26th
Today was the best day for class because we dont start till 9.30, and our normal teacher was away so we had another teacher who was much better. and during the break we had a nice chat with some of the people in our class and because frankie and i cant go out for the meal tomorrow they said that they would arrange something else for after golden week which is really nice.
Gemma wasnt very well today so i said i would go to the doctors with her, and we discovered that there was a hospital on campus so we went there. It was an interesting experience. Gemma got to go straight to the front of the queue and our doctor only spoke a bit of english, but i had brought my electronic dictionary which helped. After they took some blood and did some tests the woman was saying that gemma would need to have something done but we couldnt understand what that word was and when i put it in my dictionary it came up as a blood transfusion!!! so gemma was obv really worried about what was going to happen to her and we thought that it had to be a mis-translation we started ringing all our chinese friends who could speak english to see if they could explain it to us and eventually we found out that it was an IV drip. So in China, if you're ill you dont get medicine, they drip the medicine into you so that you get better more quickly and so you dont have to miss uni/work, genius!
So gemma got her drip and we went and sat in "drip room" which is a room full of people on drips, it was really wierd.
In the evening frankie and i went out with vannessa, cherry and justin to a club in town called babyface which was so cool. we had to spend over 600yuan on drinks to get a table, but thats only £7 each. In china people buy drinks by the bottle rather than individual drinks so we got a bottle of whisky and mixed it with brown tea which was really nice. and in the clubs people play drinking games with dice which was really fun, altho some people had a bit too much to drink. The music was really good too, some chinese dance music! the chinese men were really into their dancing, it was so funny. At one point everyone was just sat at our table so i thought i'd just go and dance in the middle of the really busy dance floor and see if any chinese men would come and dance with me, and one guy came and said "we just dance, ok?" so i said yes, but his dancing was hilarious and i couldnt stop laughing. and he asked me what was so funny and i just said that i was really happy, and then her carried on dancing. frankie came to dance with me, but we saw that cherry was really upset so we went to find out waht was wrong and it turned out that she'd just broken up with her boyf and some horrible sleazy western man in the club had just gone up to her and asked her to go back to his hotel room, sooooooooooo horrible!!! and then unfortunately vanessa wasnt very well so we went home. but we werent very tired so frankie, justin and i went to lie on the sports field for a while, and cos it was 2.30am no one was there and it was really nice and peaceful. but then a strange man started walking round the running track wearing his pyjamas and a white face mask like the ones that doctors wear, it was so strange.
Thursday 27 September 2007
Tuesday 25 September 2007
A boring week
Im afraid this is another dull blog entry as I havent been doing much.
22nd
Last week Frankie and Fran were going out to get some tea and two chinese guys aproached them and asked if they could be friends so obv frankie and fran sad yes and the two guys took them out for a meal. So today they were going to take them out for a meal and sarah and i tagged along too. They are called vincent and greg and they are really nice, although possibly the biggest geeks ever. They couldnt meet for lunch or tea during the week because they had to study, and when we asked tehm what they would be doing in golden week they said that they would be studying, fun!
We had lunch at Sarahs and they werent sure what to order because it wasnt chinese food so i told vincent that he should have a pizza. but when it arrived he couldnt use the cuttlery because he's only ever used chopsticks so i had to explain how to use a knife and fork, which is actually quite hard to explain but he got the hang of it eventually.
In the afternoon I had to go back to the post office because I had a couple of parcels to send and when i gave the guy the parcels he didnt even ask what was in them, unlike the woman the day before who insisted on opening everything.
23rd
For lunch today frankie and I decided to go the korean restaurant just down the road from campus. I really liked it until I started looking through the menu and I saw that they had dog!!!!!!!!!!!! its so wrong, people shouldnt eat it. We ordered our food and then a guy came and started a fire in the middle of our table and frankie had to cook the chicken that shed ordered. The food was all really nice, but when we got the bill there was something extra added on and we had to pay for the oven on the table, so as well as paying for our food, we had to pay to cook it!
25th
Today was mid-autumn festival. Im not entirely sure what that is, but i think that its the day when the moon is supposed to be at its brightest and people eat moon cakes. So in the evening we all met on the sports field and had a little picnic and moon cakes, although they werent really very nice. They look slightly like pork pies but they have something really wierd inside them which is really sweet. The moon festival wasnt really that exciting but it we had a really nice evening anyway and Justin persuaded frankie and i to move to cleveland.
22nd
Last week Frankie and Fran were going out to get some tea and two chinese guys aproached them and asked if they could be friends so obv frankie and fran sad yes and the two guys took them out for a meal. So today they were going to take them out for a meal and sarah and i tagged along too. They are called vincent and greg and they are really nice, although possibly the biggest geeks ever. They couldnt meet for lunch or tea during the week because they had to study, and when we asked tehm what they would be doing in golden week they said that they would be studying, fun!
We had lunch at Sarahs and they werent sure what to order because it wasnt chinese food so i told vincent that he should have a pizza. but when it arrived he couldnt use the cuttlery because he's only ever used chopsticks so i had to explain how to use a knife and fork, which is actually quite hard to explain but he got the hang of it eventually.
In the afternoon I had to go back to the post office because I had a couple of parcels to send and when i gave the guy the parcels he didnt even ask what was in them, unlike the woman the day before who insisted on opening everything.
23rd
For lunch today frankie and I decided to go the korean restaurant just down the road from campus. I really liked it until I started looking through the menu and I saw that they had dog!!!!!!!!!!!! its so wrong, people shouldnt eat it. We ordered our food and then a guy came and started a fire in the middle of our table and frankie had to cook the chicken that shed ordered. The food was all really nice, but when we got the bill there was something extra added on and we had to pay for the oven on the table, so as well as paying for our food, we had to pay to cook it!
25th
Today was mid-autumn festival. Im not entirely sure what that is, but i think that its the day when the moon is supposed to be at its brightest and people eat moon cakes. So in the evening we all met on the sports field and had a little picnic and moon cakes, although they werent really very nice. They look slightly like pork pies but they have something really wierd inside them which is really sweet. The moon festival wasnt really that exciting but it we had a really nice evening anyway and Justin persuaded frankie and i to move to cleveland.
Friday 21 September 2007
外 国 人
21st September
This morning frankie persuaded me to skip class, and we went to have a cultural day. We cycled to south shanghai metro station, got on the metro to the train station and then took the bus from there thinking that the bus would take us to Jiading. The bus ride was quite exciting because we went quite far out of the centre and saw loads of shanghai that I havent seen before, and we drove past B&Q which was most exciting. The guidebook was quite vague about where this bus took us to, and when the bus turned around to go back the way it came we decided to get off. However, it was in a really random part of shanghai which wasnt really that nice, and they obviously didnt have many foreigners there because everyone was staring at us, and some people who drove past were shouting hello and beeping the car horns at us. Also, there were quite a lot of people walking around in their pyjamas, strange behaviour.
We saw a security guard and frankie went to ask him where we should go to get to the gardens, so he pointed us in the right direction and said that it wasnt far. So we set off and after a while we thought we should ask someone else so I went to ask a guy and he didnt understand but his friend did and he told us to carry on going and that it wasnt far so we carried on walking. But it didnt seem like the kind of place that the guidebook had described and we saw a hotel so we thought we would go in there and ask. But they didnt know where the place was, and after several phone calls they told us that we could take a taxi or a bus, so obviously we went for the taxi. They told us to sit and wait and that they would call one so we waited and waited . . . . and then eventually a woman came over to us and said that they couldnt get us a taxi and she pointed at a man and said he would drive us for 30yuan so we got in his car. At one point he turned down a little track and i was slightly concerned that he was taking us to the middle of nowhere to kill us but then we eventually got to a main road and we arrived at the Guyi yuan garden.
the garden was so pretty, and it was so nice to be somewhere that wasnt polluted and really noisy, but then loads of school children arrived and they ruined the peacefulness. But they were so funny. I was just sat on a bench by the lake and a group of girls came and stood behind me and I heard them whisper 外 国 人 (foreigner) and then they stood there for a while whispering and eventually one of them said hello, and i replied in chinese and then one of the shouted 外 国 人 侻 中 丈 (the foreginer speaks chinese) and the screamed and ran away, it was funny. And then loads of younger school children started walking past me with their teachers and they were all pointing at me and shouting 外 国 人! 外 国 人! it was really funny. Frankie and I hired a boat and went around the little lake for a while which was really cool but there were school children all around the garden and we kept shouting 外 国 人 or "hello" whenever they saw us.
