Just when you think everything is going according to plan...you remember you're in China :P After all the kerfuffle with Becka's passport, which she is getting back tomorrow, we thought that our trip to Suzhou was definitely going ahead. However, it turns out that Ruth, the girl who is buying the wedding dress and the raison d'etre for the trip, hasn't got her passport back. Even though she was supposed to get it days ago... and because of the holiday, tomorrow is her last chance...
So we are all holding our breath to see if she gets it back tomorrow!
As my flipflops and flat shoes have pretty much both died by now, and my other flat shoes insist on carving grooves into my feet, Becka and I had a little browze among the stalls by the street for some new ones. However we have big, Westerm, clodhopper feet and as Chinese women have dainty feet we had several Ugly Sister moments where no matter how hard we tried, the shoes were just not big enough... This means we will have to make a trip to a more upmarket shop, and more expensive, for something large enough for our flippers.
In other news I received a phone call today from Kit, a friend from Edinburgh Uni who studied Chinese last year. He has now graduated and got himself rather a nice little job working in a bilingual magazine in Nanjing. It was lovely to hear from him and there is a slight possibility we might see him next week. He was coming to Qingdao for National Week, which was annoying as I won't be here, but he might instead cancel that and come meet us in Suzhou or somewhere.
We got told a joke in Chinese today. Translated in English it goes thus:
Two ants are walking along. One sees a big pear in the way and goes "oh a big pear!". The second one is at first confused, and then realises before going "ohhh a big pear I see!".
It loses a bit in translation :P Basically a big pear in Chinese is 大梨, dali. "Oh a big pear" is 矣大梨!, yidali! 矣 being an exclamation of surprise. "Ohh a big pear I see" is 奥大梨呀!, aodaliya. 奥 and 呀 are exclamations implying you understand. The crux of the joke is that 矣大梨 and 奥大梨呀 sound like 意大利 and 澳大利亚, yidali and aodaliya, which mean Italy and Australia... so it sounds like the ants have gone Italy! Australia!
...geddit? On second thoughts, it doesn't really gain much in translation...
2010-09-29
2010-09-28
Legally Blonde
So today was a rather momentous one- I finally got my residence permit! I seem to have spent half my life here pursuing this elusive piece of paper...This now means I can stay, enter and leave China as much as I like until the 31st July next year. I went back to the Entry/Exit bureau after lunch and caught the bus there. I think the bus driver though I was a dumb blonde when I asked if the bus stopped at 逍遥路, the bus stop I wanted,- at least he gave me the kind of look one gives someone when they ask if the Pope is Catholic... which I thought was unfair as I was only checking! Intriguingly 逍遥 means "carefree". There is nothing carefree about the Bureau I can tell you now...
It makes me happy that I don't have to go back there for the forseeable future :D Although I have thought of the best way to explain Chinese bureacrocracy- the sketch from Little Britain with the secretary who spends ages furiously typing into her computer before informing the customers that the "computer says no".
One of our teachers was a bit sneaky today and threw a surprise test. She said it wasn't set for homework and then said we should be studying new vocab off our own iniative... I thought that this was terribly unfair- whoever heard of students studying! We have far more important things to do...
It makes me happy that I don't have to go back there for the forseeable future :D Although I have thought of the best way to explain Chinese bureacrocracy- the sketch from Little Britain with the secretary who spends ages furiously typing into her computer before informing the customers that the "computer says no".
One of our teachers was a bit sneaky today and threw a surprise test. She said it wasn't set for homework and then said we should be studying new vocab off our own iniative... I thought that this was terribly unfair- whoever heard of students studying! We have far more important things to do...
2010-09-27
Testing Times
Yesterday carried on the great tradition of Western Day. Becka and I, shortly joined by Daisy, spent the day in Starbucks drinking tea and studying. We managed to get quite a good deal done and then it was off to "Lisa's" for dinner. Chinese food and I are getting along fine these days- so long as I have a plentiful supply of these really tasty roll things- but my tastebuds started drooling with gratitude at the mere sight of a western menu. In the end I picked lamb chops and apple pie. The lamb chops were cooked perfectly and seasoned with rosemary and the fries were perfect and the salad was heaven- Chinese food is not big on vegetables. And the apple pie was one of the best I've ever had-although it was not as warm as it might have been...
I think I loved that meal a little too much...
We had a test in class today that I think I did pretty well in. I spelt the character for chopsticks wrong (I put 块 instead of 筷. They are pronounced the same, kuai, but unfortunately that doesn't matter. I'm hoping that 块子 doesn't mean anything rude lol...). Becka finally conceded defeat and changed classes to mine from the harder C class. She does not regret it. Although she wishes she hadn't done it just before we had a test but anyway!
Unfortunately today was a bit of a downer. A feature of life here is that there are not many English-speaking students here and as a consequence we are pushed very close together. You also eat out for every meal and it is natural when you eat out to all go out together. Thus there is no room to avoid someone if there is a clash of personalities. And there has been such a clash. Basically one friend ended up shouting at another which has led to a slightly awkward situation, especially as I completely agree with one side. The other has become very difficult to spend time with as they will happily talk constantly about themselves, themselves and then themselves. And this subject is only so interesting. So we have had a horrible situation in which, in order to save our sanity, we have had to hurt someone's feelings.
So tomorrow I am going to have to go into diplomatic mode and sort it out. It's annoying as this is not the kind of problem I had anticipated in China... And really not what I need right now. I just want to enjoy my time here and not worry about silly spats! *Sigh*
I think I loved that meal a little too much...
We had a test in class today that I think I did pretty well in. I spelt the character for chopsticks wrong (I put 块 instead of 筷. They are pronounced the same, kuai, but unfortunately that doesn't matter. I'm hoping that 块子 doesn't mean anything rude lol...). Becka finally conceded defeat and changed classes to mine from the harder C class. She does not regret it. Although she wishes she hadn't done it just before we had a test but anyway!
Unfortunately today was a bit of a downer. A feature of life here is that there are not many English-speaking students here and as a consequence we are pushed very close together. You also eat out for every meal and it is natural when you eat out to all go out together. Thus there is no room to avoid someone if there is a clash of personalities. And there has been such a clash. Basically one friend ended up shouting at another which has led to a slightly awkward situation, especially as I completely agree with one side. The other has become very difficult to spend time with as they will happily talk constantly about themselves, themselves and then themselves. And this subject is only so interesting. So we have had a horrible situation in which, in order to save our sanity, we have had to hurt someone's feelings.
So tomorrow I am going to have to go into diplomatic mode and sort it out. It's annoying as this is not the kind of problem I had anticipated in China... And really not what I need right now. I just want to enjoy my time here and not worry about silly spats! *Sigh*
2010-09-26
Sand, Sea and Swords
Sorry I did not post yesterday but I did not have any time between getting back from the Expedition and heading out into the night so here is the roundup of yesterday. Warning: it seems to have turned into a novel...
So after comprehensive planning ("er this bus looks ok") Becka and I agreed to rendez-vous with Daisy at the Ferry terminal in Old Town at 10am. We were heading out in search of 金沙滩 (Jin Sha Tan, Golden Sands Beach) which is located in 黄岛 (Huangdao- Yellow Island, I wonder if there is any contrast being made here with 青岛, Greeny-blue Island). 黄岛 and 青岛 face each other across the mouth of the 胶州湾 (Jiaozhou Wan, Jiaozhou Bay. As far as I can make out it means Rubber Prefecture Bay but I'm not sure...) so we had to get a ferry across.
Needless to say we were all hopelessly late, having seriously underestimated the average speed of a Chinese bus through a Chinese city, but luckily we arrived at roughly the same time as Daisy. The bus stop for the ferry terminal is in a fairly run down area, basically a building site. The road surface was filled with pot holes and there was a lot of construction detritus littered about. Becka and I got off with some trepidation that we had ended up somewhere dodgy but after a short walk we arrived at the terminal. We had to go through a security scanner which I suspect wasn't on-which was confirmed by a later event, of which more in a bit. We bought tickets at 10元 each (1 pound) and joined the very long queue. We are British, we saw the queue, our natural instincts urged us to join, so we joined. After a couple of minutes Daisy, who grew up in Malaysia so perhaps the instinct is not as ingrained, went and asked and we realised we were queueing for the wrong ferry. There were two ferries we could get and while there was a ferry to 黄岛 we actually wanted the ferry to 薛家岛 (Xuejia Dao, Xue (a surname) Family Island. Again not actually an island. Whether a piece of land is an island or not does not seem to bother the Chinese when they call somewhere an island). So we hurried there and ended up having to leg it down the gangway. Three foreigners moving at speed attracted even more stares but we made it on to the ferry.
The trip over was nice as we could see Qingdao from afar. Annoyingly, as today and the day before had been clear blue skies, it was cloudy and a bit smoggy but we could still see fairly well. It took rather a long time to make the crossing as for some reason we stopped a way away from the docks for a while. We were definitely arriving into an industrial port as there were several huge steel ships around as well as great big machines for repairing and loading. It was not exactly aesthetic but impressive in its own way. Eventually we landed and then we hurried to the buses. Thus followed a slightly odd period of time. I had had the bus No. 4 in my mind (or 8... I confess I couldn't remember and I'd lost a slip of paper with it on) but we ended up with the options of a 2 and a 19. And a random guy with a van saying he could take us there. We have a rule- if it's not a taxi we are not getting in it. And it was a van not a taxi! As it turned out we needed a No.19 bus. Which posed a problem because while there was a plethora, indeed a veritable smorgasbord, of No. 2 buses with waiting, willing drivers, there was one No. 19 sitting forlornly in the corner. And driverless. We stared at it for a bit. Eventually a man got in, and we got all excited, but then he reversed it into a space. And then he got out. Our excitement died down. Then he got back in and drove it forwards. Hopes rose. He got out again. Dashed.
There weren't any taxis available, at least proper ones, so we dithered for a bit. But then the wind must have changed direction or something because the driver decided he did fancy taking a trip so finally opened his bus up and we hopped on, comandeered the back seat, and headed off.
We drove through a bit of 黄岛, which I shall describe later, to the beach. Now before going I had repeatedly seen 金沙滩 called the "best beach in Asia". I will quibble with this award but the beach itself was indeed very nice. The sand was a lovely honey golden colour and very fine and soft. It stretched away on both directions, with only a few people (as mentioned before, today was a work day despite being a Saturday) and there was a collection of rocks and rock pools on one side. The sea was clear and warm, with perfectly sized waves. We all had a little paddle for a while before wandering over to check out the rocks. There were some Chinese there hunting for cockles or something. There were a few curious rectangular, man-made pools in the rocks but we did not understand the sign so I'm not really sure what they were for. There was a small hill here with some little buildings on. All in all, it was a lovely beach. If you faced towards the sea. Immediately behind the beach was a western style funfair which, like all western style funfairs I have seen here, was nearly completely empty. There were some stalls selling buckets and spades, shells and other tourist tat (er, of which more later...) and some restaurants. In the distance, though, were row after row of skeletons of skyscrapers. Finished skyscrapers can look alright but the skeletons, being all concrete, are very ugly. It was odd because a beach like this in the west would already have had a town on its shore with shops and houses but everything here was new and rather characterless.
At this point we went hunting for lunch. The use of the word "hunting" here is rather apt as lunch tended to still be alive. Each restaurant had a row of buckets with fish and god knows what else in. I swear I have seen aquariums that don't have exhibits as broad as this. Some buckets had the most foul looking wormy things in. They looked like what a rectum must look like. All rubbery, tubular sacs. *Shudder* When walking past I caught movement in the periphery of my eye and there was a huge splash and I leapt a mile and screamed, thinking something was coming at me. It turned out to only be a fish making a sudden movement. I looked a bit of a twat... One of the women pulled a sea slug out and offered it to me telling me how delicious it was. Instead we ordered fried noodles, fried rice and cucumber cooked in gravy or something. It was expensive too!
Afterwards we headed back to the beach, via the stalls. One had a variety of sizes of turtles and tortoises for sale. There were some really tiny ones and some huge ones. I think they were for pets, as opposed to eating because you never know..., as they were in "fun" glass bowls with plasticky adornoments. They looked utterly desperate and Becka wanted to buy them all and then release them in the sea. We carried on browsing and I didn't really want a shell covered model of a dog, or a shell bracelet, or a piece of coral. No wonder the reefs are dying- the Chinese have got it all on their mantelpieces! However we came across one that was selling something slightly different- big, heavy, metal swords. Having wanted to live in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for several years now I *had* to have one. He had some huge cleaver swords in lacquer scabbards, but I deemed those too heavy, and some samurai type ones (plain and strong) which I deemed too plain although they were nice and elegant. In the end I settled on a blade that was quite flexible, like the one in CTHD :P, in a reddy-brown scabbard with decorations. The sword has a red tassle on the end :D He was asking 220元 for it but it soon transpired that between the three of us we only had 130元... In the end we went to an atm and withdrew a bit more and settled on 170. Daisy reckoned I could have got lower but I reckon he must have paid around 130 for it in the first place, because he wouldn't take 130 when we offered and walked away, and I wasn't going to quibble over 10元- which is only a pound.
