別の外人

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

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

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

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 :)

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.

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 :)

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

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*