It’s my golden birthday!
On Saturday, I ventured out
into the extreme humidity that is Chinese summer and had some dumplings for
lunch, before walking to Starbucks, where I met Brooke and Marie. They were a
bit later arriving than me and I found us a table. What I didn’t realise in
China, is that reserving two empty chairs is a complete mission, and you have
to be on a constant look out for a nippy Chinese person looking to either pinch
one or sit down at one. I’d say at least half of the people on the outdoor
terrace weren’t even customers of Starbucks, and just wanted a quick rest /
sleep before heading elsewhere. This definitely wouldn’t happen in England!
We spent a couple of hours
chatting and people watching, and saw a young boy walk out proudly with an
ice-cream cone only to bump into a chair and lose the entire ice-cream section.
I think he really enjoyed eating just a cone! I also enjoyed the amount of
slogan t-shirts that were sported by people walking by, my particular
favourites being ‘Don’t cry and get upset, say F you and smile’ and also a
couple with the boy wearing ‘Basketball is my girlfriend’ and girl, ‘Basketball
is my boyfriend’. Wow.
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| Celebrating Norway day |
Our dinner that evening was
at an Indian restaurant named ‘Cacaja’ and it was incredible. Marie, Brooke and
I were far too excited and ordered most of the menu. I then ate myself into a
food coma with korma, chicken tikka masala, garlic naan, rice, pakoras and
other delicious things. Of course, after every Indian meal, you should always
try and use a squat toilet. It didn’t go well for me and after first
accidentally entering the men’s, I then proceeded to wee all over my open-toe
sandals. They were disinfected within an inch of their lives as soon as I got
home (although I don’t know why I bother as I probably step in street urine on
a daily basis).
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| Waiting for our food |
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| The best meal ever |
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| Inside Cacaja restaurant |
On Sunday, my plan was to
have a relatively decent lie-in before teaching in the afternoon and evening.
Oh no, cue 7.30am drilling from the apartment directly below me. And
when I say drilling, I mean the sort that is so loud I couldn’t hear my
tutoring kids ring the doorbell, and my bed was actually vibrating. Luckily,
the parents helped me complain about these 10 hours of hell (plus the same on
Thursday and Friday) and hopefully, they’ll schedule their drilling for
slightly later in the day.
I was near enough dead by
the time 4pm rolled around and my teaching started, but I managed
to coerce myself into an excited state to perform all the essentials e.g.
‘Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes’ and ‘Hokey Cokey’. The children and I were
practically napping by the time the class ended and their parents ended up
carrying them down the stairs. My bad. Onto the adults teaching and 2 hours of
listening to Chinese people speak English sounds really easy, but I’m so used
to Chinglish now, that I forget what is grammatically correct and what isn’t. I
particularly enjoyed one man using ‘conservation’ instead of ‘conversation’ for
the entire evening, despite my attempts to correct him. Therefore, he was
protecting anything and everything!
Monday mornings are so
difficult to wake up for, but I had a cunning plan. The plan involved 1 hour
and 30 magical minutes of Shrek the movie. Perfect timing, the students
absolutely loved it (although they laughed at all the wrong times, which in
turn made me laugh) and I got all my grading finished. Hoorah for productive
lessons. I came home and enjoyed the golden silence of no drilling during the
lunch break, but as soon as it started up again (how many tiles are there in a
bathroom, I mean seriously?!) I headed over to Dean’s empty apartment and
chilled whilst he was at work.
It was unusually quiet and I
managed a whole movie without somebody using an electrical appliance of some
sort in the neighbouring apartments. Let me give an example of my usual noise
level – I have drilling downstairs, a karaoke machine above me, music to the left
and music combined with constant chopping to my right. I can safely report that
the man on karaoke is horrendous and the chopping hasn’t yet produced a meal,
that I have been given to eat. Therefore, these sounds need to stop
immediately.
Tuesday was supposed to be a
day full of culture with Brooke, but it turned into a scenic ride along line 2
on the subway instead. We met at Hongshan and immediately found a Starbucks and
so naturally, that was our first stop of the day. The plan was then to go and
explore round that area but on emerging from the subway, we found a park and
lots of buildings with not much else to see. The park itself was quite nice (although
the water feature had no water so total disappointment). It did however, have
the shiniest water fountains I have ever seen, because when leaving the subway
you must get a drink. After our ten-minute park tour we headed to Fanhu.
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| Hongshan Square |
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| The depressing buildings |
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| At least the water fountains were shiny... |
I had read online that the Wuhan museum was supposedly nearby but it was a disaster.
We emerged to a completely undeveloped area with lots of workmen sitting under
trees and in their vans having lunch. Not exactly an ideal location for a
museum. It was ridiculously humid and we couldn’t find this museum (probably
been demolished for apartments, knowing China) and decided to head back the other way and
hopefully back to civilisation. Our next stop of choice was Baotong Temple but I definitely wasn’t climbing a temple in the heat. Instead, we
browsed shops, ate a McDonald’s and then went our separate ways. I spent the
evening relaxing in my lovely cool apartment. What an uncultured day we had!
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| Very unimpressed by Fanhu |
On Wednesday, I happily
dragged myself to class, knowing that Shrek the movie would be enough
entertainment and I could do my work. I then had to try and get a reference
number for my flight home (easier said than done as they don’t exist in China). Janet initially thought that the number was my
passport number .....it includes letters!? Anyway, I think I have one and so
trotted off to Rosa coffee at Zhongnan Road, and waited for Brooke and Paul to join me. We were
supposed to meet Marie and then go explore Hankou but this didn’t happen so
instead we ended up having lunch nearby before finding the draw of an
air-conditioned mall far too exciting.