We left the garden and walked to the yunxiang temple. We followed the directions in the guidebook, and on the way there we stopped for KFC which was good. We carried on walking to the temple but we got really lost somehow even though it was supposed to be really close to the gardens. So i went to ask a lady and she told us to follow her and she took us to the temple. The directions in the guidebook were wrong, sooooooo annoying!!
But the temple was amazing. When we got there there were some people burning something in a courtyard and when they set fire to it, the monks came out and were chanting and had various little musical instruments, it was amazing (and such good timing to arrive then). After that the monks went back into one of the temples. The temples were all so amazing, and they had massive gold budha statues in them. It was an amazing place.
This morning frankie persuaded me to skip class, and we went to have a cultural day. We cycled to south shanghai metro station, got on the metro to the train station and then took the bus from there thinking that the bus would take us to Jiading. The bus ride was quite exciting because we went quite far out of the centre and saw loads of shanghai that I havent seen before, and we drove past B&Q which was most exciting. The guidebook was quite vague about where this bus took us to, and when the bus turned around to go back the way it came we decided to get off. However, it was in a really random part of shanghai which wasnt really that nice, and they obviously didnt have many foreigners there because everyone was staring at us, and some people who drove past were shouting hello and beeping the car horns at us. Also, there were quite a lot of people walking around in their pyjamas, strange behaviour.
We saw a security guard and frankie went to ask him where we should go to get to the gardens, so he pointed us in the right direction and said that it wasnt far. So we set off and after a while we thought we should ask someone else so I went to ask a guy and he didnt understand but his friend did and he told us to carry on going and that it wasnt far so we carried on walking. But it didnt seem like the kind of place that the guidebook had described and we saw a hotel so we thought we would go in there and ask. But they didnt know where the place was, and after several phone calls they told us that we could take a taxi or a bus, so obviously we went for the taxi. They told us to sit and wait and that they would call one so we waited and waited . . . . and then eventually a woman came over to us and said that they couldnt get us a taxi and she pointed at a man and said he would drive us for 30yuan so we got in his car. At one point he turned down a little track and i was slightly concerned that he was taking us to the middle of nowhere to kill us but then we eventually got to a main road and we arrived at the Guyi yuan garden.
the garden was so pretty, and it was so nice to be somewhere that wasnt polluted and really noisy, but then loads of school children arrived and they ruined the peacefulness. But they were so funny. I was just sat on a bench by the lake and a group of girls came and stood behind me and I heard them whisper 外 国 人 (foreigner) and then they stood there for a while whispering and eventually one of them said hello, and i replied in chinese and then one of the shouted 外 国 人 侻 中 丈 (the foreginer speaks chinese) and the screamed and ran away, it was funny. And then loads of younger school children started walking past me with their teachers and they were all pointing at me and shouting 外 国 人! 外 国 人! it was really funny. Frankie and I hired a boat and went around the little lake for a while which was really cool but there were school children all around the garden and we kept shouting 外 国 人 or "hello" whenever they saw us.
We left the garden and walked to the yunxiang temple. We followed the directions in the guidebook, and on the way there we stopped for KFC which was good. We carried on walking to the temple but we got really lost somehow even though it was supposed to be really close to the gardens. So i went to ask a lady and she told us to follow her and she took us to the temple. The directions in the guidebook were wrong, sooooooo annoying!!
But the temple was amazing. When we got there there were some people burning something in a courtyard and when they set fire to it, the monks came out and were chanting and had various little musical instruments, it was amazing (and such good timing to arrive then). After that the monks went back into one of the temples. The temples were all so amazing, and they had massive gold budha statues in them. It was an amazing place.
Electronic dictionaries are so cool
20th September
Today after class we met sarah and went for lunch with her and some people in her class. We went to an amazing place for lunch which is run by a little chinese guy who speak english and indonesian, and he has a funny beard. The food was so good. We had sweet bananas (bananas covered in caramel) and sweet potatoes which were covered in caramel and a couple of other things, it was so yummy and really cheap.
After lunch we went to xujiahui because we wanted to get electronic dictionaries. Its so hard doing work when you have to look up chinese words in a dictionary because it takes so long and all the korean people in our class have electronic ones so we thought we should get them too. Frankie and I got really cool ones which let you write the character on the screen with a special pen and then it tells you what it means. Its amazing. And sarah got one that does loads of different languages because she wanted it to translate chinese to german. But it took sarah a while to get hers because she had to wait for a guy to finish his break. But we didnt mind because the shop was soooooooo cool. First of all frankie and I played on all the pianos and guitars and the electric drums and then we played computer games for a while, and when we got bored of that we went to look at the laptops and checked our emails. It kept us entertained for ages!
Whe we got back justin was sat downstairs in our halls using the wireless so we talked to him for a while, and he was telling us that the other day he was thinking about which of his friends in america would be the most suitable boyfriends for us, mines called Jim!
Today after class we met sarah and went for lunch with her and some people in her class. We went to an amazing place for lunch which is run by a little chinese guy who speak english and indonesian, and he has a funny beard. The food was so good. We had sweet bananas (bananas covered in caramel) and sweet potatoes which were covered in caramel and a couple of other things, it was so yummy and really cheap.
After lunch we went to xujiahui because we wanted to get electronic dictionaries. Its so hard doing work when you have to look up chinese words in a dictionary because it takes so long and all the korean people in our class have electronic ones so we thought we should get them too. Frankie and I got really cool ones which let you write the character on the screen with a special pen and then it tells you what it means. Its amazing. And sarah got one that does loads of different languages because she wanted it to translate chinese to german. But it took sarah a while to get hers because she had to wait for a guy to finish his break. But we didnt mind because the shop was soooooooo cool. First of all frankie and I played on all the pianos and guitars and the electric drums and then we played computer games for a while, and when we got bored of that we went to look at the laptops and checked our emails. It kept us entertained for ages!
Whe we got back justin was sat downstairs in our halls using the wireless so we talked to him for a while, and he was telling us that the other day he was thinking about which of his friends in america would be the most suitable boyfriends for us, mines called Jim!
the TYPHOON
18th September
For the past few days there had been these announcements around uni from the little speakers that there are everywhere and obviously i couldnt understand them so i thought they werent important and i just ignored them.
This afternoon i met sunny and taught her all about british politics and she translated my reading stuff for me because its soooooooooo difficult, and i asked her what the announcements were saying and she told me that they were safety announcements for the typhoon that was about to hit shanghai.And when i got home I had an email from my dad asking if i was ok because he'd heard about the typhoon on the news.
It was so exciting!
We looked for information about it on the internet and frankie read that it was a level 10 typhoon was is quite serious!
19th September - the most dissapoiting typhoon ever
The typhoon was supposed to happen during the night but all that happened where we live was just loads of rain and a bit of wind that made our windows rattle slightly.
Although quite a lot of people used it as an excuse to miss class this morning, but because im so dedicated i still went lol.
