The thing about China is that it asks me questions that the answers to which I have not thought about before. For example when wandering around Jusco in search of somewhere to buy phone credit, I came across a life size stuffed leopard, which may or may not have been real. And I thought, do I need one of those in my life? I had no idea if I did.
Yesterday started off badly. I have had a cold for a week now and by yesterday I was getting rather run down. Plus the temperature here has plunged somewhat, which does not help! So, after dragging my achingly tired body through the blistering wind (I swear I have never felt anything that cold before!) to class my mood was low. Particularly as I knew that after the next 4 hours of class I had an erhu lesson and then 2 hours of teaching. I cursed myself for biting off more than I could chew. The teacher commented that I looked ill and recommended I take some medicine. I mumbled something about not sure where to find western medicine and she smiled and asked if I didn't like Chinese medicine. I muttered something nondescript as I thought it impolite to mention that I doubted dried bits of animal would do me much good...
After the first 2 hours of class though I came up with a plan. Instead of oral class I escaped to Starbucks and damn it was a good move! Curled up in a snuggly warm armchair with some lovely early grey tea, I felt a lot more capable! I then also had a Bright Idea. Namely that next Saturday is, I believe, Christmas and that I did not see it being much full of joy, what with it being spent in frozen Qingdao without family or turkey. Soo I suddenly thought "let's go to Harbin instead". Harbin is a city in China's far north-east and is famous for its ice sculptures. And being the coldest city in China but anyway I suddenly started reading about it and looking at prices and then started to get very excited. Very very excited. Spending Christmas wandering a snowy city, especially one as full of Russian architecture as Harbin, looking at pretty ice sculptures, husky sledding on the river, followed by a sampling of Harbin's famously raucous nightlife seemed almost as good as being at home! So I fired off text messages at Becka and may have succeeded in emotionally blackmailing her to come...
So the mere thought of a trip cheered me up no end. I faced my Erhu lesson with resolve and was relieved to find that the reason my erhu sounded so bad was because the bridge was in the wrong place. Phew! My teaching went alright as well although I was teaching some Korean teenagers who had started class at 8am and this was now their last two lessons of the day at 4:30 so you can imagine the enthusiasm... And then a nice surprise of Daisy suddenly asking to meet up for dinner. We went to Lisa's and had a nice time chatting.
On the way to class yesterday Sara, my flatmate, commented that people stared at me a lot. I have to admit, I have stopped noticing! Although when a car turned into an entrance in front of me today, it paused for 5 seconds as the driver stared at me, mouth open.
Fingers crossed for Harbin!
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