So now I am the owner of a sword that ,whilst I wouldn't call it authentic, is still a few grades above tat. Plus I got it for around 17 quid when in a shop here it would be 50 and in the UK, 100. I'm tempted to get another one and sell it on ebay :P. It is lying beside me as I type, just in case of attack...
I keep unsheathing it and giving it a swish :D
Becka bought a toy wooden crossbow and three bolts and promptly lost one bolt within 5 minutes. The other two she happily spent the afternoon firing. Although she was a little disappointed at the range. Daisy bought nothing, except an ice cream.
Then we went and sat on the beach, ignoring the offer of paying 20元 to use a plastic chair... It was really nice being sat on the lovely golden sand, sometimes chatting, sometimes just looking at the sea. We did get bothered for a photo (they like taking photos with foreigners- we're not quite so sure) but we declined. We got stared at a bit but then a man with only one leg came to swim so we stared at him for a while. He swam really quite far out while his friends stayed on the beach holding his other leg. One of them was a rather rotund man, wearing a tight white shirt (not a good choice) and, bizarrely, a string of pearls.
There is a little story about why 金沙滩 has such golden sand. Apparently there was a phoenix flying to a bird party in Heaven but as she passed the beach she fell so in love with it that she landed and never left. If it didn't have the backdrop that it now has, I could see why she did not want to leave.
After a while we had to leave as we wanted to get back so Becka could do Taekwondo. My toe has still not recovered after I hurt it last time but is getting better. We set off at 4:30, Taekwondo being at 7. As we left I noticed a man in flurorescent yellow trousers (which I've just realised are like a pair mum keeps trying to make me wear) who had been hanging around and Not Looking At Us in a way that meant he most definitely was, also happened to be leaving. I mentioned this to Daisy. We did a diversion to the toilets but when we came out he was waiting some way away. We went to the bus stop and got on a bus. This one was going to the ferry terminal at 黄岛 not 薛家岛 but we didn't mind the change. As we sat down we realised, he had got on too... Thus followed a hurried conference.
Suspense.
He got off several stops later and walked away. Anti-climax. Although he had been acting rather suspiciously...
It turned out that 黄岛 ferry terminal was a long way away from the beach so we ended up having a rather long trip through 黄岛. 黄岛 is interesting as it lacks the money and gloss of 青岛. Plans here have been drawn up, pored over and then put into action... but never completed. There were hundreds of bilboards showing the artists' impression of a building or an area so we could tell that the intention was for great buildings surrounded by wide avenues lined with gardens. Or the odd Bavarian country cottage. What you ended up with was big, wide, empty, dusty roads surrounded by sparse grass and shrubs with big, ugly concrete skyscrapers that were mostly unfinished. The finished ones gave the impression of being mostly empty too. It seems here that they have built a city for people who don't yet exist... As we drove further into town gradually we began to see people and shops and some sort of hustle and bustle. But it still gave off this slightly eery feeling that we pondered over on the bus exactly how to describe. It was definitely the feel of a small town in a big country. The kind that, if you grow up in it, you aim to get out of.
We not only got the old laowai stare we also got pointing :P
Eventually we arrived at the terminal. We went through the security terminal and my sword did not set off the machine- hence why I think they were only there for show. I was worried they wouldn't like the sword but as it was in a box no-one really noticed it. We ended up, again, having to leg it to the ferry. They had taken up the passenger gangway so we ran down to where the cars were still driving on and got on that way. We dashed over the bridge, expecting it to be drawn up and we'd have to leap, huffed and puffed up the stairs and sat down in our seats. Made it.
And then waited for 10 minutes while they finished loading. No rush after all :P
By this point it was 6pm and it was fairly obvious Taekwondo wasn't happening so after a bit of night-out planning we went and leant against the sides to watch as we crossed. It was twilight now so the sky was all stormy grey and brown from the smog. If you looked back all you could see were the huge cranes, machines and factories of the port, all black but lit up with work lights and the occasional sparks from some welder. It looked very post-apocalyptic. And we were on this rusting, metal ferry with the smell off the fumes and the slow clank-clank of the engine. It really was very otherworldly-like the human race had destroyed everything green and all that was left were just factories and machines...
Then we decided we were letting out imagination run away with us :P Still, it was quite eery.
We could see in the distance what looked like a bridge. I remember when I flew in that I saw a bridge marching off into the distance and hadn't been able to see where it ended because of the smog. It turns out that they are building a bridge across the bay. It will be 35.4km long. Amazingly, this will not be the longest bridge in the world as there is one near Shanghai at 35.6km and one in the US at 38km. (There are longer ones, but these do not go over only water). What mighty feats a race of glorified monkeys can achieve eh!
Eventually we landed and hopped on a bus home. As I have mentioned, the roads near the terminal are not good and going over one pothole caused the entire bus to collectively bounce up from their seats and back down again with a collective "ooo".
After a brief recharge of batteries we headed out to dinner at 麦凯乐, some department store. On the 7th floor they have a restaurant which has a dazzling array of dishes all helpfully replicated in plastic form which makes it so much easier to see what you want. We went for sweet and sour pork and rice (taste of home!). It was a bit of a disappointment though as I got slightly too many pieces of gristle in mine and the flavour was quite weak. However it was then off to L.P.G. This is definitely an expat watering hole. I had a gin and tonic along with Daisy and we both think that there was something wrong with the gin or the tonic as I felt ill afterwards and she is feeling a bit funny today too. As I did not feel so good we sat outside and were joined by a Canadian and a Chinese. The Canadian extolled the virtues of being free "to you know, walk down the street drinking a bottle of beer and noone cares". Daisy, I think, made an excellent point by asking how he knew they didn't care. They could quite easily be offended by some big laowai walking down the street drinking but just would never dare say so. The Chinese man had just broken up with his girlfriend and was very boring to listen to. When we had finally got rid of them (the Canadian was driving home and Daisy asked if this was wise and he slurred that wazh ok- he only lived jusht down the shtreet), an old man sat near us said that I looked like a runner. We went and sat with him and it turns out he was a member of the infamous Hash House Harriers. This a running group founded by expats in Malaysia 80 years ago and involves light running and heavy drinking. Chinese girls go to find a white husband. I always think white men must like it here. They get a far better league of girl, can treat her far worse but be treated by her far better than any white woman in the west. Anyway I digress, this old man, whose name we never got round to asking, was an Australian engineer. While I have been here I have been expecting to find the old Aussie propping up a bar telling stories and here he was. He'd worked all over Asia and was quite happy to trawl through his life story for us. I found it charming although I was worried the others would be like oh no we're stuck but they quite liked him too. After a while we said goodbye and, as I felt better, we headed off to Le Bang. Le Bang is some bar/club place. We found some of Daisy's Cambridge friends who were visiting from Beijing and had a little boogie. Eventually Becka felt hungry and I lost a contact lens so we called it a night and had a pleasant walk back- although I think Becka was a bit bored by my topic of conversation :P
The End. Congratulations if you made it this far!
So after comprehensive planning ("er this bus looks ok") Becka and I agreed to rendez-vous with Daisy at the Ferry terminal in Old Town at 10am. We were heading out in search of 金沙滩 (Jin Sha Tan, Golden Sands Beach) which is located in 黄岛 (Huangdao- Yellow Island, I wonder if there is any contrast being made here with 青岛, Greeny-blue Island). 黄岛 and 青岛 face each other across the mouth of the 胶州湾 (Jiaozhou Wan, Jiaozhou Bay. As far as I can make out it means Rubber Prefecture Bay but I'm not sure...) so we had to get a ferry across.
Needless to say we were all hopelessly late, having seriously underestimated the average speed of a Chinese bus through a Chinese city, but luckily we arrived at roughly the same time as Daisy. The bus stop for the ferry terminal is in a fairly run down area, basically a building site. The road surface was filled with pot holes and there was a lot of construction detritus littered about. Becka and I got off with some trepidation that we had ended up somewhere dodgy but after a short walk we arrived at the terminal. We had to go through a security scanner which I suspect wasn't on-which was confirmed by a later event, of which more in a bit. We bought tickets at 10元 each (1 pound) and joined the very long queue. We are British, we saw the queue, our natural instincts urged us to join, so we joined. After a couple of minutes Daisy, who grew up in Malaysia so perhaps the instinct is not as ingrained, went and asked and we realised we were queueing for the wrong ferry. There were two ferries we could get and while there was a ferry to 黄岛 we actually wanted the ferry to 薛家岛 (Xuejia Dao, Xue (a surname) Family Island. Again not actually an island. Whether a piece of land is an island or not does not seem to bother the Chinese when they call somewhere an island). So we hurried there and ended up having to leg it down the gangway. Three foreigners moving at speed attracted even more stares but we made it on to the ferry.
The trip over was nice as we could see Qingdao from afar. Annoyingly, as today and the day before had been clear blue skies, it was cloudy and a bit smoggy but we could still see fairly well. It took rather a long time to make the crossing as for some reason we stopped a way away from the docks for a while. We were definitely arriving into an industrial port as there were several huge steel ships around as well as great big machines for repairing and loading. It was not exactly aesthetic but impressive in its own way. Eventually we landed and then we hurried to the buses. Thus followed a slightly odd period of time. I had had the bus No. 4 in my mind (or 8... I confess I couldn't remember and I'd lost a slip of paper with it on) but we ended up with the options of a 2 and a 19. And a random guy with a van saying he could take us there. We have a rule- if it's not a taxi we are not getting in it. And it was a van not a taxi! As it turned out we needed a No.19 bus. Which posed a problem because while there was a plethora, indeed a veritable smorgasbord, of No. 2 buses with waiting, willing drivers, there was one No. 19 sitting forlornly in the corner. And driverless. We stared at it for a bit. Eventually a man got in, and we got all excited, but then he reversed it into a space. And then he got out. Our excitement died down. Then he got back in and drove it forwards. Hopes rose. He got out again. Dashed.
There weren't any taxis available, at least proper ones, so we dithered for a bit. But then the wind must have changed direction or something because the driver decided he did fancy taking a trip so finally opened his bus up and we hopped on, comandeered the back seat, and headed off.
We drove through a bit of 黄岛, which I shall describe later, to the beach. Now before going I had repeatedly seen 金沙滩 called the "best beach in Asia". I will quibble with this award but the beach itself was indeed very nice. The sand was a lovely honey golden colour and very fine and soft. It stretched away on both directions, with only a few people (as mentioned before, today was a work day despite being a Saturday) and there was a collection of rocks and rock pools on one side. The sea was clear and warm, with perfectly sized waves. We all had a little paddle for a while before wandering over to check out the rocks. There were some Chinese there hunting for cockles or something. There were a few curious rectangular, man-made pools in the rocks but we did not understand the sign so I'm not really sure what they were for. There was a small hill here with some little buildings on. All in all, it was a lovely beach. If you faced towards the sea. Immediately behind the beach was a western style funfair which, like all western style funfairs I have seen here, was nearly completely empty. There were some stalls selling buckets and spades, shells and other tourist tat (er, of which more later...) and some restaurants. In the distance, though, were row after row of skeletons of skyscrapers. Finished skyscrapers can look alright but the skeletons, being all concrete, are very ugly. It was odd because a beach like this in the west would already have had a town on its shore with shops and houses but everything here was new and rather characterless.
At this point we went hunting for lunch. The use of the word "hunting" here is rather apt as lunch tended to still be alive. Each restaurant had a row of buckets with fish and god knows what else in. I swear I have seen aquariums that don't have exhibits as broad as this. Some buckets had the most foul looking wormy things in. They looked like what a rectum must look like. All rubbery, tubular sacs. *Shudder* When walking past I caught movement in the periphery of my eye and there was a huge splash and I leapt a mile and screamed, thinking something was coming at me. It turned out to only be a fish making a sudden movement. I looked a bit of a twat... One of the women pulled a sea slug out and offered it to me telling me how delicious it was. Instead we ordered fried noodles, fried rice and cucumber cooked in gravy or something. It was expensive too!