In the afternoon I went to the post office to post jen's birthday gifts, I hate the woman who works at the post office. She asked me what was in the parcel so i told her that they were birthday gifts and that wasnt a good enough answer for her so she opened the envelope and took out all the gifts, that were beautifully wrapped, and asked me what they were. So i tried in my best chinese to explain what they all were. But she didnt understand and she unwrapped them!!! i was sooooo angry. And then I had to fill in loads of forms saying that I didnt mind if the customs people opened my parcel to see what was in it and it was so much hassle. And then she put them all into a different envelope and i didnt see what she put in that envelope because she took it to another room so i couldnt see.
Went to sarahs and had beer and curry for tea, was nice.
For the past few days there had been these announcements around uni from the little speakers that there are everywhere and obviously i couldnt understand them so i thought they werent important and i just ignored them.
This afternoon i met sunny and taught her all about british politics and she translated my reading stuff for me because its soooooooooo difficult, and i asked her what the announcements were saying and she told me that they were safety announcements for the typhoon that was about to hit shanghai.And when i got home I had an email from my dad asking if i was ok because he'd heard about the typhoon on the news.
It was so exciting!
We looked for information about it on the internet and frankie read that it was a level 10 typhoon was is quite serious!
19th September - the most dissapoiting typhoon ever
The typhoon was supposed to happen during the night but all that happened where we live was just loads of rain and a bit of wind that made our windows rattle slightly.
Although quite a lot of people used it as an excuse to miss class this morning, but because im so dedicated i still went lol.
In the afternoon I went to the post office to post jen's birthday gifts, I hate the woman who works at the post office. She asked me what was in the parcel so i told her that they were birthday gifts and that wasnt a good enough answer for her so she opened the envelope and took out all the gifts, that were beautifully wrapped, and asked me what they were. So i tried in my best chinese to explain what they all were. But she didnt understand and she unwrapped them!!! i was sooooo angry. And then I had to fill in loads of forms saying that I didnt mind if the customs people opened my parcel to see what was in it and it was so much hassle. And then she put them all into a different envelope and i didnt see what she put in that envelope because she took it to another room so i couldnt see.
Went to sarahs and had beer and curry for tea, was nice.
Thursday 20 September 2007
My blog is going to be boring!
Well, im afraid that my blog is now going to start getting a bit boring because all I do is go to lectures and then work, so much fun. Although I have been doing a couple of things that arent just going to class and doing work . . . . .
14th September
This afternoon we had to apply for our residents permits so we went to the ICCS building and there we had to give our passport to a policeman and then he filled in our application form. The policeman was sooooo rude. He read my chinese name, and then he asked me if my name was 劳 拉 so i said yes, and then he just started laughing because he thought my name was really funny, so rude!
In the evening we thought we'd go to the womens world cup football and watch england play germany because fran and sarah had tickets, and we thought there would still be tickets left because no one likes womens football. But it was sooooooo busy, it was crazy. So many people had come from UK and Germany to watch the match!! So because we couldnt get tickets we went to the pub next to the stadium and I had a chinese beer which was very nice, and soooooo cheap.
15th and 16th September
Watched heroes all weekend because justin bought the box set and gave it to us. Its so good
17th September
SARAHS - this is the best restaurant in the world.
There is a restaurant on campus called sarahs and it does proper food, its sooooooooo good. The have pasta, pizza, salads, chips and the other night I had curry which was really good.
It is probably the best restaurant I've been to as im getting a bit sick of chinese food now, and its all so unhealthy.
In the afternoon I went shopping to xujiahui and I was just in the underground market and two chinese girls came up to me and said hello and i replied in chinese, and they were really excited that I could speak chinese and we had a little chat. And then one of them said to me that I was really beautiful and so I disagreed, and THEN she said, yes you are really beautiful because you have a big nose!!! HOW RUDE
14th September
This afternoon we had to apply for our residents permits so we went to the ICCS building and there we had to give our passport to a policeman and then he filled in our application form. The policeman was sooooo rude. He read my chinese name, and then he asked me if my name was 劳 拉 so i said yes, and then he just started laughing because he thought my name was really funny, so rude!
In the evening we thought we'd go to the womens world cup football and watch england play germany because fran and sarah had tickets, and we thought there would still be tickets left because no one likes womens football. But it was sooooooo busy, it was crazy. So many people had come from UK and Germany to watch the match!! So because we couldnt get tickets we went to the pub next to the stadium and I had a chinese beer which was very nice, and soooooo cheap.
15th and 16th September
Watched heroes all weekend because justin bought the box set and gave it to us. Its so good
17th September
SARAHS - this is the best restaurant in the world.
There is a restaurant on campus called sarahs and it does proper food, its sooooooooo good. The have pasta, pizza, salads, chips and the other night I had curry which was really good.
It is probably the best restaurant I've been to as im getting a bit sick of chinese food now, and its all so unhealthy.
In the afternoon I went shopping to xujiahui and I was just in the underground market and two chinese girls came up to me and said hello and i replied in chinese, and they were really excited that I could speak chinese and we had a little chat. And then one of them said to me that I was really beautiful and so I disagreed, and THEN she said, yes you are really beautiful because you have a big nose!!! HOW RUDE
Friday 14 September 2007
The British Bulldog Pub
12th September
This morning frankie and I went to get our bikes so we could cycle to class and our bikes weren't where we had left them. So obviously we thought they'd been stolen. We spent a while looking for them in case they had been moved, but we couldnt see them anywhere so we went to ask at reception, and the lady told us that they had all been moved to an underground bike store across from our halls. Such a relief, I actually thought they'd been stolen!
Class we so much easier, I actually understood what was going on and i didnt feel as stupid as yesterday. Part way through class Frankie pointed at the american girl's t-shirt, it was sooooo gross. It looked as though someone had been sick all down the back of it. I was just looking at her t-shirt and frankie elbowed me and I realised that everyone was quiet and the teacher was looking at me. He'd asked me a question but I didnt recognise my chinese name so I just ignored him - it was slightly embaressing, and I really need to learn my name.
In the afternoon, sunny gave us a guided tour of the library which was exciting - they have english newspapers and magazine and loads of english books to read!
Later on we were all talking about how we miss english food so we decided to go to the English pub for tea which is called "The British Bulldog". It was so exciting. It was just like wakling into a pub in England and they had a nice english menu. After tea we went upstrairs to play pool and I was just playing against Gemma and heard something move behind me and Gemma shouted "rat, rat". There was actually a rat in the pub. It was awful. The bar woman just looked at it and smiled as though it was her pet.
So after that we went back downstairs to take part in the pub quiz, and there were loads more western people there, although they were all quite old. Two American guys asked if they could be on our quiz team, they were Ric and Bernard. Ric was really nice and friendly and he was hoping to get a teaching job in shanghai. I didnt like Bernard at all, he took the quiz far too seriously and he was so competitive. He was also a genius and know-it-all. He had done a degree is cryptology, and he'd done a post-grad degree and was now on his second masters, he was also a restaurant critic and a sommelier. We didnt stay till the end of the quiz cos it was taking ages and it was quite boring and I was still traumatised because of the rat.
This morning frankie and I went to get our bikes so we could cycle to class and our bikes weren't where we had left them. So obviously we thought they'd been stolen. We spent a while looking for them in case they had been moved, but we couldnt see them anywhere so we went to ask at reception, and the lady told us that they had all been moved to an underground bike store across from our halls. Such a relief, I actually thought they'd been stolen!
Class we so much easier, I actually understood what was going on and i didnt feel as stupid as yesterday. Part way through class Frankie pointed at the american girl's t-shirt, it was sooooo gross. It looked as though someone had been sick all down the back of it. I was just looking at her t-shirt and frankie elbowed me and I realised that everyone was quiet and the teacher was looking at me. He'd asked me a question but I didnt recognise my chinese name so I just ignored him - it was slightly embaressing, and I really need to learn my name.
In the afternoon, sunny gave us a guided tour of the library which was exciting - they have english newspapers and magazine and loads of english books to read!