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| What are we doing?! |
On one of the floors was a
North Face shop, and next to it was an area set up to be like a campsite, with
a tent, table, chairs and even a disposable BBQ. We decided to play camping for
a good 20 minutes (this included playing in the tent and using the blankets),
whilst a crowd of Chinese shop assistants gathered. Eventually, somebody who
spoke English was called to tell us that we couldn’t be here, at which point,
Brooke proceeded to ask how much the chairs were. The woman actually ran off to
check and we scarpered quickly!
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| Getting the blanket out |
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| Relaxing in my tent |
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| Anyone for a drink? |
After all this excitement,
we all travelled home and then I went to drink cocktails for the entire
afternoon with Dean. By 8pm
I was pretty tipsy and ended up going for dinner (where a child was walking
precariously close to our table with two badminton rackets the entire time) and
then onto Radio Rock for a few more drinks. I can’t handle my alcohol anymore
as I was home in bed by 11.30pm. I’m so rock and roll.
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| Before things went downhill |
The next day wasn’t exactly
productive as I slept until midday before finally, summoning the energy to do something with my day. I did
however, salvage the remainder of my day by cleaning and batch cooking my final
set of foods before coming home. It’s like a food countdown – once the freezer
is empty I can leave! I also got my dates wrong and thought I had tutoring,
when in fact I didn’t so it was another excuse for me to get back into bed and
relax.
After finishing my classes
on Friday, I met Dean and he bought me a Burger King as an early birthday
treat. We also got some delicious mango smoothies, which came with no lid, so I
had to balance myself on the back on the moped with a smoothie in each hand for
the ride back! It was a risky time for all involved. We ate our amazing food
and watched a film before I headed home to nap before my birthday night out
commenced. I turned up at Dean’s house later on and soon after, everyone else
started arriving for pre-drinks. We played this game where you stick a card to
your head and have to ask questions about (probably has a proper name but I
don’t know it). I also had this vile drink, that sadly I’d made myself, so I
definitely wasn’t having that and we headed out to Radio Rock instead.
Before we headed inside the
bar, Will and Olivi wanted to get a very late dinner so I joined them and had
some rice. Olivi was so drunk that he could barely use his chopsticks, so I
pretty much had to feed him peppers and aubergines! It was very funny. We got
to the bar and everyone was there. Literally, the whole population in Wuhan that I know were in the bar. I got bought many
drinks as the birthday girl and we counted down to midnight before dancing with a group of random people – what
an excellent start to my 23rd. I went home earlyish and got a good
sleep, ready for the next day.
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| Pre-drinks! |
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| Excellent photography skills by the Chinese lady |
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| Hating all the tequila in my drinks |
Unbelievably, I woke up on
Saturday morning at 7.30am, hungover-free and wide awake. It was a complete miracle but I wasn’t
wasting my day in bed. Instead, I got up and after a highly nutritious
breakfast of rainbow cookies (all the e numbers), I opened my cards and
presents, although I’m still waiting on lots more from people because China takes 10 years to deliver mail! I got ready and
headed out to meet Brooke at Starbucks. I arrived to find a present and drink
waiting for me, which was obviously the best thing ever and so my day was
already off to a good start.
We both headed up to China Normal University (yes, that is its real name) and met Marie and Carley, before heading
to an international culture festival on campus. It was super busy and crazy,
but I had a fabulous time eating Vietnamese spring rolls, getting a Yemen
sticker on my arm and visiting the inside of a yurt from Mongolia. However,
there were definitely countries there that I’d never even heard of, I’m sure
some were made-up! My favourite part was how they spelt my country – United
Kingdon....oh the shame. I had to pretend to be from somewhere else!
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| Culture festival entrance |
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| Nobody turned up from America - it was a sad day |
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| Fabulous spelling... |
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| The festival was ridiculously busy |
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| Some form of band playing (not sure which country) |
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| Oh the irony... |
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| Tucking in to potato salad and chicken from Rwanda |
After our snacks from around
the world, we were obviously starving, so headed to meet Paul and grab some
lunch. I had this delicious pak choi, spicy cabbage and rice meal and felt very
virtuous for all the vegetables (we won’t mention the apple pie that happened
later on). Our adventurous day then took us to Fuxinglu station, where there
was supposedly a park. In China, you take the mention of a park with a pinch of
salt, as a park on the map is usually 16 apartment blocks on close inspection,
but this park was real. It was a very quiet, rather beautiful park with some
gorgeous views and we just wandered round and relaxed. Brooke did bring her
badminton set but despite the best of intentions, it remained firmly inside the
bag. The walking was enough for us!
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| At the park |
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| Attempting the titanic pose |
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| Having a rest |
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| Paul wasn't overly pleased! |
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| I didn't want to come down |
After a very chilled
afternoon, we headed back on the subway for some dinner at Grandma’s Kitchen.
It’s a western-style restaurant with THE BEST burgers and I had to have one,
even though it took four napkins to cover up all of my white top in case of
spillage. The things I do for fashion. Anyway, we had some delicious food and
then desserts before saying goodbye and all heading home. It had been a pretty
full on day for everyone, so I came back to Skype my family, before crawling
into bed and watching a film. Overall, it was a very relaxing and sociable
birthday and having my 23rd on the 23rd (Golden
birthday!) in China, is something I won’t forget.
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| My amazing spicy burger |
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| Waiting for food at Grandma's kitchen |