Afterwards we headed back to the beach, via the stalls. One had a variety of sizes of turtles and tortoises for sale. There were some really tiny ones and some huge ones. I think they were for pets, as opposed to eating because you never know..., as they were in "fun" glass bowls with plasticky adornoments. They looked utterly desperate and Becka wanted to buy them all and then release them in the sea. We carried on browsing and I didn't really want a shell covered model of a dog, or a shell bracelet, or a piece of coral. No wonder the reefs are dying- the Chinese have got it all on their mantelpieces! However we came across one that was selling something slightly different- big, heavy, metal swords. Having wanted to live in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for several years now I *had* to have one. He had some huge cleaver swords in lacquer scabbards, but I deemed those too heavy, and some samurai type ones (plain and strong) which I deemed too plain although they were nice and elegant. In the end I settled on a blade that was quite flexible, like the one in CTHD :P, in a reddy-brown scabbard with decorations. The sword has a red tassle on the end :D He was asking 220元 for it but it soon transpired that between the three of us we only had 130元... In the end we went to an atm and withdrew a bit more and settled on 170. Daisy reckoned I could have got lower but I reckon he must have paid around 130 for it in the first place, because he wouldn't take 130 when we offered and walked away, and I wasn't going to quibble over 10元- which is only a pound.
So now I am the owner of a sword that ,whilst I wouldn't call it authentic, is still a few grades above tat. Plus I got it for around 17 quid when in a shop here it would be 50 and in the UK, 100. I'm tempted to get another one and sell it on ebay :P. It is lying beside me as I type, just in case of attack...
I keep unsheathing it and giving it a swish :D
Becka bought a toy wooden crossbow and three bolts and promptly lost one bolt within 5 minutes. The other two she happily spent the afternoon firing. Although she was a little disappointed at the range. Daisy bought nothing, except an ice cream.
Then we went and sat on the beach, ignoring the offer of paying 20元 to use a plastic chair... It was really nice being sat on the lovely golden sand, sometimes chatting, sometimes just looking at the sea. We did get bothered for a photo (they like taking photos with foreigners- we're not quite so sure) but we declined. We got stared at a bit but then a man with only one leg came to swim so we stared at him for a while. He swam really quite far out while his friends stayed on the beach holding his other leg. One of them was a rather rotund man, wearing a tight white shirt (not a good choice) and, bizarrely, a string of pearls.
There is a little story about why 金沙滩 has such golden sand. Apparently there was a phoenix flying to a bird party in Heaven but as she passed the beach she fell so in love with it that she landed and never left. If it didn't have the backdrop that it now has, I could see why she did not want to leave.
After a while we had to leave as we wanted to get back so Becka could do Taekwondo. My toe has still not recovered after I hurt it last time but is getting better. We set off at 4:30, Taekwondo being at 7. As we left I noticed a man in flurorescent yellow trousers (which I've just realised are like a pair mum keeps trying to make me wear) who had been hanging around and Not Looking At Us in a way that meant he most definitely was, also happened to be leaving. I mentioned this to Daisy. We did a diversion to the toilets but when we came out he was waiting some way away. We went to the bus stop and got on a bus. This one was going to the ferry terminal at 黄岛 not 薛家岛 but we didn't mind the change. As we sat down we realised, he had got on too... Thus followed a hurried conference.
Suspense.
He got off several stops later and walked away. Anti-climax. Although he had been acting rather suspiciously...
It turned out that 黄岛 ferry terminal was a long way away from the beach so we ended up having a rather long trip through 黄岛. 黄岛 is interesting as it lacks the money and gloss of 青岛. Plans here have been drawn up, pored over and then put into action... but never completed. There were hundreds of bilboards showing the artists' impression of a building or an area so we could tell that the intention was for great buildings surrounded by wide avenues lined with gardens. Or the odd Bavarian country cottage. What you ended up with was big, wide, empty, dusty roads surrounded by sparse grass and shrubs with big, ugly concrete skyscrapers that were mostly unfinished. The finished ones gave the impression of being mostly empty too. It seems here that they have built a city for people who don't yet exist... As we drove further into town gradually we began to see people and shops and some sort of hustle and bustle. But it still gave off this slightly eery feeling that we pondered over on the bus exactly how to describe. It was definitely the feel of a small town in a big country. The kind that, if you grow up in it, you aim to get out of.
We not only got the old laowai stare we also got pointing :P
Eventually we arrived at the terminal. We went through the security terminal and my sword did not set off the machine- hence why I think they were only there for show. I was worried they wouldn't like the sword but as it was in a box no-one really noticed it. We ended up, again, having to leg it to the ferry. They had taken up the passenger gangway so we ran down to where the cars were still driving on and got on that way. We dashed over the bridge, expecting it to be drawn up and we'd have to leap, huffed and puffed up the stairs and sat down in our seats. Made it.
And then waited for 10 minutes while they finished loading. No rush after all :P
By this point it was 6pm and it was fairly obvious Taekwondo wasn't happening so after a bit of night-out planning we went and leant against the sides to watch as we crossed. It was twilight now so the sky was all stormy grey and brown from the smog. If you looked back all you could see were the huge cranes, machines and factories of the port, all black but lit up with work lights and the occasional sparks from some welder. It looked very post-apocalyptic. And we were on this rusting, metal ferry with the smell off the fumes and the slow clank-clank of the engine. It really was very otherworldly-like the human race had destroyed everything green and all that was left were just factories and machines...
Then we decided we were letting out imagination run away with us :P Still, it was quite eery.
We could see in the distance what looked like a bridge. I remember when I flew in that I saw a bridge marching off into the distance and hadn't been able to see where it ended because of the smog. It turns out that they are building a bridge across the bay. It will be 35.4km long. Amazingly, this will not be the longest bridge in the world as there is one near Shanghai at 35.6km and one in the US at 38km. (There are longer ones, but these do not go over only water). What mighty feats a race of glorified monkeys can achieve eh!
Eventually we landed and hopped on a bus home. As I have mentioned, the roads near the terminal are not good and going over one pothole caused the entire bus to collectively bounce up from their seats and back down again with a collective "ooo".
After a brief recharge of batteries we headed out to dinner at 麦凯乐, some department store. On the 7th floor they have a restaurant which has a dazzling array of dishes all helpfully replicated in plastic form which makes it so much easier to see what you want. We went for sweet and sour pork and rice (taste of home!). It was a bit of a disappointment though as I got slightly too many pieces of gristle in mine and the flavour was quite weak. However it was then off to L.P.G. This is definitely an expat watering hole. I had a gin and tonic along with Daisy and we both think that there was something wrong with the gin or the tonic as I felt ill afterwards and she is feeling a bit funny today too. As I did not feel so good we sat outside and were joined by a Canadian and a Chinese. The Canadian extolled the virtues of being free "to you know, walk down the street drinking a bottle of beer and noone cares". Daisy, I think, made an excellent point by asking how he knew they didn't care. They could quite easily be offended by some big laowai walking down the street drinking but just would never dare say so. The Chinese man had just broken up with his girlfriend and was very boring to listen to. When we had finally got rid of them (the Canadian was driving home and Daisy asked if this was wise and he slurred that wazh ok- he only lived jusht down the shtreet), an old man sat near us said that I looked like a runner. We went and sat with him and it turns out he was a member of the infamous Hash House Harriers. This a running group founded by expats in Malaysia 80 years ago and involves light running and heavy drinking. Chinese girls go to find a white husband. I always think white men must like it here. They get a far better league of girl, can treat her far worse but be treated by her far better than any white woman in the west. Anyway I digress, this old man, whose name we never got round to asking, was an Australian engineer. While I have been here I have been expecting to find the old Aussie propping up a bar telling stories and here he was. He'd worked all over Asia and was quite happy to trawl through his life story for us. I found it charming although I was worried the others would be like oh no we're stuck but they quite liked him too. After a while we said goodbye and, as I felt better, we headed off to Le Bang. Le Bang is some bar/club place. We found some of Daisy's Cambridge friends who were visiting from Beijing and had a little boogie. Eventually Becka felt hungry and I lost a contact lens so we called it a night and had a pleasant walk back- although I think Becka was a bit bored by my topic of conversation :P
The End. Congratulations if you made it this far!
2010-09-24
达西先生啊！
Today pottered along quite comfortably in what is becoming suspiciously like a Routine. Up at 7 (well, 7:05...), stumble neanderthalithically (totally a real word) around room, get dressed, eat jam sandwiches, gather books and dictionaries and whatever random Korean biscuit is the snack for today, finally arrive at homo Sapiens stage, and then off to collect Becka and class. We had a rather nasty bombshell dropped on us today. We have a Big Test on Everything next Monday. I'm going to revise very hard this weekend and do very well, yessir I am!
We got told some Chinese gift giving customs today and amongst some fairly obvious ones (it's rude to gift knives apparently...oh really?!) were a few gems such as when you give money, you can only give certain amounts. Odd numbers are rude as are numbers with 4 in (they dislike the number 4 as it sounds like the word for death). 6 is a no-goer too, although I didn't get why. They like 8 though. 8 is a very good number in Chinese- they love having phone numbers with 8s in. This is rather infectious as I find myself sneakily pleased that my English number has about four 8s in. But then also worried that having four of them somehow negates it. Also you're not allowed to give umbrellas as the word for that sounds like the word for cut.
We tried out a new restaurant for lunch. It was 陕西* style food so I was overjoyed to spot on the biblically long menu 糖醋里脊, tanculiji, sweet and sour pork, just like they have at home :D It wasn't the best I've ever had, not very crispy, but was still a nice find. Bit by bit we are learning to read the menus and avoid what we don't like and pick out things that won't have any nasty surprises in them! Although yesterday's rice noodles in a broth still had the Now What Is This? game. We did find some quails eggs which were rather nice. However there was also what looked like shredded flip-flop soles (complete with grip marks). Daisy said it was tofu but it certainly tasted like shredded flip-flop so I'm not sure.
Spent this afternoon planning tomorrow's trip to Phoenix Island. Although, like Qingdao, it is not actually an island, rather a spit of land. Qingdao and Phoenix Island face each other across the mouth of a large bay so we are getting a boat across. Exciting! We are going to Golden Sands Beach which is supposed to be "the best beach in Asia".
Apparently it's really cold in Britain :P
Chinese of the day: the opening line of Pride and Prejudice:
有钱的单身汉必定想娶亲，这条真理无人不晓。
Literally: a single man having money must want a wife, this truth nobody does not know.
达西先生 Daxi Xiansheng, Mr Darcy
贝内特伊丽莎白 Beineite Yilishabai, Elizabeth Bennet
*陕西 is written in pinyin (romanisation system used here) as shanxi and is a province in the centre of China. Ordinarily in English it is written as Shaanxi to distinguish it from 山西, Shanxi "West of the Mountains". 山西 being to the west of the mountains that my province, 山东, is to the east of.
We got told some Chinese gift giving customs today and amongst some fairly obvious ones (it's rude to gift knives apparently...oh really?!) were a few gems such as when you give money, you can only give certain amounts. Odd numbers are rude as are numbers with 4 in (they dislike the number 4 as it sounds like the word for death). 6 is a no-goer too, although I didn't get why. They like 8 though. 8 is a very good number in Chinese- they love having phone numbers with 8s in. This is rather infectious as I find myself sneakily pleased that my English number has about four 8s in. But then also worried that having four of them somehow negates it. Also you're not allowed to give umbrellas as the word for that sounds like the word for cut.
We tried out a new restaurant for lunch. It was 陕西* style food so I was overjoyed to spot on the biblically long menu 糖醋里脊, tanculiji, sweet and sour pork, just like they have at home :D It wasn't the best I've ever had, not very crispy, but was still a nice find. Bit by bit we are learning to read the menus and avoid what we don't like and pick out things that won't have any nasty surprises in them! Although yesterday's rice noodles in a broth still had the Now What Is This? game. We did find some quails eggs which were rather nice. However there was also what looked like shredded flip-flop soles (complete with grip marks). Daisy said it was tofu but it certainly tasted like shredded flip-flop so I'm not sure.
Spent this afternoon planning tomorrow's trip to Phoenix Island. Although, like Qingdao, it is not actually an island, rather a spit of land. Qingdao and Phoenix Island face each other across the mouth of a large bay so we are getting a boat across. Exciting! We are going to Golden Sands Beach which is supposed to be "the best beach in Asia".
Apparently it's really cold in Britain :P
Chinese of the day: the opening line of Pride and Prejudice:
有钱的单身汉必定想娶亲，这条真理无人不晓。
Literally: a single man having money must want a wife, this truth nobody does not know.