Later on we were all talking about how we miss english food so we decided to go to the English pub for tea which is called "The British Bulldog". It was so exciting. It was just like wakling into a pub in England and they had a nice english menu. After tea we went upstrairs to play pool and I was just playing against Gemma and heard something move behind me and Gemma shouted "rat, rat". There was actually a rat in the pub. It was awful. The bar woman just looked at it and smiled as though it was her pet.
So after that we went back downstairs to take part in the pub quiz, and there were loads more western people there, although they were all quite old. Two American guys asked if they could be on our quiz team, they were Ric and Bernard. Ric was really nice and friendly and he was hoping to get a teaching job in shanghai. I didnt like Bernard at all, he took the quiz far too seriously and he was so competitive. He was also a genius and know-it-all. He had done a degree is cryptology, and he'd done a post-grad degree and was now on his second masters, he was also a restaurant critic and a sommelier. We didnt stay till the end of the quiz cos it was taking ages and it was quite boring and I was still traumatised because of the rat.
Elementary Level 3
11th September
Today I had my first level 3 class and it was quite difficult. When we first got there we had a vocab test but obviously we couldnt do it because we'd not been in the lesson the day before. The teacher is really nice tho and really friendly. During the first break I stayed in the classroom and the two koean women sat near me offered me a chocolate biscuit which was so nice, they are the first friendly korean people. They asked me where I was from and I said that I was English (in chinese) but I had to say it about 6 times before they understood, and then when they did understand they assumed I was from London, so I corrected them and said I was from York. One of the korean women got really excited and said "ooooooooo yorkshire, lots of sheep" which was quite amusing.
The next class was listening class which was impossible, i think i only got 2 questions right.
In the evenng I met sunny for tea and she explained all the grammar stuff to me that I didnt understand, and she helped me with some work, shes so nice. We went for tea at a korean restaurant on campus, and I was slightly concerned that there might be dog on the menu because I keep being told that korean people like to eat dog, but I was pleased to see that there wasnt any. The food was really nice there as well and soooooooo cheap!!!
Today I had my first level 3 class and it was quite difficult. When we first got there we had a vocab test but obviously we couldnt do it because we'd not been in the lesson the day before. The teacher is really nice tho and really friendly. During the first break I stayed in the classroom and the two koean women sat near me offered me a chocolate biscuit which was so nice, they are the first friendly korean people. They asked me where I was from and I said that I was English (in chinese) but I had to say it about 6 times before they understood, and then when they did understand they assumed I was from London, so I corrected them and said I was from York. One of the korean women got really excited and said "ooooooooo yorkshire, lots of sheep" which was quite amusing.
The next class was listening class which was impossible, i think i only got 2 questions right.
In the evenng I met sunny for tea and she explained all the grammar stuff to me that I didnt understand, and she helped me with some work, shes so nice. We went for tea at a korean restaurant on campus, and I was slightly concerned that there might be dog on the menu because I keep being told that korean people like to eat dog, but I was pleased to see that there wasnt any. The food was really nice there as well and soooooooo cheap!!!
Wednesday 12 September 2007
First day at uni
This morning I had my first class!
I went to the ICCS building (the foreign students building) because I assumed that the classes would be in there, but when i got to the room that was on my timetable it turned out to be someone's office, so a helpful man took me to a big map of campus and pointed out where the building was. It was actually on the east campus on the other side of the road - the people really should have told us that when we got our timetables.
There was a german girl (who looked chinese) who was a bit lost as well so i walked over with her. She was sooooooo small and she was wearing massive heals as well - loads of the asian students walk around uni wearing really high shoes which is just so impractical and pointless at uni. The german girl spoke really good english because she had lived in Bournemouth for a year. She was asking me how long I'd been learning chinese for so i said that i'd been doing it for 2 years and that I was in the elemenatry 2 class, and then she said that she'd only been learning for 7 months and that she was in the class above me - Great!
I was a bit late for class and everyone was already there when I arrived. When I sat down the teacher told me to stand up and I had to introduce myself (in chinese) which was ok, but people were just looking at me with blank expressions and I dont think they understood what I was saying. The class started and we spent ages reading words from the textbook, and they had pinyin next to them so it was really easy, and then we spent ages learning 比 which is something I did in first year in newcaslte. And then some people in the class couldnt understand anything, and there was one guy who answered "shanghai" to every question that the teacher asked him!
After class I went for lunch with frankie and an english guy called David who was in her class. He had been teaching in china for 18 months but he had got bored of that and decided to learn mandarin properly. He was very useful to have lunch with because he knew what things were on the menu and we had a really nice lunch.
In the afternoon Frankie and I went to ask about changing classes and it was fine. We went to change our text books and they were a lot cheaper than the level 2 books so we got some money back!!!
I couldnt be bothered to do any work in the afternoon so I went shopping instead. There was a massive supermarket up the road so I had a walk up there. There was loads of interesting stuff and I just spent ages wondering around and looking at the food.
In the evening Gemma, Frankie and I went out for tea to this little place on campus where Gemma had been a couple of days ago with Justin (an american guy on our course). The food was so good. We had beef stew with lots of nice vegetables. It was so nice to have food that wasnt fried and covered in MSG.
Afterwards Frankie and I decided to cycle to Mister Donut which was just by the big supermarket. We dont have any lights on our bicycles but we thought it was ok because some other people didn't have lights on their bicycles. Cycling there was fine, but on the way back it was soooooooo bad!! A bus pulled in at the bus stop so I decided to cycle round the outside of it because someone else was, but I didnt realise that there was another bus in front of that one. When I had overtaken the first bus that was stopped, the other bus pulled out and pushed me into the busy road. It was sooooooo scary. I couldnt pull in behind the bus because there were other ones behind it so I had to cycle really fast and I just managed to get in front of it and get back into the cycle lane.
I need to buy a light for my bicycle.
I went to the ICCS building (the foreign students building) because I assumed that the classes would be in there, but when i got to the room that was on my timetable it turned out to be someone's office, so a helpful man took me to a big map of campus and pointed out where the building was. It was actually on the east campus on the other side of the road - the people really should have told us that when we got our timetables.
There was a german girl (who looked chinese) who was a bit lost as well so i walked over with her. She was sooooooo small and she was wearing massive heals as well - loads of the asian students walk around uni wearing really high shoes which is just so impractical and pointless at uni. The german girl spoke really good english because she had lived in Bournemouth for a year. She was asking me how long I'd been learning chinese for so i said that i'd been doing it for 2 years and that I was in the elemenatry 2 class, and then she said that she'd only been learning for 7 months and that she was in the class above me - Great!
I was a bit late for class and everyone was already there when I arrived. When I sat down the teacher told me to stand up and I had to introduce myself (in chinese) which was ok, but people were just looking at me with blank expressions and I dont think they understood what I was saying. The class started and we spent ages reading words from the textbook, and they had pinyin next to them so it was really easy, and then we spent ages learning 比 which is something I did in first year in newcaslte. And then some people in the class couldnt understand anything, and there was one guy who answered "shanghai" to every question that the teacher asked him!
After class I went for lunch with frankie and an english guy called David who was in her class. He had been teaching in china for 18 months but he had got bored of that and decided to learn mandarin properly. He was very useful to have lunch with because he knew what things were on the menu and we had a really nice lunch.
In the afternoon Frankie and I went to ask about changing classes and it was fine. We went to change our text books and they were a lot cheaper than the level 2 books so we got some money back!!!
I couldnt be bothered to do any work in the afternoon so I went shopping instead. There was a massive supermarket up the road so I had a walk up there. There was loads of interesting stuff and I just spent ages wondering around and looking at the food.
In the evening Gemma, Frankie and I went out for tea to this little place on campus where Gemma had been a couple of days ago with Justin (an american guy on our course). The food was so good. We had beef stew with lots of nice vegetables. It was so nice to have food that wasnt fried and covered in MSG.
