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

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

This week, the one word summary is:

Builders.

EVERYWHERE I LOOK THERE ARE BUILDERS.

THEY BUILD ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 :)

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