达西先生 Daxi Xiansheng, Mr Darcy
贝内特伊丽莎白 Beineite Yilishabai, Elizabeth Bennet
*陕西 is written in pinyin (romanisation system used here) as shanxi and is a province in the centre of China. Ordinarily in English it is written as Shaanxi to distinguish it from 山西, Shanxi "West of the Mountains". 山西 being to the west of the mountains that my province, 山东, is to the east of.
2010-09-23
伤风败俗!
I quite like the view from my window as it is underneath the flightpath to Qingdao Airport. The planes are not so low that the noise annoys me but low enough so that I have a good view of them. At this point they are generally turning and a plane wheeling in the sky is quite an impressive sight. I am slightly nerdy over planes :P They are especially cool at night as all you can see are their slightly alienistic lights that suddenly wink out when they go over the mountains.
Today was back to class after Mid-Autumn Festival. I think that we foreign students have been slightly shortchanged over this holiday- I get the impression that the standard is to have 3 days off not our measly one... but of course we don't know any better :P Intriguingly, as they have 3 days off, Saturday and Sunday are now official work days to compensate. After class, which we have on the 4th floor, I went to this little balcony at the end of the corridor. Normally this is where all the smokers come so I avoid it but as we had been let out early I thought I'd have a look. Turns out it has this most wonderful view across the campus and bay. It was smoggier than yesterday so the biggest island you normally see was very faint. However it was still a blue sky so the sea looked so beautiful, all blue and sparkly. The weather was cool and crisp again- although still around 23 degrees so very agreeable! It still seems so bizarre that it was so hot and humid only as long ago as Tuesday! Anyway, I spent a lovely few minutes surveying my new kingdom :P
I am thinking about taking up an offer of a teaching job. Since being here in Qingdao Becka and I have been inundated with teaching job offers (although they get disappointed when they find out we are not American- *English pride is offended*) but I am seriously tempted by this one. It's 6 hours a week teaching Grade 2 at around 120元 an hour- that's around £12 which is significantly higher than my current earning power in the UK! Now technically you're not supposed to work with a student visa but if it's kept part-time and without a contract then you're too far under the radar to be cared about. *Looks shifty* Plus I found out that the riding place charges prices only slightly below those of Western standards so I'm going to need to earn money if I want to ride!
Had a rather amusing moment at lunch. I was buying some 手抓并 (shou zhua bing-pancakey thing-really cheap) when I heard voices. I look behind me to see Becka and Daisy engaged in conversation with appeared to be Herculean gods. There were 3 of them, all over 6 feet tall, carrying backpacks and looking like they ate testosterone for breakfast. It turned out one was American and the other two were German and they were studying International Business at our Uni-just at the other campus (damn). They were going to climb the mountains and do manly things but weren't sure of the way. We enthusiastically and breathlessly directed them and after a touch of persiflage they carried on. Daisy and I started to follow but Becka reminded us we were heading in the opposite direction and, reluctantly, we turned around and went home instead... It brightened up our day anyhow- and, as Daisy and I are certain that two of them are our future husbands, I'm sure our paths will cross again. Love conquors all!
Gem from China Daily (apart from the whole indignant IT'S ALL JAPAN'S FAULT- long story but Japan have got some boat captain of China's and won't give him back- it's all over who owns some islands, or rather, their oil fields. Cue tremendous huff by China.): two Chinese old age pensioners decided to go on a round the world trip and there is a hilarious picture of this couple in Paris grinning madly with thumbs up. They took with them a Lonely Planet Guide, an English phrasebook, and, intriguingly, a rice cooker.
Chinese of the day: 伤风败俗: (shangfeng baisu) "to lower the moral standards of a community". Just the sort of thing I can imagine screaming from the front page of a Chinese Daily Mail :P
Ponder of the Day: If even the posh restaurants serve what is still basically the manky bits of an animal, the trotters, snouts, claws etc, what on earth do they do with the nice bits? Where do they go? What becomes of all the lamb chops? And chicken breasts? And pork chops? That's what I want to know...
Today was back to class after Mid-Autumn Festival. I think that we foreign students have been slightly shortchanged over this holiday- I get the impression that the standard is to have 3 days off not our measly one... but of course we don't know any better :P Intriguingly, as they have 3 days off, Saturday and Sunday are now official work days to compensate. After class, which we have on the 4th floor, I went to this little balcony at the end of the corridor. Normally this is where all the smokers come so I avoid it but as we had been let out early I thought I'd have a look. Turns out it has this most wonderful view across the campus and bay. It was smoggier than yesterday so the biggest island you normally see was very faint. However it was still a blue sky so the sea looked so beautiful, all blue and sparkly. The weather was cool and crisp again- although still around 23 degrees so very agreeable! It still seems so bizarre that it was so hot and humid only as long ago as Tuesday! Anyway, I spent a lovely few minutes surveying my new kingdom :P
I am thinking about taking up an offer of a teaching job. Since being here in Qingdao Becka and I have been inundated with teaching job offers (although they get disappointed when they find out we are not American- *English pride is offended*) but I am seriously tempted by this one. It's 6 hours a week teaching Grade 2 at around 120元 an hour- that's around £12 which is significantly higher than my current earning power in the UK! Now technically you're not supposed to work with a student visa but if it's kept part-time and without a contract then you're too far under the radar to be cared about. *Looks shifty* Plus I found out that the riding place charges prices only slightly below those of Western standards so I'm going to need to earn money if I want to ride!
Had a rather amusing moment at lunch. I was buying some 手抓并 (shou zhua bing-pancakey thing-really cheap) when I heard voices. I look behind me to see Becka and Daisy engaged in conversation with appeared to be Herculean gods. There were 3 of them, all over 6 feet tall, carrying backpacks and looking like they ate testosterone for breakfast. It turned out one was American and the other two were German and they were studying International Business at our Uni-just at the other campus (damn). They were going to climb the mountains and do manly things but weren't sure of the way. We enthusiastically and breathlessly directed them and after a touch of persiflage they carried on. Daisy and I started to follow but Becka reminded us we were heading in the opposite direction and, reluctantly, we turned around and went home instead... It brightened up our day anyhow- and, as Daisy and I are certain that two of them are our future husbands, I'm sure our paths will cross again. Love conquors all!
Gem from China Daily (apart from the whole indignant IT'S ALL JAPAN'S FAULT- long story but Japan have got some boat captain of China's and won't give him back- it's all over who owns some islands, or rather, their oil fields. Cue tremendous huff by China.): two Chinese old age pensioners decided to go on a round the world trip and there is a hilarious picture of this couple in Paris grinning madly with thumbs up. They took with them a Lonely Planet Guide, an English phrasebook, and, intriguingly, a rice cooker.
Chinese of the day: 伤风败俗: (shangfeng baisu) "to lower the moral standards of a community". Just the sort of thing I can imagine screaming from the front page of a Chinese Daily Mail :P
Ponder of the Day: If even the posh restaurants serve what is still basically the manky bits of an animal, the trotters, snouts, claws etc, what on earth do they do with the nice bits? Where do they go? What becomes of all the lamb chops? And chicken breasts? And pork chops? That's what I want to know...
2010-09-22
中秋节
So today was 中秋节 (Zhong Qiu Jie, Mid-Autumn Festival). This meant no class :D I had a lovely lie-in and then was very industrious and did all my washing and cleaned and swept my room. No decadent hoovering for me! I went onto the roof to put my washing on a line (not sure if it is meant for hanging washing but it does the job) but as I did not have pegs I ended up draping it over a random concrete block instead. I was a bit worried it would blow away but I think I have managed to gather everything back in.
Today's weather was rather bizarre. Up til now it has been very hot and humid with sudden rain showers. However today it was clear and crisp with a strong wind. This wind had blown away all the smog so when I was on the roof I could clearly see the sea and the islands. The sky was also properly blue. It looked gorgeous. You get a lovely view from the roof. Plus as today is traditionally spent with the family, the streets were quite quiet. It was ironic that the festival for mid-autumn was the day that felt more like the irst day of autumn.
Becka and I thus decided to go to the beach. It was so nice being able to see the sea properly, and the islands and ships. We could see along the coast too. We walked along the special coastal path for quite a way. We found some random sculptures along the way of protozoa and biology things like that. After a while we reached what had seemed to be a very shiny and modernistically designed building, all white curves and glass windows, but on closer inspection was completely empty. There were a lot of buildings like that along the seafront. All very nicely designed and built and all completely empty- apart from for rent/sale signs. It was a real shame as that particular beach, 石老人 (shi lao ren, stone old men- there are lots of rocks which look like old men hence the name) was very nice. All it needed were some shops and restaurants and it would be a thriving area instead of a ghost town. There are a lot of places in China like that. They seem to have built a lot of fancy facilities for a middle class that doesn't quite exist yet.
We caught a bus back but got off a stop too late so ended up walking through an area we hadn't yet visited. It was very shiny and we saw a Bentley (there is a Bentley showroom not far away- they are called 宾利-binli). For some reason it was nice to see a clean, well kept street so we were glad we got a bit lost.
Then of to a restaurant called Xiang Gang 97 (Xianggang is Hong Kong). It had looked quite posh from the outside and so it proved. However, as is normal with China, things were still a bit barmy. They menus were absolutely huge. As in Atlas of the World size. This made it difficult to handle them but in the end we picked these wrap things and what looked like tasty pieces of pork in a sauce. The wraps came and were very nice if a bit spicy. Then came the pork. Except it wasn't. It was slices of pork fat. With a tiny vein of actual meat in each one. We weren't impressed. I forced a few slices down but I have always hated eating white fat so stopped after a while as I started to feel slightly nauseous. Out came the massive menu again and we ordered a "puberal pigeon". This was basically a roasted pigeon. It was tasty but a bit small. I had spotted mashed potato in the menu and got all excited. However when it came it was served with blueberry juice. And ice cold. Let me tell you now blueberry and potato do not go together. And is even fouler when cold.
We did get a free mooncake though. And it was the first one I've eaten that I actually liked. Mooncakes are cakes with stuff inside and are quite dense- more like pastry than sponge. You give them to people on Mid-Autumn Festival. Ours had mixed fruit inside and was quite tasty. One I had in class was basically green tea jelly around a green tea filling. I don't like green tea at the best of times, let alone in a jelly!
Then we went to 麦凯乐, Maikaile-Mykal, some sort of foreign department store. Becka got very excited about the glass lift so went all the way to the top floor. This was a mistake as we had to go through every floor to get back down. Thus, I bought three DVDs, The Expendables, La Mome, Devil Wears Prada, and a book of fairytales, such as Arabian Nights, Brothers Grimm etc, in Mandarin. Becka got Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice in Mandarin. Apparently the Chinese like these stories and are snapping up all the BBC adaptions. I also got a microphone to replace my dying one. So we left considerably poorer than when we had gone in...
Paying in the shop was a bit bizarre and in traditional Chinese fashion involved lots of pieces of paper. You select the thing you like, go to the assistant, get given a piece of paper, go to the till, pay, go back to the assistant and show the receipt, get your item. Wierd.
English of the Day: The Chinese on the sign read "We are your friends" and the English read "keep off the lawn". Someone somewhere had copied and pasted the wrong bit...
Today's weather was rather bizarre. Up til now it has been very hot and humid with sudden rain showers. However today it was clear and crisp with a strong wind. This wind had blown away all the smog so when I was on the roof I could clearly see the sea and the islands. The sky was also properly blue. It looked gorgeous. You get a lovely view from the roof. Plus as today is traditionally spent with the family, the streets were quite quiet. It was ironic that the festival for mid-autumn was the day that felt more like the irst day of autumn.
Becka and I thus decided to go to the beach. It was so nice being able to see the sea properly, and the islands and ships. We could see along the coast too. We walked along the special coastal path for quite a way. We found some random sculptures along the way of protozoa and biology things like that. After a while we reached what had seemed to be a very shiny and modernistically designed building, all white curves and glass windows, but on closer inspection was completely empty. There were a lot of buildings like that along the seafront. All very nicely designed and built and all completely empty- apart from for rent/sale signs. It was a real shame as that particular beach, 石老人 (shi lao ren, stone old men- there are lots of rocks which look like old men hence the name) was very nice. All it needed were some shops and restaurants and it would be a thriving area instead of a ghost town. There are a lot of places in China like that. They seem to have built a lot of fancy facilities for a middle class that doesn't quite exist yet.
We caught a bus back but got off a stop too late so ended up walking through an area we hadn't yet visited. It was very shiny and we saw a Bentley (there is a Bentley showroom not far away- they are called 宾利-binli). For some reason it was nice to see a clean, well kept street so we were glad we got a bit lost.