Afterwards Frankie and I decided to cycle to Mister Donut which was just by the big supermarket. We dont have any lights on our bicycles but we thought it was ok because some other people didn't have lights on their bicycles. Cycling there was fine, but on the way back it was soooooooo bad!! A bus pulled in at the bus stop so I decided to cycle round the outside of it because someone else was, but I didnt realise that there was another bus in front of that one. When I had overtaken the first bus that was stopped, the other bus pulled out and pushed me into the busy road. It was sooooooo scary. I couldnt pull in behind the bus because there were other ones behind it so I had to cycle really fast and I just managed to get in front of it and get back into the cycle lane.
I need to buy a light for my bicycle.
The best meal so far
The university network is now letting me read my blog after i've written it and its not censored anymore so feel free to leave a comment on any of my blogs.
9th September
I've really liked most of the chinese food that we've had so far, although i have been quite boring and just had things that you can usually get at the take-away in england. And the food is so cheap, for a big meal I usually pay about 30yuan which is £2.20.
But today I just really wanted a nice English meal so Frankie and I went to the French concession which is an area of shanghai where we thought we would be able to find a nice none chinese restaurant.
We were just wandering around the french concession and its really nice and there are so many nice shops there. We found an english bookshop so I finally bought my chinese dictionary.
We found a really nice restaurant to have lunch at called Mesa. And we had fish and chips!!!!!! it was so good. Although it was the most expensive meal so far, but was only 100yuan which is still only about £7.
9th September
I've really liked most of the chinese food that we've had so far, although i have been quite boring and just had things that you can usually get at the take-away in england. And the food is so cheap, for a big meal I usually pay about 30yuan which is £2.20.
But today I just really wanted a nice English meal so Frankie and I went to the French concession which is an area of shanghai where we thought we would be able to find a nice none chinese restaurant.
We were just wandering around the french concession and its really nice and there are so many nice shops there. We found an english bookshop so I finally bought my chinese dictionary.
We found a really nice restaurant to have lunch at called Mesa. And we had fish and chips!!!!!! it was so good. Although it was the most expensive meal so far, but was only 100yuan which is still only about £7.
Monday 10 September 2007
Sarah's 21st
8th August
It was sarahs 21st birthday today so in the morning we had some yummy chocolate cake from the little bakery next to campus and then we went into town to go to the yu yuan gardens. We got the metro into town and then it was a bit of a walk to the gardens. When we got there it was just surrounded by loads of little tourist shops and there were sooooooooo many tourists which was quite annoying. We got there quite late so we decided that we'd come back another day to go to into the gardens (and its loads cheaper when we get our student cards) so we just went into a tea house in one of the nice buildings. There were loads of really nice style buildings with a big pond around them, but I was very annoyed that one of the nice old buildings was now a starbucks!!!!
The tea house was really nice and the building was in the big pond with little bridges going to it. In the tea house we got to smell all the different teas and then choose which we wanted. I chose lychee leaves, it was so nice. Sarah chose this big round green thing for hers and when the lady took the lid off her tea cup it had opened out into a nice flower - so pretty!! We got given another tea which wasnt as nice, it tasted a bit like soil. But it was still a really nice thing to do, and it was really cool to watch the lady making our tea.
We went to get some tea afterwards and we went to one of the boat restaurants on the bund. It was alright, but a bit overpriced and you didnt get a lot of food. We were too late to go on a boat cruise so we just went to the jinmao tower, it was amazing. From the other side of the river it doesnt look that big but when you're stood at the bottom of it its soooooooo big, its amazing, and next to it they are building a tower that is even bigger. We went to the cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the jinmao tower (the tallest bar in the world). It was so exciting. We had to go on 3 different lifts, and the first lift takes you to a hotel which is from the 53rd floor to the 85th, i might stay there one night, it looks so good. The bar was really nice and the views were amazing. There were loads of nice cocktails to chose from so I went for the most expensive one which was still only 145yuan. It was called fortunate and it had moet, raspberry vodka and fruit juice, really nice!!
It was sarahs 21st birthday today so in the morning we had some yummy chocolate cake from the little bakery next to campus and then we went into town to go to the yu yuan gardens. We got the metro into town and then it was a bit of a walk to the gardens. When we got there it was just surrounded by loads of little tourist shops and there were sooooooooo many tourists which was quite annoying. We got there quite late so we decided that we'd come back another day to go to into the gardens (and its loads cheaper when we get our student cards) so we just went into a tea house in one of the nice buildings. There were loads of really nice style buildings with a big pond around them, but I was very annoyed that one of the nice old buildings was now a starbucks!!!!
The tea house was really nice and the building was in the big pond with little bridges going to it. In the tea house we got to smell all the different teas and then choose which we wanted. I chose lychee leaves, it was so nice. Sarah chose this big round green thing for hers and when the lady took the lid off her tea cup it had opened out into a nice flower - so pretty!! We got given another tea which wasnt as nice, it tasted a bit like soil. But it was still a really nice thing to do, and it was really cool to watch the lady making our tea.
We went to get some tea afterwards and we went to one of the boat restaurants on the bund. It was alright, but a bit overpriced and you didnt get a lot of food. We were too late to go on a boat cruise so we just went to the jinmao tower, it was amazing. From the other side of the river it doesnt look that big but when you're stood at the bottom of it its soooooooo big, its amazing, and next to it they are building a tower that is even bigger. We went to the cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the jinmao tower (the tallest bar in the world). It was so exciting. We had to go on 3 different lifts, and the first lift takes you to a hotel which is from the 53rd floor to the 85th, i might stay there one night, it looks so good. The bar was really nice and the views were amazing. There were loads of nice cocktails to chose from so I went for the most expensive one which was still only 145yuan. It was called fortunate and it had moet, raspberry vodka and fruit juice, really nice!!
Sunday 9 September 2007
THE MEDICAL!!!
7th September
This morning we got up early again for have our medical examination. It was such an invasion of our privacy. First of all we had to fill in a form and we had to write our weight and height and i didnt know so the woman told me to make it up. And then we had to have our blood taken which wasnt very nice because she tied elastic really tightly round the top of my arm and then she started flicking my vein for ages, doctors in england never seem to have any trouble finding my vein, but maybe its different in china. After the blood test we had to go outside onto this special bus. In the first cubicle on the bus I had my blood pressure taken, and then the woman kept poking my stomach really hard and it was quite painful. Then I had an eye test which was ok, although the woman was a bit confused about why I could read really well with one eye and not the other.
In the next bit of the bus I had to lie on a bed and a different woman put these clamp things on my ankles and wrists and 2 sucker things on my chest and then she did something on the computer, but Im not sure what. After that I had an ultrasound which was quite interesting cos I got to see the screen. And then finally in the last bit of the bus I had a chest xray.
It was not a pleasant experience and it cost 380yuan (altho thats only about £28).
In the afternoon we met vanessa (frankie's tandem partner) and she took us shopping and we went to this massive market underneath the peoples square - it was amazing!! I need to stop shopping tho, ive been spending far too much money.
After the shopping vanessa took us to this fruit bar place to get something to eat. I had sago with mango and mango juice which was soooooooo nice, it was really good to have a healthy meal for once!
This morning we got up early again for have our medical examination. It was such an invasion of our privacy. First of all we had to fill in a form and we had to write our weight and height and i didnt know so the woman told me to make it up. And then we had to have our blood taken which wasnt very nice because she tied elastic really tightly round the top of my arm and then she started flicking my vein for ages, doctors in england never seem to have any trouble finding my vein, but maybe its different in china. After the blood test we had to go outside onto this special bus. In the first cubicle on the bus I had my blood pressure taken, and then the woman kept poking my stomach really hard and it was quite painful. Then I had an eye test which was ok, although the woman was a bit confused about why I could read really well with one eye and not the other.
