. Grr.

Arrived at about 5pm, had the massive queue for security (with the fun woman who allocated you to your queue and was very abrupt: 'Dozo' and then you /had/ to leave. Also loved the massive sign saying FOREIGNERS THIS WAY xD the Japanese people got a lot more staff as well... We handed in our disembarkation forms, and I got my temporary visitor visa :D Then luggage reclaim, Jamie's luggage appeared near to the end as we came through, so he had to quickly grab it. I had forgotten just how heavy mine is... Finally was customs, nothing to declare for me though the security guy did ask suspiciously 'What are you doing in Japan?' which apparently nobody else got asked.

Everyone else got collected by Kansai Gaidai, I wandered upstairs to try and find the JR ticket office, found it, only spoke to the guy at the counter in Japanese, and now I have my railpass :D The ticket guy told me which train to get in Japanese, and I understood that too :) Pleasing times.

Waited for the train, was amazed by the many staff CLEANING IT (seriously, hoovers, hand hoovers, everything. Looked like new) when it arrived, had a random Ugandan guy try and start a convo with me but I wouldn't let him, watched the staff keep on rotating the chairs, and then got on the train. The guy in front of me in the queue who was Japanese helped me with my suitcase, then asked me questions about London and Stonehenge as he's apparently going on a business trip there next week. He helped me get my luggage off the train, and even though he only had '6 minutes until my Shinkansen train' it was 'plenty of time' so he first directed me to the gate out I needed. Walked down the road at about 8pm with my big suitcase, there were no signs for the hostel but eventually found it, and it's really nice :) On the 10th floor, but with the bedrooms on the 9th, and the view from my room is amazing, will take pictures.

Right now, writing this from the lobby area of the hostel, it's pretty amazing :D

Will write next from Utsunomiya, most likely :)

One day to go...

2009-08-27T13:09:00.006+01:00

This is my last day in the UK now. Got Laura staying with me at the moment, so tomorrow my parents will have two large suitcases to take to the airport. Fun times. I still have to locate my final few Chinese books, and pack my shoes, some socks and a cardi, as well as all of my electronics and an empty bag or two, but then I will be done and dusted, ready to leave the house at about 8.30am tomorrow.

Last night, went into town, met up with Kim, Reva and Demon which was nice, even if I got all teary. Dunno if it was the cocktails (an Alexander and a Chocolate Martini, yum) or just the fact that I won't see them for ages, but regardless I got all teary. Then I got to properly say goodbye to the UK coz we got one final look at the utter incompetence of First Great Western, when they decided to reroute my train to Chippenham via Bradford-on-Avon xD Yay thank god I don't have to go on that train for a year :P

Need to decide whether to take my bear... you may laugh, but I love my bear. Probably shouldn't take him then, he might get lost or damaged... Still have to pack jewellery as well, so prob no room for him. Also need to print off a few more maps and stuff.

Preparations wise, got a few more things sorted over the last few days:
I now have my accommodation contract :D It's awesome :D I love my new flat already and I haven't even gone yet :P This is my room:

I don't think it comes with the bedspread, but it does come with the sofa and AIRCON THANK THE LORD.

There are two bathrooms, a living room which looks large, 4 other bedrooms and a kitchen. Looks snazzy :D I kinda can't wait to move in now.

Although I get to live in a 5 star hotel in the meantime...

On the aeroplane, we've got our seats sorted, sitting by Peter and Laura to Dubai, and then by them and Camilla, with Anna, Juni and Jamie behind us. Should be fun :D

Also got Sunday plans sorted, going to Nagoya to meet up with Chika, Miki, hopefully Mari and Marie. Getting the train from Shin-Osaka to there, and then I'm going on to Utsunomiya alone. Hopefully gonna go to Tokyo for a day, maybe meet up with Miles or Katy :D

... It's actually happening now. AGH.

Oh, and this is a video tour of my flat. Enjoy :P

Finalising arrangements

2009-08-18T17:19:00.000+01:00

Today is a good day: I have sorted out everything. Well, the stupid Shanghai accom guy hasn't gotten back to me yet, but I'm not too worried, there are many things on Craigslist if this doesn't pan out. But otherwise, I have booked a night in a capsule hotel:

Doesn't it just look funky.

Best bit is, I'm gonna have a frigging massive holdall.

...

I think I'm gonna have to sleep on it.

Still, it's gonna be such an experience ^_^

I also purchased a Japan Rail Pass for 7 days from a place in Bristol that does it. I calculated, and to get from Osaka to Utsunomiya one way, it normally costs about £100, so the unlimited travel on JR trains for 7 days for about £170 is a great deal. Hopefully gonna also go to Nagoya with it too: thank god for the tourist visa!! Should probably check though that I don't need to get that in advance...