Then of to a restaurant called Xiang Gang 97 (Xianggang is Hong Kong). It had looked quite posh from the outside and so it proved. However, as is normal with China, things were still a bit barmy. They menus were absolutely huge. As in Atlas of the World size. This made it difficult to handle them but in the end we picked these wrap things and what looked like tasty pieces of pork in a sauce. The wraps came and were very nice if a bit spicy. Then came the pork. Except it wasn't. It was slices of pork fat. With a tiny vein of actual meat in each one. We weren't impressed. I forced a few slices down but I have always hated eating white fat so stopped after a while as I started to feel slightly nauseous. Out came the massive menu again and we ordered a "puberal pigeon". This was basically a roasted pigeon. It was tasty but a bit small. I had spotted mashed potato in the menu and got all excited. However when it came it was served with blueberry juice. And ice cold. Let me tell you now blueberry and potato do not go together. And is even fouler when cold.
We did get a free mooncake though. And it was the first one I've eaten that I actually liked. Mooncakes are cakes with stuff inside and are quite dense- more like pastry than sponge. You give them to people on Mid-Autumn Festival. Ours had mixed fruit inside and was quite tasty. One I had in class was basically green tea jelly around a green tea filling. I don't like green tea at the best of times, let alone in a jelly!
Then we went to 麦凯乐, Maikaile-Mykal, some sort of foreign department store. Becka got very excited about the glass lift so went all the way to the top floor. This was a mistake as we had to go through every floor to get back down. Thus, I bought three DVDs, The Expendables, La Mome, Devil Wears Prada, and a book of fairytales, such as Arabian Nights, Brothers Grimm etc, in Mandarin. Becka got Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice in Mandarin. Apparently the Chinese like these stories and are snapping up all the BBC adaptions. I also got a microphone to replace my dying one. So we left considerably poorer than when we had gone in...
Paying in the shop was a bit bizarre and in traditional Chinese fashion involved lots of pieces of paper. You select the thing you like, go to the assistant, get given a piece of paper, go to the till, pay, go back to the assistant and show the receipt, get your item. Wierd.
English of the Day: The Chinese on the sign read "We are your friends" and the English read "keep off the lawn". Someone somewhere had copied and pasted the wrong bit...
2010-09-21
Glitter!
Today started off in a very stressful way. Basically, Becka found out that as everything shuts for a week for National Day she would not have her passport back from the Visa authorities before we went to Suzhou. Not only does she need this to fly, she needs it to check in to hotels. After a lot of panicking the dust has half settled and we think that there is a slim chance she will have a passport. If not she may be able to use her student ID or a photocopy of her passport at least for the hotel if not the planes. She can always get the train. So hopefully disaster has been averted...
We went to a Korean restaurant for lunch and I failed miserably because I just can't eat spice. At all. I ended up eating jam sandwiches instead. Not good.
Then I made the dreaded return journey to the Entry/Exit Bureau (to quote Daisy, which rather sums it up, "my god how much of your life have you spent there!") to attempt again to get a residence permit. This time there was success and it took only half an hour as well!
The day continued to improve as Becka, Daisy and I went for a manicure. I got blue and gold glitter on mine :D They are rather spectacular. It was cheapish at around £5 but it's also rather good as you can speak to your manicurist (?) in Chinese :) Although we spent ages on me trying to get them to tell me the word for glitter. Eventually they understood what I wanted but now I have forgotten the word so it was rather in vain... We ended up teaching them the words for sofa, nail polish and glitter :P
As Jazz Steak was very close we went for a salad (precious vegetables) and chips. The waiter's accent was virtually unintelligable and we spent a very long time trying to work out what he was trying to say. Eventually we realised that he was trying to say that there were no chips... This hurt :( My salad was very nice, even if I couldn't bring myself to eat the prawns, and the sandwiches were ok. However there was a lot of mayonnaise so I ran out of enthusiasm after a while.. Plus the sandwiches were quite wide so difficult to get in your mouth all at once.
My bus driver did things with her bus that I have never seen before. She was actually weaving it in and out of traffic. That's pretty nimble for a bus! The traffic here can be quite scary- but not as scary as trying to cross the road. Even when there are crossings, a green light doesn't necessarily mean that cars won't be coming at you. Just fewer. And when there aren't, you have to get across 8 lanes of traffic. This is impossible to do in one go so you spend several exciting minutes in the middle with cars passing inches from you, shuffling forwards when there is traffic behind you, and backwards when there is traffic in front... Certainly adds an element of chance to life.
English of the Day: "Certainly ocn world shall know but ONE WALT DISNEY"
We went to a Korean restaurant for lunch and I failed miserably because I just can't eat spice. At all. I ended up eating jam sandwiches instead. Not good.
Then I made the dreaded return journey to the Entry/Exit Bureau (to quote Daisy, which rather sums it up, "my god how much of your life have you spent there!") to attempt again to get a residence permit. This time there was success and it took only half an hour as well!
The day continued to improve as Becka, Daisy and I went for a manicure. I got blue and gold glitter on mine :D They are rather spectacular. It was cheapish at around £5 but it's also rather good as you can speak to your manicurist (?) in Chinese :) Although we spent ages on me trying to get them to tell me the word for glitter. Eventually they understood what I wanted but now I have forgotten the word so it was rather in vain... We ended up teaching them the words for sofa, nail polish and glitter :P
As Jazz Steak was very close we went for a salad (precious vegetables) and chips. The waiter's accent was virtually unintelligable and we spent a very long time trying to work out what he was trying to say. Eventually we realised that he was trying to say that there were no chips... This hurt :( My salad was very nice, even if I couldn't bring myself to eat the prawns, and the sandwiches were ok. However there was a lot of mayonnaise so I ran out of enthusiasm after a while.. Plus the sandwiches were quite wide so difficult to get in your mouth all at once.
My bus driver did things with her bus that I have never seen before. She was actually weaving it in and out of traffic. That's pretty nimble for a bus! The traffic here can be quite scary- but not as scary as trying to cross the road. Even when there are crossings, a green light doesn't necessarily mean that cars won't be coming at you. Just fewer. And when there aren't, you have to get across 8 lanes of traffic. This is impossible to do in one go so you spend several exciting minutes in the middle with cars passing inches from you, shuffling forwards when there is traffic behind you, and backwards when there is traffic in front... Certainly adds an element of chance to life.
English of the Day: "Certainly ocn world shall know but ONE WALT DISNEY"
2010-09-20
Jazz Steak. Not so Jazzy.
Ventured forth into Qingdao nightlife. It was messy.
Felt very delicate on Sunday. But Becka felt worse :P We crawled out and got a taxi to Jusco. Jusco is a Japanese mall. It has JUSCO written on it in bright pink letters. Unmissable. Unless you were our taxi driver, who had no idea what we were on about so we had to direct him there. Eventually he realised and started saying the chinese pronuciation over and over again. He told us it was Japanese and we were like we know- when we were describing it to you we said so... Plus, in some misguided attempt to make us feel at home or something, he drove on the left side of the road. The oncoming traffic obligingly got out of our way. I nearly wet myself.
Finally we got to Jusco. Alive. We crawled to Starbucks, via pizza place, and flopped into comfy chairs with our rejuvenating tea and coffee and pizza. And then we stayed there for around 8 hours. I perked up with the addition of tea and pizza but Becka melted into a puddle of misery and nausea :( Then off to a restaurant called Jazz Steak. I had been soooooooooooooooooooo looking forward to a steak but what I got given was some sort of boiled, sad cardboard that tasted of bad sausage. Not fillet steak. Disappointment.
Then Daisy, her friend from Cambridge and I went to the beach and just sat on the front and chatted :) I was very naughty and got back after midnight. I was really worried as the curfew is 11 on a Sunday night but as it turned out they don't seem to enforce it. I literally just walked in, past the old man lying on the sofa, and up to my room. Success. I didn't have a very peaceful slumber though- the Koreans were having a party. It was the sort of party which involves shouting "AR-SE-NAL AR-SE-NAL" over and over again. Eventually I heard Becka go out of her room and tell them to shut up.
Spent this afternoon skiving 文化 (wenhua) Culture class. I really couldn't be bothered so stayed in the restaurant with Daisy and Ghrassam chatting for like 2 hours. Apparently the Cambridge lot in Beijing are not giving a very good impression... they tried to introduce their guide to the "concept of banter" and ended up offending them :P It was really nice getting to know them better though.
Becka needed comfort food (she is having horrendous bank trouble) so it was off to McDonalds for dinner. Jesse didn't approve :P We checked out the student kitchen. It looked like a complete death trap so that is a no goer...
Got an email from Mum. She mentioned roast turkey. I started drooling.
While we were in Starbucks this student from Qingdao University, not mine, came over and asked to interview me for a project. (This doesn't seem so random in China...) His friend filmed us while he asked me about what I thought of China etc. Anyway, he asked what I liked to do and I said horse riding- but that I didn't know where to ride in Qingdao. It turned out that he knew someone who worked in a stables and gave me the address! I've checked it out online. It looks really nice and is not far away. Just one thing though- one of the horses is called "Saddam Hussein"...
Felt very delicate on Sunday. But Becka felt worse :P We crawled out and got a taxi to Jusco. Jusco is a Japanese mall. It has JUSCO written on it in bright pink letters. Unmissable. Unless you were our taxi driver, who had no idea what we were on about so we had to direct him there. Eventually he realised and started saying the chinese pronuciation over and over again. He told us it was Japanese and we were like we know- when we were describing it to you we said so... Plus, in some misguided attempt to make us feel at home or something, he drove on the left side of the road. The oncoming traffic obligingly got out of our way. I nearly wet myself.
Finally we got to Jusco. Alive. We crawled to Starbucks, via pizza place, and flopped into comfy chairs with our rejuvenating tea and coffee and pizza. And then we stayed there for around 8 hours. I perked up with the addition of tea and pizza but Becka melted into a puddle of misery and nausea :( Then off to a restaurant called Jazz Steak. I had been soooooooooooooooooooo looking forward to a steak but what I got given was some sort of boiled, sad cardboard that tasted of bad sausage. Not fillet steak. Disappointment.
Then Daisy, her friend from Cambridge and I went to the beach and just sat on the front and chatted :) I was very naughty and got back after midnight. I was really worried as the curfew is 11 on a Sunday night but as it turned out they don't seem to enforce it. I literally just walked in, past the old man lying on the sofa, and up to my room. Success. I didn't have a very peaceful slumber though- the Koreans were having a party. It was the sort of party which involves shouting "AR-SE-NAL AR-SE-NAL" over and over again. Eventually I heard Becka go out of her room and tell them to shut up.
Spent this afternoon skiving 文化 (wenhua) Culture class. I really couldn't be bothered so stayed in the restaurant with Daisy and Ghrassam chatting for like 2 hours. Apparently the Cambridge lot in Beijing are not giving a very good impression... they tried to introduce their guide to the "concept of banter" and ended up offending them :P It was really nice getting to know them better though.
Becka needed comfort food (she is having horrendous bank trouble) so it was off to McDonalds for dinner. Jesse didn't approve :P We checked out the student kitchen. It looked like a complete death trap so that is a no goer...
Got an email from Mum. She mentioned roast turkey. I started drooling.
While we were in Starbucks this student from Qingdao University, not mine, came over and asked to interview me for a project. (This doesn't seem so random in China...) His friend filmed us while he asked me about what I thought of China etc. Anyway, he asked what I liked to do and I said horse riding- but that I didn't know where to ride in Qingdao. It turned out that he knew someone who worked in a stables and gave me the address! I've checked it out online. It looks really nice and is not far away. Just one thing though- one of the horses is called "Saddam Hussein"...
2010-09-19
Qingdao
I thought I'd write a little bit about Qingdao seeing as I suspect that nobody knows anything about it...
Qingdao, 青岛, is a city in 山东, Shandong, province which is in the North-East of China. If you look at a map it is the sticky out bit (i.e peninsula...) opposite Korea. Shandong plays an interesting part in Chinese culture as it is the birthplace of 孔子, Kongzi or Confucius to you and me. Indeed, it is quite a spiritual place and has many shrines and temples to Daoism and Buddhism etc. The most famous holy place is 泰山, Taishan- Mount Tai. Apparently this has one of the longest history of continuous religious worship in the world. The story goes that 秦始皇, the First Emperor of China, travelled to Taishan and proclaimed it to be very Holy and wrote an inscription to the glory of the Empire blah blah blah- basically all the standard stuff. I've also heard that a rock was taken from the mountain and placed in 天安门广场, Tiananmen Square, and that had a similar message inscribed on it too- except to the glory of the Republic.