In the next bit of the bus I had to lie on a bed and a different woman put these clamp things on my ankles and wrists and 2 sucker things on my chest and then she did something on the computer, but Im not sure what. After that I had an ultrasound which was quite interesting cos I got to see the screen. And then finally in the last bit of the bus I had a chest xray.
It was not a pleasant experience and it cost 380yuan (altho thats only about £28).
In the afternoon we met vanessa (frankie's tandem partner) and she took us shopping and we went to this massive market underneath the peoples square - it was amazing!! I need to stop shopping tho, ive been spending far too much money.
After the shopping vanessa took us to this fruit bar place to get something to eat. I had sago with mango and mango juice which was soooooooo nice, it was really good to have a healthy meal for once!
Friday 7 September 2007
Opening ceremony & Karaoke
6th September
This morning we had our opening ceremony and on our schedule it said we had to be there at 8.30am so we got up really early and went to the international students building. There was a western looking guy wandering around outside by himself and we thought he might have to come to shanghai by himself so we smiled at him, thinking that he would come over and talk to us but he just smiled back and then wandered off, he was so strange.
Anyway, we followed someone to the building where the opening ceremony was going to be held. I was quite excited because the word "ceremony" does make it seem as thought something exciting will happen. But we found out when we got there that it was just loads of speaches from people at uni, and they'd printed off translations in all different languages so we'd read the speaches before theyd even happened.
We were just sat in the room waiting for the speeches to start and then someone said that they would start at 10. soooooooo annoying, i could have stayed in bed for another 2 hours! So we had to watch some crap film which showed the uni campus and then another crap film of the new years party with people doing stupid dances to christmas songs.
The speeches finally started, but luckily they didnt last too long. BUT one of the speeches was from a masters student who was the wierd guy from before. He was from Germany and had been doing chinese for 5 years. He made a speech in chinese which I didnt understand, and then he started talking in english and told us that he hadnt prepared his speech and that he was so nervous that he had to smoke half a packet of cigaretes before he could talk to us, and then he carried on talking about wierd stuff. such a strange person.
luckily it only lasted about 45 minutes.
afterwards i went up to the supermarket and on the way i looked in one of the many many dvd shops and i got the new harry potter film for only 5 yuan (35p)
Tonight the most exciting thing happened - we went to karaoke for sunny's birthday. We had our own private room with a big computer screen and loads of songs to choose from. And for £3 each we got to have the room for 3 hours and we got loads of food. It was so good. There were so many random songs, we especially enjoyed the spice girls!!! It was so much fun, we will definately be doing karaoke again.
This morning we had our opening ceremony and on our schedule it said we had to be there at 8.30am so we got up really early and went to the international students building. There was a western looking guy wandering around outside by himself and we thought he might have to come to shanghai by himself so we smiled at him, thinking that he would come over and talk to us but he just smiled back and then wandered off, he was so strange.
Anyway, we followed someone to the building where the opening ceremony was going to be held. I was quite excited because the word "ceremony" does make it seem as thought something exciting will happen. But we found out when we got there that it was just loads of speaches from people at uni, and they'd printed off translations in all different languages so we'd read the speaches before theyd even happened.
We were just sat in the room waiting for the speeches to start and then someone said that they would start at 10. soooooooo annoying, i could have stayed in bed for another 2 hours! So we had to watch some crap film which showed the uni campus and then another crap film of the new years party with people doing stupid dances to christmas songs.
The speeches finally started, but luckily they didnt last too long. BUT one of the speeches was from a masters student who was the wierd guy from before. He was from Germany and had been doing chinese for 5 years. He made a speech in chinese which I didnt understand, and then he started talking in english and told us that he hadnt prepared his speech and that he was so nervous that he had to smoke half a packet of cigaretes before he could talk to us, and then he carried on talking about wierd stuff. such a strange person.
luckily it only lasted about 45 minutes.
afterwards i went up to the supermarket and on the way i looked in one of the many many dvd shops and i got the new harry potter film for only 5 yuan (35p)
Tonight the most exciting thing happened - we went to karaoke for sunny's birthday. We had our own private room with a big computer screen and loads of songs to choose from. And for £3 each we got to have the room for 3 hours and we got loads of food. It was so good. There were so many random songs, we especially enjoyed the spice girls!!! It was so much fun, we will definately be doing karaoke again.
Wednesday 5 September 2007
Welcome to my travel blog!!
你 好
I have decided to write a travel blog whilst im in shanghai so people can read about what i've been up to, and its quicker to write this than sending emails to everyone.
Dont write any comments on my blog because it wont let me read them!!
If anyone wants to write to me (or send me a birthday card/present for my 21st - 30th october) my address is:
Room 402
Foreign Guest House
Shanghai Normal University
100 Guilin Road
Shanghai
China
So heres what ive been up to since i arrived:
27/28th August
This was the start of the longest journey ever - well about 18 hours from leaving Manchester to arriving in Shanghai. It was very exciting flying on the emirates plane after going on small easyjet planes for the past few years, and there was nice food and soooooooooo many films to watch. We arrived in Dubai at midnight and had 3 hours until we got ur transfer plane. I was very excited when i discovered that there was a wireless network I could use in the airport so that helped to pass the time. The second plane journey wasnt very exciting because I slept most of the way.
When we were walking into the main bit of the airport there was someone holding a sign with my name on which was really cool. The university had arranged for Lily to come pick us up because she's going to Newcastle for her year abroad in a couple of weeks. Her parents came and they drove us to campus. It was a bit of an effort for them to lift Beki's suitcase into the car. It is actually the biggest suitcase I have ever seen and after she'd taken some stuff out at manchester airport it still weighed about 35kg!
We got to the uni campus which is in the xuhui district of shanghai which is south-west of the centre. We are staying in the foreign students guesthouse which is just like a hotel. Its so nice. Frankie and I managed to get our room sorted out ok, but the woman at reception couldnt find Beki and Gemma's names on the list of people staying there. But then it turned out that they were staying in another building on campus.
We went to our room and it was just like being in a 4* hotel and there was a massive tv and big arm chairs. But it was so crap because there were no desks and no storage space so I was having to live out of my suitcase. It was really nice if you were going on holiday for a couple of weeks, but really impractical for students to live there for a whole year.
After we'd got our rooms sorted and had a shower we met Beki and Gemma and went to get something to eat. There are quite a few places to eat on campus so we went to a little place that has dumplings and Gemma ordered one of everything on the menu. They were really nice and I successfully managed to use chopsticks. And the food was so cheap, we had so many dumplings and it cost less than £1.
We went to have a look around the little supermarket on campus to see what food they had. There was nothing too strange. Although there were packets of chicken feet which looked gross.
29th August
I slept for 16 hours last night, which didnt help with the jetlag. Frankie and I decided to go exploring the centre of shanghai so we walked to the nearest metro station which was about 15minutes away and got the metro to the people's square. On the way to the metro we got a bit lost so i attempted to ask a chinese woman (in chinese) where it was and she didnt undertand a word i said, great!
We walked down Nanjing road which is one of the main shopping streets and there were so many annoying people coming up to us and asking if we would like to buys watches, shoes and bags. One guy wouldnt leave us alone so we ran into the nearest shop to hide from him and he came and found us, soooooooo annoying. We saw a phone shop so we went to get a chinese simcard which was really easy to do, but when I put mine in my phone it wouldnt work so I had to buy a new phone. But I managed to get a phone for 355yuan which is only £26. We walked around for a while and walked to the bund and saw the pearl tower which was really cool.
We were getting hungry so we found a nice restaurant just near the river. On the menu they had interesting things like frog, and tortoise and chicken soup, but I was really exciting and had fried rice with chicken!!