Also, now have a hand luggage bag/backpack type thing. It's pretty good, is designed to hold a laptop, and as long as it doesn't go over Emirates 7kg limit, all will be well... :P

Tomorrow going into Bath to get a few more yen (Have 30000 atm, but 21000 of that is going towards paying for a ferry, so another £50's worth is probably needed), padlocks, medicines and bras. Then, hopefully, that's it. GASP.

THE BOAT

2009-08-18T00:45:00.003+01:00

OMG THE BOAT IS SO EPIC

A LONG TIME WILL BE SPENT ON THIS BOAT

IT WILL FEEL EVEN LONGER AS IT'S A BOAT

I'M ON A BOAT

I'M ON A BOAT

TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK... ok I'm done

THE BOAT IS SO EPIC. THIS IS THE ROOM WHERE I WILL ok enough capitals be with 15 other random women. If I survive the journey, I will be proud and have gone on a frigging multinational BOAT. Wahay.

(Best bit is, before I even get on the ferry, have to get from Utsunomiya to Osaka, get metro to where I'm staying the night and then get metro to port)

On another note, today I booked a youth hostel in Shin-Osaka, booked the ferry (waiting for confirmation) and ordered an external hard drive to back up all my shiz on. Got a night in a ryokan to book yet, hopefully tomorrow :)

Buttttt once I arrive, I get this for a few days :)

The sexy hotel

... I've stopped spazzing out for now. Yay ^_^

Change in plans...

2009-08-17T16:13:00.000+01:00

Since last posting, I found out I managed to fail my re-sit, and so I am instead going to Shanghai for the year. I am staying in the JW Marriott for a few days immediately upon arrival. However, the arrangements have all been epically complicated:

a) my old JW202 form is no longer valid, so I have to get a new one when I get there
b) I've changed to single honours
c) I had to find somewhere to live, as the university has run out of accommodation
d) My visa is currently only valid for 90 days
e) I need to stay in Japan for a week - currently going to Nagoya and Utsunomiya
f) I need to get from Osaka to Shanghai
g) I have £2000 of RMB to take with me, whoa.

Point f) has been the most complicated, since I found a very good price flight, but the company only allows you to pay with a Chinese bank card, and I can't open an account til I get there. I want my residence permit, but I have to register with the police first, scary stuff.

Butttttt it seems to be getting sorted out:
a) I have got somewhere to live, hopefully.
b) I have a visa
c) I have money (but no credit card, idiots still haven't replied)
d) I have booked a place on the ferry from Osaka to Shanghai, heh
e) I have a holdall for my luggage
f) I have bought loads of underwear. Yay ^_^

So, with under 2 weeks to go, just gotta figure out what I still need to do:
Buy bras (have one new one :P but need more)
Buy deodorant/Marmite/Calpol/Strepsils
Figure out what Dubai ban
Figure out costs of Japanese trains
Buy hand luggage bag
Get more yen to pay for ferry.

Hopefully, that's it :D

Preparations 1

2009-07-25T14:26:00.000+01:00

ONE MONTH TO GO

Well, it is now the 25th July, and it is safe to say that my preparations are pretty much underway. I have purchased my plane tickets (yay) from Emirates, flying out from Heathrow on the 28th August at 14.15, changing at Dubai. It is only a single ticket, as I am going to fly later from Osaka to Shanghai, and then goodness knows what. :P I have also sent off my application for my University of Leeds insurance.

But at least we get to fly on the world's largest plane :D

HOWEVER, currently there is a spanner in the works for me. I have to resit Basic Japanese 2, as I failed the module by one mark, and I can't get my Certificate of Eligibility (necessary to obtain a Japanese visa) until it has been confirmed that I have passed. My flight has been paid for regardless, as I don't intend to fail again :P

Time is really ticking away, and I have said goodbye to one of my friends for the year, which is a bit frightening. I have got my farewell party coming up in a few weeks, and I know that is going to be terribly sad. Still, I am going to Japan with friends, and hoping I'll make more when I'm over there :)

The confusing thing now is figuring out how much to pack; I have a 30kg weight limit on luggage with Emirates, but I was intending on taking a large rucksack; now I am wondering whether a large holdall with wheels might work better... We'll see.

My checklist so far:
Studying In progress
Passport Yes
Certificate of Eligibility No
Visa No
Flight Yes
Insurance In progress
Rucksack/Holdall No