Qingdao itself has a population of around 7 million (Shandong has roughly 95 million in total) plus two 老外* from the University of Edinburgh. We are living in the 崂山 district which is to the east of the main centre. In our area pretty much all the buildings are over 6 storeys with a generous helping of over 12 storeys amongst them. So not very picturesque. On the plus side the buildings are all surrounded by belts of grass and trees so there is plenty of green. We are fairly near the sea and a couple of beaches although the beaches here aren't that good in my opinion, despite the fact that Qingdao has a reputation as a resort city. Becka and I live on the 6th floor of the 留学生中心, International Student Centre. The lift only goes to the 5th floor. Next door is the Taekwondo school and a short walk though campus, which seems to be University buildings and normal blocks of a appartments, is where we have class. For food we can either go out of the campus and turn right where there are little restaurants and street stalls as well as a small shop and hairdressers. We can also turn left and walk down to 香港东路, East Hong Kong Road, where there are more stalls. Quite a lot of them sell hotpot and kebabs which the other place does not. 麦当劳, Maidanlao, McDonalds, is also down here... Behind the campus are the 崂山 mountains which look very picturesque. It's a lovely green area to go and walk in with some great viewpoints over the city.
To the west of us is 市南 (Shinan, City South) and 市北 (Shibei, City North) districts. There are lots of big shiny malls and hotels here including Jusco, which is a Japanese Department store. This is where we come for bread and jam for my breakfasts as well as a Starbucks where we go on Sunday- Sunday being Western Day when we are allowed to eat Western food and be all expaty :P There are also some clothes shops and restaurants although everything is a bit pricey. The best place for shopping is in Jimo Street, which I have already told you all about! This is situated in the North of the Old Town which is in the west of the city. Old Town is the remains of the German town that was here during Colonial times. Unlike most of Qingdao the buildings here are brick built, only two storeys high with little windows with wooden shutters. Everything is a bit dilapidated and the streets are filled with all sorts of detritus. However I think this just adds to the charm of the place. The area is dominated by the spires of the Catholic Cathedral, which is fairly clinical looking. Well, clinical for a Catholic cathedral! There is also a Protestant Church somewhere. I think that this is my favourite part of Qingdao because the narrow streets and small buildings have some sort of character. The rest of Qingdao is just souless skyscrapers and big, wide roads. Although on the seafront there are a few nicely designed high-rises with futuristic shapes and spires. Qingdao can best be described as "the Shit and the Shiny". There are some fairly ramshackle and dirty areas next to these great, big glossy malls filled with Gucci and Prada.
All in all the Chinese are very friendly and are very patient with my chinese! Luckily they don't really speak English so I can practise. My comprehension is fairly good but I'm not very good at forming sentences but the 4 hours of class a day are really useful. I don't know why we had so few hours of teaching at Edinburgh.
All in all Qingdao is a nice city but I'm looking forward to exploring more of China- particularly more of old China. What's left of it.
*老外, laowai, means "foreigner". Being a 老外 means that you get continually stared at (a classic 老外 stare is a fixed stare, eyebrows slightly furrowed and mouth partly open), asked to pose with people for pictures and given special prices. Special expensive prices.
Qingdao, 青岛, is a city in 山东, Shandong, province which is in the North-East of China. If you look at a map it is the sticky out bit (i.e peninsula...) opposite Korea. Shandong plays an interesting part in Chinese culture as it is the birthplace of 孔子, Kongzi or Confucius to you and me. Indeed, it is quite a spiritual place and has many shrines and temples to Daoism and Buddhism etc. The most famous holy place is 泰山, Taishan- Mount Tai. Apparently this has one of the longest history of continuous religious worship in the world. The story goes that 秦始皇, the First Emperor of China, travelled to Taishan and proclaimed it to be very Holy and wrote an inscription to the glory of the Empire blah blah blah- basically all the standard stuff. I've also heard that a rock was taken from the mountain and placed in 天安门广场, Tiananmen Square, and that had a similar message inscribed on it too- except to the glory of the Republic.
Qingdao itself has a population of around 7 million (Shandong has roughly 95 million in total) plus two 老外* from the University of Edinburgh. We are living in the 崂山 district which is to the east of the main centre. In our area pretty much all the buildings are over 6 storeys with a generous helping of over 12 storeys amongst them. So not very picturesque. On the plus side the buildings are all surrounded by belts of grass and trees so there is plenty of green. We are fairly near the sea and a couple of beaches although the beaches here aren't that good in my opinion, despite the fact that Qingdao has a reputation as a resort city. Becka and I live on the 6th floor of the 留学生中心, International Student Centre. The lift only goes to the 5th floor. Next door is the Taekwondo school and a short walk though campus, which seems to be University buildings and normal blocks of a appartments, is where we have class. For food we can either go out of the campus and turn right where there are little restaurants and street stalls as well as a small shop and hairdressers. We can also turn left and walk down to 香港东路, East Hong Kong Road, where there are more stalls. Quite a lot of them sell hotpot and kebabs which the other place does not. 麦当劳, Maidanlao, McDonalds, is also down here... Behind the campus are the 崂山 mountains which look very picturesque. It's a lovely green area to go and walk in with some great viewpoints over the city.
To the west of us is 市南 (Shinan, City South) and 市北 (Shibei, City North) districts. There are lots of big shiny malls and hotels here including Jusco, which is a Japanese Department store. This is where we come for bread and jam for my breakfasts as well as a Starbucks where we go on Sunday- Sunday being Western Day when we are allowed to eat Western food and be all expaty :P There are also some clothes shops and restaurants although everything is a bit pricey. The best place for shopping is in Jimo Street, which I have already told you all about! This is situated in the North of the Old Town which is in the west of the city. Old Town is the remains of the German town that was here during Colonial times. Unlike most of Qingdao the buildings here are brick built, only two storeys high with little windows with wooden shutters. Everything is a bit dilapidated and the streets are filled with all sorts of detritus. However I think this just adds to the charm of the place. The area is dominated by the spires of the Catholic Cathedral, which is fairly clinical looking. Well, clinical for a Catholic cathedral! There is also a Protestant Church somewhere. I think that this is my favourite part of Qingdao because the narrow streets and small buildings have some sort of character. The rest of Qingdao is just souless skyscrapers and big, wide roads. Although on the seafront there are a few nicely designed high-rises with futuristic shapes and spires. Qingdao can best be described as "the Shit and the Shiny". There are some fairly ramshackle and dirty areas next to these great, big glossy malls filled with Gucci and Prada.
All in all the Chinese are very friendly and are very patient with my chinese! Luckily they don't really speak English so I can practise. My comprehension is fairly good but I'm not very good at forming sentences but the 4 hours of class a day are really useful. I don't know why we had so few hours of teaching at Edinburgh.
All in all Qingdao is a nice city but I'm looking forward to exploring more of China- particularly more of old China. What's left of it.
*老外, laowai, means "foreigner". Being a 老外 means that you get continually stared at (a classic 老外 stare is a fixed stare, eyebrows slightly furrowed and mouth partly open), asked to pose with people for pictures and given special prices. Special expensive prices.
2010-09-18
太贵了！
Soo today was lovely, lovely Saturday. I woke up this morning and then sank into a delicious, warm, honeyed lie-in. After a while I woke up a bit and stretching, looked at the time wondering how long I'd slept in for. It was 7:30am. I used to be so good at lie-ins...
Becka, Jesse and I had planned to go shopping in 即墨路 (Jimo Street) at 12 with the idea of studying in the morning. I watched the old movie of Merlin instead. I'd thought of watching it because after reading an article about Ratzinger moaning about "aggressive Atheism" (whatever that actually is) I was thinking that his church's biggest enemy was not Atheism but Apathy. As Merlin says to Queen Mab in the film, "we don't have to defeat you, we just have to forget you." Plus I like Sam Neill :P
We trotted off to 即墨 after Captain Louise sorted out which bus to catch. First, we went somewhere that was filled with lots and lots of Shiny Things. I ended up buying two pretty hair clips in the shape of exotic birds. There were also lots of beautiful tea sets, chopstick sets and other old style Chinese things that I know Mum would love. Hopefully she'll come visit so I don't have to carry everything home for her!
Then to the shoe bit. For some reason the assistants kept trying to sell shoes to Becka. They'd sort of run after her waving shoes. Despite scouring every shop I couldn't find a nice pair of pumps to replace my dying ones. I think it was the problem of Too Much Choice. The more there is to choose from, the harder it is to pick something you like best. Then we went to find lunch and joy of joys we found a restuarant serving sweet and sour pork. You would think they sold it everywhere here seeing as it is so ubiquitous in the UK but I think it is more a southern style dish and so not so common here. We weren't sure what meat it was at first and by looking up only one character thought we were eating spinal cord. Luckily the addition of the character in from turned the meaning into tenderloin- much more palatable! After this, via a bakery where I found egg custard tarts-very evocative of home!, we went to the clothes bit. After a long time hunting I finally came away with a couple of tops and a jumper. Nothing very exciting but again the problem off Too Much Choice...
All this involved playing the game of Haggling. We got quite good at this. You find something you like, mutter glumly to your friend that you absolutely love it and will die without it- but in English so the assistant doesn't understand, then ask how much it is, look startled at the price, hand the garment back, suggest something as low as you dare, watch as the assistant wails and jabbers reasons why you are being unreasonable, then start to walk away, then watch as the assistant declares you and them to be friends and suggests a price 五块 (5 kuai- roughly 50p) above what you said. You then beam and accept. As I don't dare suggest very low prices I suspect the assistants still got a very good deal but then I got one lady down from 130快 to 70快 so not bad! Also the problem with this method is that when you actually don't like something, it can be very hard to leave the shop when the assistant is bellowing painfully low prices at you...
Becka and I commenced Taekwondo classes today. Momentous occasion. We were a tad nervous beforehand as we had no idea what we were doing and we did feel a tad silly in our Taekwondo clothes :P However we hid at the back and muddled through. Well, I muddled. Becka sailed through like a swan. After years of cross-country running I am as inflexible and as uncoordinated as a new born baby giraffe* strapped to a tree. By the end we were doing kicks and had to aim for a pad held gingerly by one's partner. Becka did it rather well, despite me wincing and jumping back every time her leg swung towards me. I, however, managed to thump her hands twice when it was my turn. Ooops.
Becka and I are going out tonight :D Hopefully good times shall be had!
P.s. the answer to the riddle was "nothing".
*长颈鹿 changjinlu "long necked deer"
Becka, Jesse and I had planned to go shopping in 即墨路 (Jimo Street) at 12 with the idea of studying in the morning. I watched the old movie of Merlin instead. I'd thought of watching it because after reading an article about Ratzinger moaning about "aggressive Atheism" (whatever that actually is) I was thinking that his church's biggest enemy was not Atheism but Apathy. As Merlin says to Queen Mab in the film, "we don't have to defeat you, we just have to forget you." Plus I like Sam Neill :P
We trotted off to 即墨 after Captain Louise sorted out which bus to catch. First, we went somewhere that was filled with lots and lots of Shiny Things. I ended up buying two pretty hair clips in the shape of exotic birds. There were also lots of beautiful tea sets, chopstick sets and other old style Chinese things that I know Mum would love. Hopefully she'll come visit so I don't have to carry everything home for her!
Then to the shoe bit. For some reason the assistants kept trying to sell shoes to Becka. They'd sort of run after her waving shoes. Despite scouring every shop I couldn't find a nice pair of pumps to replace my dying ones. I think it was the problem of Too Much Choice. The more there is to choose from, the harder it is to pick something you like best. Then we went to find lunch and joy of joys we found a restuarant serving sweet and sour pork. You would think they sold it everywhere here seeing as it is so ubiquitous in the UK but I think it is more a southern style dish and so not so common here. We weren't sure what meat it was at first and by looking up only one character thought we were eating spinal cord. Luckily the addition of the character in from turned the meaning into tenderloin- much more palatable! After this, via a bakery where I found egg custard tarts-very evocative of home!, we went to the clothes bit. After a long time hunting I finally came away with a couple of tops and a jumper. Nothing very exciting but again the problem off Too Much Choice...