30th August
Because we slept so long on the first night it was impossible to sleep last night and I only had about 3 hours sleep. We got up and decided to go find somewhere we can use the internet because we couldnt log onto the uni network. We got the metro to shanghai library which was really cool, such a huge building, and the internet was 30p for an hour, i cant get over how cheap everything is. Afterwards we went to go and find a huge outdoor market that was in frankie's guidebook and we got a bit lost and ended up in a really nice park which was full of crazy people, and people walking round in their pyjamas. But then we discovered that the park was next to a hospital. We tried to find the market again but we couldnt find it so we went to get something to eat. This restaurant also had some interesting things on the menu - the was porcupine, and fried cow's stomach. gross. I went for sweet and sour pork.
I decided to ask one of the waitress' where the market was and she didnt really understand what I was saying because my chinese is soooooo bad, but there was a guy there who spoke english and he told me that the market had been closed down and it was now a building site, sooooooooo annoying.
We went to Huaihai road which is a really good shopping street. We went into watsons which is the equivalent of boots to get some insect repellent. One of the women who worked there came up and me and started saying something and pointing at my nose. I thought she was just saying that I had a big nose, but she gave me this stuff and an english leaflet which explained that whatever she had given me would get rid of my freckles. HOW RUDE. She was very keen for me to buy it but I told her that I didnt want it. Also on Huaihai road we round H&M.
On the metro going back to uni it was so busy and full of people staring at us because we're not chinese - people stare all the time. There was this one man stood behind me and he kept blowing on my neck, it was so gross.
31st August
We set our alarm for 10am because we thought that if we got up early it would help with the jetlag but it was so much effort getting up early. We decided to go on the bus to xujiahui which is the next district from where we live and theres loads of shops there. It was a lot like the centre of shanghai with big shopping centres and huge buildings. We found an underground market which was really exciting. Lots of cheap clothes. We went into one of the shoe shops and there were some sandles I really liked but my feet were too big for a lot of the shoes and i'm only size 4. I managed to get some in another shop and a few clothes. We got on the metro into town and went to the bund. We were just sat by the river and this girl and her mum came up to us and started pointing at their camera and we thought that they wanted us to take their picture. But they wanted frankie to be in a picture with them. It was so funny, the woman made her husband take a picture of her and her daughter with frankie. Aparantly they like to have their photos taken with white people because they are a bit of a novelty!
1st September
They eat so early in China. The breakfast in our halls is 7 - 8.30, lunch is 11.30 till 1 and then in the evening its 6 - 7.30.
We got up at half 10 and by the time we were ready it was about half 11 so we decided to go and eat in our canteen cos we hadnt actually eaten there yet, and we thought we'd see if there were any other foreign students, and there werent any, there were just loads of chinese people which is quite wierd because its the foreign students guesthouse.
We went to see if Gemma and Beki were awake, and we met their crazy cleaner. We knocked on Gemma's door and she didnt answer so we assumed she was still asleep, but the cleaner came and used her key to unlock the door and we kept telling her not to open the door and then we'd come back later but the cleaner thought it was so funny. She opened the door and went in, and just started laughing at Gemma when she was asleep.wierd.
In the afternoon we met Sunny. She was my tandem partner in newcastle last year and shes doing her final year of uni this year. She showed us round the campus, and we discovered that the campus actually went onto the other side of the road and it was loads bigger than we thought. Sunny showed us her dorm room which was awful. Its so small. There are 3 bunk beds and 2 tables in between and there is no space. I dont know how 6 people can live in such a small place. They dont even have their own bathroom, they have to share with the other people that live on the same floor as them, and they have communal showers so there is no privacy.
2nd September
Frankie, Beki and I went to the airport to go and meet sarah and fran. We decided to get some lunch before we went so we went into a random restaurant where they had pictures of the food, and it was really hard to tell what it was. Frankie and Beki thought they'd ordered chicken but they got some strange yellow meat. And I got something so strange, don't have a clue what it was, and it wasnt very nice! We went on the maglev train to the airport which takes only takes 7 minutes and goes up to 431k/hr, sooooo fast. We met sarah and fran, and when we got back to halls and they we're in the same building as me and frankie, but on the floor below us. Their room was so nice and a lot cheaper than ours, and it had desks and storage space so we went to ask reception if there were any spare rooms down there and they said we had to wait 2 days and then they would know if they had any spare room.
We all went to a little restaurant just next to uni to get some tea and I had some chips, they were so nice. I miss english food.
3rd September
Today we had to register at uni which wasnt very exciting. We had to go to loads of different rooms to register, and get our photo taken, and do other stuff. In one of the rooms we got given a bag with a free university tshirt and some general information about the uni. We got to see the other foreign students who were mostly Japanese and Korean. The last stage of registering was a little oral test and I couldnt even understand the first question that the woman asked me, it was so bad. I was put in elementary level 2 class which is second from bottom. We are all in this class apart from gemma who got put in the one above us. After registering we met 2 guys from Turkey and went to get some lunch with them in our halls, but they wouldnt eat anything because they dont like chinese food - bit of an error coming to china then. Afterward lunch some of us went to the big shanghai library again to use the internet and then we went back to Huaihai road to do a bit of shopping. On the way to Huaihai road it started raining loads and we didnt have umberellas, not good. We saw a Mister Donut tho and went in there to get something to eat and try and dry off. They had a really good english magazine to read with a list of loads of bars and clubs in shanghai so we stole it because we thought it would be useful.
4th September
This morning we went on a mission to find the English supermarket. We got really lost and asked several people for directions but no one seemed to know where to go. We asked one lady who was so helpful. She took us to a bus stop and waited for the right bus to come, and then she told the bus driver to tell us when to get off. So thanks to her we managed to get there. It was in a really posh shopping centre. It was quite expensive but worth it, I bought a couple of boxes of rice krispies so i can have a normal english breakfast. They had an english book shop so I bought a radical book which should be useful. When we got back to our room we discovered that we had been locked out so we went down to reception and said that our key wasnt working and they said that they'd locked us out because we havent paid our rent. So we explained that we were waiting to see if we could change rooms and they said that there was a spare room and we could move straight away. So we moved down to the same floor as fran and sarah and the room is so much better. Im no longer living out of my suitcase!
Later on we got a call from Beki asking if we wanted to go to pizza hut. so we got on the bus to xujiahui and met them. This was the worst meal we've had since we've been here. The pizza wasnt very nice and so much more expensive than all the other food.
We got the bus back from xujiahui and when i stepped off the bus there was a little moped cutting round on the inside of the bus, and it hit me just as i stepped off the bus. It was so funny. The guy was really concerned that he'd hurt me but I couldnt stop laughing and he just looked really confused. Its so bad trying to cross roads or even walking down the pavement because there are cars and mopeds and bicycles everywhere.
5th September
Today we went to ikea which is just near uni and got a few things for our room. It was so exciting. We had lunch there which was exciting, it was just the same as what you'd get in england. After we left all our stuff in our room frankie and i went to the bicycle shop up the road and bought new bicycles. I have decided that cycling is safer than walking. It was so nice to cycle down the road, and we pointlessly cycled around campus because we love our bikes.
Sunny and Vanessa came to our halls for tea and they ordered some things off the menu that they thought we would like to try. There was some kind of fish that was really nice, but i tried to tofu for the first time and it wasnt very nice, and there was a strange kind of soup that wasnt very nice either. Tomorrow night we're going to karaoke with them for sunny's birthday, how exciting!
I have decided to write a travel blog whilst im in shanghai so people can read about what i've been up to, and its quicker to write this than sending emails to everyone.
Dont write any comments on my blog because it wont let me read them!!
