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

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

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 :)

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*

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 :)

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 (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.

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