All this involved playing the game of Haggling. We got quite good at this. You find something you like, mutter glumly to your friend that you absolutely love it and will die without it- but in English so the assistant doesn't understand, then ask how much it is, look startled at the price, hand the garment back, suggest something as low as you dare, watch as the assistant wails and jabbers reasons why you are being unreasonable, then start to walk away, then watch as the assistant declares you and them to be friends and suggests a price 五块 (5 kuai- roughly 50p) above what you said. You then beam and accept. As I don't dare suggest very low prices I suspect the assistants still got a very good deal but then I got one lady down from 130快 to 70快 so not bad! Also the problem with this method is that when you actually don't like something, it can be very hard to leave the shop when the assistant is bellowing painfully low prices at you...
Becka and I commenced Taekwondo classes today. Momentous occasion. We were a tad nervous beforehand as we had no idea what we were doing and we did feel a tad silly in our Taekwondo clothes :P However we hid at the back and muddled through. Well, I muddled. Becka sailed through like a swan. After years of cross-country running I am as inflexible and as uncoordinated as a new born baby giraffe* strapped to a tree. By the end we were doing kicks and had to aim for a pad held gingerly by one's partner. Becka did it rather well, despite me wincing and jumping back every time her leg swung towards me. I, however, managed to thump her hands twice when it was my turn. Ooops.
Becka and I are going out tonight :D Hopefully good times shall be had!
P.s. the answer to the riddle was "nothing".
*长颈鹿 changjinlu "long necked deer"
2010-09-17
Fail
Unfortunately today was not a good one for Team Edinburgh :( It started well this morning with class- which I am enjoying more than I thought I would considering it is four hours in a row! There's a quiet contentment around pootling through exercises on the simple directional complement. Then Becka and I managed to get our student cards- which are more little books with our photos and some information in.
But then we tried to Achieve Something in the afternoon... First we went to see about Becka's visa. Currently she is on a L-visa (tourist) but this is due to run out soon and she can't get an X-visa (student) until she has paid her fees and as her purse was stolen she cannot withdraw money as she has no credit card so cannot pay the fees... However eventually we settled on a plan of action-which relied on her replacement card arriving today- which joy of joys it did. So she tried to withdraw money but inevitably and inexorably it wouldn't work... And calling Nationwide to unblock it is harder than it sounds as it seems quite hard to call out of the country. She is using Skype at the moment so hopefully that will work.* However it is all one annoying little setback after another so she's feeling a tad demoralised. And her ice cream had melted before she could eat it.
My little tale of woe thus follows. Having been told by the secretary to go to the Entry/Exit bureau this afternoon to get my residence permit, I duly complied. We queued for around 45 minutes at desk 2 for me to submit my application. 45 minutes is a long time to be standing there doing nothing. However when I'd finally got to the front and feeling a glimmer of hope, they pointed to an obscure sentence at the bottom of the back of one of the several sheets of paper in my collection that said I needed to go to desk 4. A little part of me died inside. So we queued at desk 4. For another 45 minutes. Then the woman told me that "the school hadn't sent her my residence details" so I had to go back to the university and speak to the office. Which, as I had been queueing there forever, meant that the office would be closed by the time I got back. So now I can't sort it out until Monday. I'd wasted 2 hours of my life for nothing. So that's why I feel demoralised.
Becka and I went to McDonalds for dinner. Street food is fine for lunch but not very satisfying for dinner and we haven't had much luck with the little restaurants. The food is either too spicy, not very tasty or contains far too many chicken feet. There are a lot of dishes on each menu but bizarrely very little variation. It all tends to be unidentified scraps of meat mixed in with onion-like vegetables served with either rice or noodles. Street food is mostly minced meat and chopped onion served in either fried bread or fried pancake. Or 包子. You can have too many 包子 in your life.
On the door at McDonalds they've written 推, which means "push", and then written "pull" above it.
*Apparently "all the PINs Nationwide have sent out have not been able to connect to the server". Which sounds like a complete fuck-up to me. So Becka won't be getting a PIN until Monday.
But then we tried to Achieve Something in the afternoon... First we went to see about Becka's visa. Currently she is on a L-visa (tourist) but this is due to run out soon and she can't get an X-visa (student) until she has paid her fees and as her purse was stolen she cannot withdraw money as she has no credit card so cannot pay the fees... However eventually we settled on a plan of action-which relied on her replacement card arriving today- which joy of joys it did. So she tried to withdraw money but inevitably and inexorably it wouldn't work... And calling Nationwide to unblock it is harder than it sounds as it seems quite hard to call out of the country. She is using Skype at the moment so hopefully that will work.* However it is all one annoying little setback after another so she's feeling a tad demoralised. And her ice cream had melted before she could eat it.
My little tale of woe thus follows. Having been told by the secretary to go to the Entry/Exit bureau this afternoon to get my residence permit, I duly complied. We queued for around 45 minutes at desk 2 for me to submit my application. 45 minutes is a long time to be standing there doing nothing. However when I'd finally got to the front and feeling a glimmer of hope, they pointed to an obscure sentence at the bottom of the back of one of the several sheets of paper in my collection that said I needed to go to desk 4. A little part of me died inside. So we queued at desk 4. For another 45 minutes. Then the woman told me that "the school hadn't sent her my residence details" so I had to go back to the university and speak to the office. Which, as I had been queueing there forever, meant that the office would be closed by the time I got back. So now I can't sort it out until Monday. I'd wasted 2 hours of my life for nothing. So that's why I feel demoralised.
Becka and I went to McDonalds for dinner. Street food is fine for lunch but not very satisfying for dinner and we haven't had much luck with the little restaurants. The food is either too spicy, not very tasty or contains far too many chicken feet. There are a lot of dishes on each menu but bizarrely very little variation. It all tends to be unidentified scraps of meat mixed in with onion-like vegetables served with either rice or noodles. Street food is mostly minced meat and chopped onion served in either fried bread or fried pancake. Or 包子. You can have too many 包子 in your life.
On the door at McDonalds they've written 推, which means "push", and then written "pull" above it.
*Apparently "all the PINs Nationwide have sent out have not been able to connect to the server". Which sounds like a complete fuck-up to me. So Becka won't be getting a PIN until Monday.
2010-09-16
I Think This Chicken Had Three Feet...
As things are never straightforward in China I got rang up last night and a convrsation started thus:
Me: "...喂？(wei- what you say when you answer the phone)"
Man: "Briailldskjbafbgoavlnbvalbvelongkajbf;kibdf;"
Thankfully I recognised the word "elong" (travel company I'd booked flights with) and managed to reply: "啊你好"
Man: "jkasfhg;ipabvaivbbv中国人吗？" 中国人吗 means "Chinese?" so I took it to mean that he wanted to know if I was Chinese so I mumbled back: "不是，是英国人" (No, I'm British).
At this point he went "Ah good evening Madam I am calling about a reservation you made earlier..." in perfect English. So that was brush with speaking Chinese :P
Anyway it transpired that my bank had refused to authorise payment for the flights I had booked so today I had to rebook-although this time I used another site and Natwest evidently like that one better as they let me pay :D
Tried out the 留学生食堂 (liuxuesheng shitang- foreign student canteen) using Daisy's card. The food was actually not bad although I baulked at eating the meatballs. They were just too... squidgy. For dinner we tried lucky dip at another restaurant. Not good. We ended up with this meat/potato stew thing which sounds nice until we unearthed not one, not two but THREE chicken feet. And one head. I felt a bit sick at this point and went into the shop next door and bought doughnuts. But they had red bean paste in them which is just not as nice as jam. So that was pretty unsatisfactory.
They sell cucumber flavoured crisps here. I don't know why.
Becka and I plucked up the courage to sign on for Taekwondo. At first I was given a suit/costume/whatever the proper name is that was so large you could have fitted both Becka and I in it. I swear I've seen smaller tents! However in the end I managed to get another size that was better but still hopelessly baggy-although I think that that is the point. Classes started today at 7. Becka, Jesse and I left at 6 to get dinner. We wandered to the market first to get some hair grips and for me to withdraw money. And then to the restaurant. We pored over the menu, picked and then sat back. We checked the time. Somehow it had got to 6:45 in the space of around 15 minutes. So Becka and I had to choose between dinner and Taekwondo. Not hard to guess what won. Oh well, we shall start on Saturday!
A riddle for you all that Anthony told me: what is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich don't need it and if you drink it, you die? (Answer tomorrow lol)
English of the Day: "Bread companion" written on a pot of jam.
Me: "...喂？(wei- what you say when you answer the phone)"
Man: "Briailldskjbafbgoavlnbvalbvelongkajbf;kibdf;"
Thankfully I recognised the word "elong" (travel company I'd booked flights with) and managed to reply: "啊你好"
Man: "jkasfhg;ipabvaivbbv中国人吗？" 中国人吗 means "Chinese?" so I took it to mean that he wanted to know if I was Chinese so I mumbled back: "不是，是英国人" (No, I'm British).
At this point he went "Ah good evening Madam I am calling about a reservation you made earlier..." in perfect English. So that was brush with speaking Chinese :P
Anyway it transpired that my bank had refused to authorise payment for the flights I had booked so today I had to rebook-although this time I used another site and Natwest evidently like that one better as they let me pay :D
Tried out the 留学生食堂 (liuxuesheng shitang- foreign student canteen) using Daisy's card. The food was actually not bad although I baulked at eating the meatballs. They were just too... squidgy. For dinner we tried lucky dip at another restaurant. Not good. We ended up with this meat/potato stew thing which sounds nice until we unearthed not one, not two but THREE chicken feet. And one head. I felt a bit sick at this point and went into the shop next door and bought doughnuts. But they had red bean paste in them which is just not as nice as jam. So that was pretty unsatisfactory.
They sell cucumber flavoured crisps here. I don't know why.
Becka and I plucked up the courage to sign on for Taekwondo. At first I was given a suit/costume/whatever the proper name is that was so large you could have fitted both Becka and I in it. I swear I've seen smaller tents! However in the end I managed to get another size that was better but still hopelessly baggy-although I think that that is the point. Classes started today at 7. Becka, Jesse and I left at 6 to get dinner. We wandered to the market first to get some hair grips and for me to withdraw money. And then to the restaurant. We pored over the menu, picked and then sat back. We checked the time. Somehow it had got to 6:45 in the space of around 15 minutes. So Becka and I had to choose between dinner and Taekwondo. Not hard to guess what won. Oh well, we shall start on Saturday!
A riddle for you all that Anthony told me: what is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich don't need it and if you drink it, you die? (Answer tomorrow lol)
English of the Day: "Bread companion" written on a pot of jam.
2010-09-15
Signed up for optional classes today. I had been looking forward to choosing between all kinds of exotic subjects such as calligraphy and learning the 二胡 (erhu- stringed instrument thingy) but when we finally found the right office it boiled down to Taichi, cooking and something called "文化" (wenhua-culture). This sounded a bit ambiguous but better than the others so I have plumped for that one. We shall have to wait and see what this entails...
Today seemed to be a day for meeting new English speakers. The Americans and English are emerging from the mass of Koreans and Russians. I met a girl from Sheffield, who knew Anthony- the guy I sit next to in class- and a guy from New Mexico and a woman from Texas. I am trying to think of ways to actually make friends with actual Chinese people. I think Becka and I are going to do the Taekwondo class next door which should be interesting.
I was doing homework this afternoon/chilling when I kept hearing shouts from outside. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I looked out of my window to see what appeared to be the Chinese version of CCF performing manoeuvres in that comically synchronised way so beloved of dictatorships. I had a good chuckle.
For dinner, after a short spree at the street market on pretty notebooks for class, I cracked and went to 麦当劳 which is, er, like this really authentic Chinese restaurant. *Looks shifty*
Then booked flights for holiday in National Day week. Becka and I are planning on a couple of days in Hangzhou, a few days in Suzhou wedding dress hunting and then back to Shanghai to partyyyy. Fun fun :D Just hope that we have booked everything right. You never know in China...
In other news: my grandparents inform me that I have been spelling wierd wrong. It should be weird. Which somehow looks weird. I feel it should be spelt wierd. However I shall bow to tradition and use weird.
Today seemed to be a day for meeting new English speakers. The Americans and English are emerging from the mass of Koreans and Russians. I met a girl from Sheffield, who knew Anthony- the guy I sit next to in class- and a guy from New Mexico and a woman from Texas. I am trying to think of ways to actually make friends with actual Chinese people. I think Becka and I are going to do the Taekwondo class next door which should be interesting.
I was doing homework this afternoon/chilling when I kept hearing shouts from outside. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I looked out of my window to see what appeared to be the Chinese version of CCF performing manoeuvres in that comically synchronised way so beloved of dictatorships. I had a good chuckle.
