Pished

So today had some rather amusing moments that only China could provide. This afternoon we headed off to Taidong Night Market to buy Becka some boots. The market starts from around 4pm and last until 10pm and you can generally buy anything you want there. Anything.

There was a brief moment where I was aware of some Chinese men making shapes with their hands around their noses and laughing in my general direction. In the corner of my eye the female stall owner zoomed into my field of vision to also view my face. I felt silly. We left.

We walked past a stall that I didn't look twice at but after hearing Becka squeal, I backtracked. She'd spotted fluffy, white, baby rabbits in some handy portable cages. And some fluffy, baby hamsters. Aaaaaannnndddd a crate full of very fluffy puppies... Becka loves puppies. A lot. And before I could stop her she'd scooped one up and was making maternal cooey noises. At this point the seller inquired as to our nationality. British!, I replied brightly. Thank god I did! Turns out this particular guy has a, er, somewhat strong disliking for Americans! He had some characters scrawled on one of the hamsters' cage that I didn't understand entirely but started off with 美国鬼子，日本鬼子. The man asked if I understood the meaning. 美国 is America and 日本 is Japan and 鬼子 means devils, as in foreign, ******* ********* devils. (He also didn't like the Japanese but this is pretty standard for China. As Vivien, my normally sweet jolly language partner, says, "we hate them!"). The man then went on a rant about America, saying that America bullies China. Which has a grain of truth one must admit...

Then he said that the UK was alright. I was glad. He had obviously forgotten about the Opium Wars...

Then I had the difficult task of de-puppying Becka. The puppy was very soft and furry and had big brown eyes and was shivering. It only cost 150元, 15quid. My heart moistened a little. Eventually I found the will and tore it from Becka's protesting arms and dumped it back in the puddle of puppies whence it came.

Becka will never forgive me.

Then we headed off back to the city centre, with Becka mewing about "bonding" and "subsititute child" as we were scheduled to meet Vivien and Candy to take them to a Western restaurant for dinner. They'd bought us a mini Christmas tree and some snow globes which was very sweet of them. Then we started on the food. As it was Christmas I was determined to have a bally good spread and proceeded to work my way through a soup course, a salad, lovely rare fillet steak and then a hot hot apple pie, accompanied by extra chips and onion rings, washed down with a bottle of Western red wine (so it tastes half decent- Chinese wine is DIRE). Needless to say I am rather stuffed right now! After that Becka and I decided to live a little and we ordered some Hennessey Cognac for all four of us. At this point Vivien and Candy, who had screeched at the cost of the wine (200元- but worth it) noticed the price of a glass (45元) and we had a mini, or rather a large, fight which had the poor waitress trying to work out whether to believe the Chinese or the Laowai about whether to order...Eventually I won and four glasses duly arrived. Needless to say Candy and Vivien didn't really like the taste of brandy but they manfully drank up.

We ended up walking through the streets of Qingdao singing the Chinese language version of Jingle Bells at the top of our voices. I say walking, Vivien was more stumbling. Then we piled into a taxi and carried on a rather bizarre conversation in a mixture of languages. The taxi driver was shaking with laughter. Becka and I were dropped off outside our flat and the last I saw was them hanging out of the window shouting "I LOVE YOU!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMASSSS!!!"

I feel slightly bad for getting them drunk but at the same time, damn funny!

The bill was 601元. By Western standards, at 15 quid a head, that's not bad although admittedly it is in China. But so worth it!