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...