For dinner, after a short spree at the street market on pretty notebooks for class, I cracked and went to 麦当劳 which is, er, like this really authentic Chinese restaurant. *Looks shifty*
Then booked flights for holiday in National Day week. Becka and I are planning on a couple of days in Hangzhou, a few days in Suzhou wedding dress hunting and then back to Shanghai to partyyyy. Fun fun :D Just hope that we have booked everything right. You never know in China...
In other news: my grandparents inform me that I have been spelling wierd wrong. It should be weird. Which somehow looks weird. I feel it should be spelt wierd. However I shall bow to tradition and use weird.
2010-09-14
I Don't Eat Things With Tentacles
Was quite excited today as discovered that we have a day's holiday on the 22nd- Mid-Autumn Festival, and from the 1st October to the 10th for Nationall Day. This means Becka and I can go wedding dress shopping with Ruth in Suzhou after all :D
Finally managed to post a letter to Hugo today. I wrote it at least a week ago but I was determined to send it so off it went. I'm interested to see if it gets anywhere near England and if a reply gets anywhere near me. Maybe I should have more faith?
Jesse, Becka and I had kebaby things for dinner. We made the mistake of ordering two of everything. Ended up with unidentifiable chunks of meat on a skewer along with some very small very flat fish, cloves of garlic, something wierd, two chicken necks and a bloody octopus. I don't eat things with tentacles. Ever. I didn't try the necks either. We had a lot of fun trying to work out what they were at first- Becka fancied lamb penis but I was going with cat leg. Oh well. Ended up feeding quite a bit to the stray cat that was suddenly my New Best Friend. Then some big ugly motherfucker of a cat rolled up and it scurried off.
Wierd moment of the day: man with a carrier bag full of beer. As in filled with beer, not beer in cans. Wierd.
Finally managed to post a letter to Hugo today. I wrote it at least a week ago but I was determined to send it so off it went. I'm interested to see if it gets anywhere near England and if a reply gets anywhere near me. Maybe I should have more faith?
Jesse, Becka and I had kebaby things for dinner. We made the mistake of ordering two of everything. Ended up with unidentifiable chunks of meat on a skewer along with some very small very flat fish, cloves of garlic, something wierd, two chicken necks and a bloody octopus. I don't eat things with tentacles. Ever. I didn't try the necks either. We had a lot of fun trying to work out what they were at first- Becka fancied lamb penis but I was going with cat leg. Oh well. Ended up feeding quite a bit to the stray cat that was suddenly my New Best Friend. Then some big ugly motherfucker of a cat rolled up and it scurried off.
Wierd moment of the day: man with a carrier bag full of beer. As in filled with beer, not beer in cans. Wierd.
2010-09-13
Now, did it go "moo moo", "oink oink" or "woof woof"...
Today began the 2nd week of class. I cannot tell you how excited I was for my 8am start.
Becka and I decided to have a crack at climbing the mountains behind the university- featuring 崂山, (laoshan, Mount Lao) as one or t'other of them. We figured it would be a smart move to go in the evening when it was cooler- it was nearly 30 degrees today! At first this was indeed smart and we climbed nice and high through the woods to various rocky outcrops to get a good view of the city. We could see just how smoggy Qingdao is- you could barely see the sea and the skyscrapers were just indistinct silhouettes. It some warped way it was quite a picturesque view- shrouded towers lurking in the gloom. As it got darker the city began to light up and Qingdao certainly looks quite spectacular at night! Then we climbed a little higher- Becka scampered up some rocks whilst I hovered below. Then it was starting to get really quite dark so we started our descent. Unfortunately night falls quite quickly and we had to go slowly down the steep path so we ended up slipping and sliding through the black trees hoping that there wouldn't be any sudden surprises. The Laoshan area is lovely to have though. All that green is a great antidote to the endless concrete!
On the way to Laoshan is a largish pool with a couple of tiny, ramshackle houses around it. One in particular is perched over the feeder waterfall which has a sculpted dragon in the middle. It's all overhung with gnarled trees and surrounded by green undergrowth. It looks like such a perfectly charming place to live. That's the thing about Qingdao. You could be in any city in the world but then occasionally you find a place where they've forgotten to build a skyscraper and it's suddenly rather special.
Becka, Jesse and I tried out a restaurant for dinner. We tried the usual lucky dip method of ordering "uh that character says sheep so we should get that one" which was partially successful. The 水饺 (shuijiao- boiled dumplings) were nice but the plate of shredded lamb accompanied by something annonymous wasn't a huge hit. I had ordered something from a picture and it seemed to be some sort of fried meat with sliced cucumber and a sauce. We had a fun time guessing the original animal involved. I think it was pork. I think.
Becka and I decided to have a crack at climbing the mountains behind the university- featuring 崂山, (laoshan, Mount Lao) as one or t'other of them. We figured it would be a smart move to go in the evening when it was cooler- it was nearly 30 degrees today! At first this was indeed smart and we climbed nice and high through the woods to various rocky outcrops to get a good view of the city. We could see just how smoggy Qingdao is- you could barely see the sea and the skyscrapers were just indistinct silhouettes. It some warped way it was quite a picturesque view- shrouded towers lurking in the gloom. As it got darker the city began to light up and Qingdao certainly looks quite spectacular at night! Then we climbed a little higher- Becka scampered up some rocks whilst I hovered below. Then it was starting to get really quite dark so we started our descent. Unfortunately night falls quite quickly and we had to go slowly down the steep path so we ended up slipping and sliding through the black trees hoping that there wouldn't be any sudden surprises. The Laoshan area is lovely to have though. All that green is a great antidote to the endless concrete!
On the way to Laoshan is a largish pool with a couple of tiny, ramshackle houses around it. One in particular is perched over the feeder waterfall which has a sculpted dragon in the middle. It's all overhung with gnarled trees and surrounded by green undergrowth. It looks like such a perfectly charming place to live. That's the thing about Qingdao. You could be in any city in the world but then occasionally you find a place where they've forgotten to build a skyscraper and it's suddenly rather special.
Becka, Jesse and I tried out a restaurant for dinner. We tried the usual lucky dip method of ordering "uh that character says sheep so we should get that one" which was partially successful. The 水饺 (shuijiao- boiled dumplings) were nice but the plate of shredded lamb accompanied by something annonymous wasn't a huge hit. I had ordered something from a picture and it seemed to be some sort of fried meat with sliced cucumber and a sauce. We had a fun time guessing the original animal involved. I think it was pork. I think.
2010-09-12
Made in Italy
So today had been designated Shopping Day. Was a model student and did homework in the morning (I am now the master of the construction 因为...所以) before Becka and I decided to go to 中山路 (Zhong Shan Lu, Middle Mountain Road) Our journey there was a little chaotic although we did get there eventually. There was a slightly surreal moment when we drove down a street filled with cages upon cages of puppies, kittens and baby bunny rabbits. I confess Becka and I had a little OMG SO SWEEEEEEEEEET moment- which seemed to worry the other bus passengers :P We had a little browse around the area which was part of the old German town so it was little streets amongst rather dilapidated looking brick buildings. There were lots of stalls on the roadside. We didn't buy much there although Becka got a red nightdress which was so awful it was nice :P We also found a shop selling lovely tea sets and I was tempted to buy one and then reasoned it was probably better to wait a bit. I got some obligatory pirate DVDs- Prince Caspian and the Dark Knight. The quality isn't so good but then they didn't exactly cost very much :P In the end we also bought two books from a stall. Mine has a picture of a decadent western woman smoking. It looked very glamorous and thrilling but you shouldn't judge a book by its cover- after a while we deciphered the title and it seemed to mean "Wild Flaming Chicken".* Then past the fish market and a building site to 即墨路 (Jimo Lu) where we found an underground clothes market. It was all about to shut but then we found a stall selling 旗袍, qipao- traditional Chinese dresses, and of course I had to buy something so I got me a nice black one with faint gold patterns on it. It's not full length-only a shirt- but it only cost me 180 元 (18 pounds) and it looks very stylish :D We are going to go back and get proper ones- they are about 400元 and good quality. So in the end had quite a haul to add to the Louis Vuitton bag I got last night- made in Italy and only 150元 :P
I have a sneaky feeling this year is just going to be about acquiring Stuff.
My bed is now covered in crumbs as Becka and Jesse had acquired some cheesecake and 月饼 (yuebing- mooncake). The cheesecake was slightly odd and I don't like mooncake. Mooncake is a small dense cake covered in patterns with wierd stuff inside.** They have it here to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival which is in a few weeks.
Becka and I are planning a trip to 苏州 (Suzhou-city not far from Shanghai) around National Day as Ruth is going to look for a wedding dress and invited us along. I'm thinking we might as well get ours while we're there!
Wierd moment of the day: fat kid on the bus kept staring at us and then whispering to its mother and giggling. I just glared back and then mentioned to Becka how fat it was. It didn't understand.
On the bus back from 即墨路 we went on an overpass and could see some red and green fireworks nearby. They looked lovely against the setting sun.
*Actually means "Wild Turkey" I think. Which isn't really much better.
**No not THAT wierd...
I have a sneaky feeling this year is just going to be about acquiring Stuff.
My bed is now covered in crumbs as Becka and Jesse had acquired some cheesecake and 月饼 (yuebing- mooncake). The cheesecake was slightly odd and I don't like mooncake. Mooncake is a small dense cake covered in patterns with wierd stuff inside.** They have it here to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival which is in a few weeks.
Becka and I are planning a trip to 苏州 (Suzhou-city not far from Shanghai) around National Day as Ruth is going to look for a wedding dress and invited us along. I'm thinking we might as well get ours while we're there!
Wierd moment of the day: fat kid on the bus kept staring at us and then whispering to its mother and giggling. I just glared back and then mentioned to Becka how fat it was. It didn't understand.
On the bus back from 即墨路 we went on an overpass and could see some red and green fireworks nearby. They looked lovely against the setting sun.
*Actually means "Wild Turkey" I think. Which isn't really much better.
**No not THAT wierd...
2010-09-11
你好
你好！
Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I will be writing this blog for the duration of my year abroad in Qingdao- mostly to remind myself when I am sat on the 5th floor of the library in Edinburgh next year that I was indeed in China and it wasn't all just a dream!
So a bit of background: I am at the Ocean University of China, 中国海洋大学, in 青岛市，山东省，中国。 That is, Green Island City, East of the Mountains Province, the Middle Kingdom. It is a very nice city although I am only just starting to find my way around. I'm living quite close to the beach which is very nice- although you have to watch where you put your feet... There are also some pretty mountains nearby which I shall explore eventually. A previous attempt failed because I melted into one big puddle in the heat and humidity. The weather is a bit rubbish at the moment as we have the last of the monsoon dribbling on us although today there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Just the smog.
I have been spending the past few days trying to sort all the paperwork out. Chinese beaurocracy is an awesome thing to behold. It took 5 different forms and a photocopy of my passport to just get hold of a sim card! While I'm not quite a fully legal resident yet I have great hopes of getting a permit next Friday-although it wouldn't surprise me if I had another round of form filling after that!
Am now heading off to find dinner. Might get 包子 (baozi)-which are a kind of dumpling. They taste nice but if I'm being honest one can have too many 包子 in one's life...
xxx
P.s. the name means "Hello, a cup of Earl Grey tea please". It's what I say at Starbucks. See how I'm immersing myself in Chinese culture!
Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I will be writing this blog for the duration of my year abroad in Qingdao- mostly to remind myself when I am sat on the 5th floor of the library in Edinburgh next year that I was indeed in China and it wasn't all just a dream!
So a bit of background: I am at the Ocean University of China, 中国海洋大学, in 青岛市，山东省，中国。 That is, Green Island City, East of the Mountains Province, the Middle Kingdom. It is a very nice city although I am only just starting to find my way around. I'm living quite close to the beach which is very nice- although you have to watch where you put your feet... There are also some pretty mountains nearby which I shall explore eventually. A previous attempt failed because I melted into one big puddle in the heat and humidity. The weather is a bit rubbish at the moment as we have the last of the monsoon dribbling on us although today there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Just the smog.
I have been spending the past few days trying to sort all the paperwork out. Chinese beaurocracy is an awesome thing to behold. It took 5 different forms and a photocopy of my passport to just get hold of a sim card! While I'm not quite a fully legal resident yet I have great hopes of getting a permit next Friday-although it wouldn't surprise me if I had another round of form filling after that!
Am now heading off to find dinner. Might get 包子 (baozi)-which are a kind of dumpling. They taste nice but if I'm being honest one can have too many 包子 in one's life...
xxx
P.s. the name means "Hello, a cup of Earl Grey tea please". It's what I say at Starbucks. See how I'm immersing myself in Chinese culture!
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