If anyone wants to write to me (or send me a birthday card/present for my 21st - 30th october) my address is:
Room 402
Foreign Guest House
Shanghai Normal University
100 Guilin Road
Shanghai
China
So heres what ive been up to since i arrived:
27/28th August
This was the start of the longest journey ever - well about 18 hours from leaving Manchester to arriving in Shanghai. It was very exciting flying on the emirates plane after going on small easyjet planes for the past few years, and there was nice food and soooooooooo many films to watch. We arrived in Dubai at midnight and had 3 hours until we got ur transfer plane. I was very excited when i discovered that there was a wireless network I could use in the airport so that helped to pass the time. The second plane journey wasnt very exciting because I slept most of the way.
When we were walking into the main bit of the airport there was someone holding a sign with my name on which was really cool. The university had arranged for Lily to come pick us up because she's going to Newcastle for her year abroad in a couple of weeks. Her parents came and they drove us to campus. It was a bit of an effort for them to lift Beki's suitcase into the car. It is actually the biggest suitcase I have ever seen and after she'd taken some stuff out at manchester airport it still weighed about 35kg!
We got to the uni campus which is in the xuhui district of shanghai which is south-west of the centre. We are staying in the foreign students guesthouse which is just like a hotel. Its so nice. Frankie and I managed to get our room sorted out ok, but the woman at reception couldnt find Beki and Gemma's names on the list of people staying there. But then it turned out that they were staying in another building on campus.
We went to our room and it was just like being in a 4* hotel and there was a massive tv and big arm chairs. But it was so crap because there were no desks and no storage space so I was having to live out of my suitcase. It was really nice if you were going on holiday for a couple of weeks, but really impractical for students to live there for a whole year.
After we'd got our rooms sorted and had a shower we met Beki and Gemma and went to get something to eat. There are quite a few places to eat on campus so we went to a little place that has dumplings and Gemma ordered one of everything on the menu. They were really nice and I successfully managed to use chopsticks. And the food was so cheap, we had so many dumplings and it cost less than £1.
We went to have a look around the little supermarket on campus to see what food they had. There was nothing too strange. Although there were packets of chicken feet which looked gross.
29th August
I slept for 16 hours last night, which didnt help with the jetlag. Frankie and I decided to go exploring the centre of shanghai so we walked to the nearest metro station which was about 15minutes away and got the metro to the people's square. On the way to the metro we got a bit lost so i attempted to ask a chinese woman (in chinese) where it was and she didnt undertand a word i said, great!
We walked down Nanjing road which is one of the main shopping streets and there were so many annoying people coming up to us and asking if we would like to buys watches, shoes and bags. One guy wouldnt leave us alone so we ran into the nearest shop to hide from him and he came and found us, soooooooo annoying. We saw a phone shop so we went to get a chinese simcard which was really easy to do, but when I put mine in my phone it wouldnt work so I had to buy a new phone. But I managed to get a phone for 355yuan which is only £26. We walked around for a while and walked to the bund and saw the pearl tower which was really cool.
We were getting hungry so we found a nice restaurant just near the river. On the menu they had interesting things like frog, and tortoise and chicken soup, but I was really exciting and had fried rice with chicken!!
30th August
Because we slept so long on the first night it was impossible to sleep last night and I only had about 3 hours sleep. We got up and decided to go find somewhere we can use the internet because we couldnt log onto the uni network. We got the metro to shanghai library which was really cool, such a huge building, and the internet was 30p for an hour, i cant get over how cheap everything is. Afterwards we went to go and find a huge outdoor market that was in frankie's guidebook and we got a bit lost and ended up in a really nice park which was full of crazy people, and people walking round in their pyjamas. But then we discovered that the park was next to a hospital. We tried to find the market again but we couldnt find it so we went to get something to eat. This restaurant also had some interesting things on the menu - the was porcupine, and fried cow's stomach. gross. I went for sweet and sour pork.
I decided to ask one of the waitress' where the market was and she didnt really understand what I was saying because my chinese is soooooo bad, but there was a guy there who spoke english and he told me that the market had been closed down and it was now a building site, sooooooooo annoying.
We went to Huaihai road which is a really good shopping street. We went into watsons which is the equivalent of boots to get some insect repellent. One of the women who worked there came up and me and started saying something and pointing at my nose. I thought she was just saying that I had a big nose, but she gave me this stuff and an english leaflet which explained that whatever she had given me would get rid of my freckles. HOW RUDE. She was very keen for me to buy it but I told her that I didnt want it. Also on Huaihai road we round H&M.
On the metro going back to uni it was so busy and full of people staring at us because we're not chinese - people stare all the time. There was this one man stood behind me and he kept blowing on my neck, it was so gross.
31st August
We set our alarm for 10am because we thought that if we got up early it would help with the jetlag but it was so much effort getting up early. We decided to go on the bus to xujiahui which is the next district from where we live and theres loads of shops there. It was a lot like the centre of shanghai with big shopping centres and huge buildings. We found an underground market which was really exciting. Lots of cheap clothes. We went into one of the shoe shops and there were some sandles I really liked but my feet were too big for a lot of the shoes and i'm only size 4. I managed to get some in another shop and a few clothes. We got on the metro into town and went to the bund. We were just sat by the river and this girl and her mum came up to us and started pointing at their camera and we thought that they wanted us to take their picture. But they wanted frankie to be in a picture with them. It was so funny, the woman made her husband take a picture of her and her daughter with frankie. Aparantly they like to have their photos taken with white people because they are a bit of a novelty!
1st September
They eat so early in China. The breakfast in our halls is 7 - 8.30, lunch is 11.30 till 1 and then in the evening its 6 - 7.30.
We got up at half 10 and by the time we were ready it was about half 11 so we decided to go and eat in our canteen cos we hadnt actually eaten there yet, and we thought we'd see if there were any other foreign students, and there werent any, there were just loads of chinese people which is quite wierd because its the foreign students guesthouse.
We went to see if Gemma and Beki were awake, and we met their crazy cleaner. We knocked on Gemma's door and she didnt answer so we assumed she was still asleep, but the cleaner came and used her key to unlock the door and we kept telling her not to open the door and then we'd come back later but the cleaner thought it was so funny. She opened the door and went in, and just started laughing at Gemma when she was asleep.wierd.
In the afternoon we met Sunny. She was my tandem partner in newcastle last year and shes doing her final year of uni this year. She showed us round the campus, and we discovered that the campus actually went onto the other side of the road and it was loads bigger than we thought. Sunny showed us her dorm room which was awful. Its so small. There are 3 bunk beds and 2 tables in between and there is no space. I dont know how 6 people can live in such a small place. They dont even have their own bathroom, they have to share with the other people that live on the same floor as them, and they have communal showers so there is no privacy.
2nd September
Frankie, Beki and I went to the airport to go and meet sarah and fran. We decided to get some lunch before we went so we went into a random restaurant where they had pictures of the food, and it was really hard to tell what it was. Frankie and Beki thought they'd ordered chicken but they got some strange yellow meat. And I got something so strange, don't have a clue what it was, and it wasnt very nice! We went on the maglev train to the airport which takes only takes 7 minutes and goes up to 431k/hr, sooooo fast. We met sarah and fran, and when we got back to halls and they we're in the same building as me and frankie, but on the floor below us. Their room was so nice and a lot cheaper than ours, and it had desks and storage space so we went to ask reception if there were any spare rooms down there and they said we had to wait 2 days and then they would know if they had any spare room.
We all went to a little restaurant just next to uni to get some tea and I had some chips, they were so nice. I miss english food.
3rd September
Today we had to register at uni which wasnt very exciting. We had to go to loads of different rooms to register, and get our photo taken, and do other stuff. In one of the rooms we got given a bag with a free university tshirt and some general information about the uni. We got to see the other foreign students who were mostly Japanese and Korean. The last stage of registering was a little oral test and I couldnt even understand the first question that the woman asked me, it was so bad. I was put in elementary level 2 class which is second from bottom. We are all in this class apart from gemma who got put in the one above us. After registering we met 2 guys from Turkey and went to get some lunch with them in our halls, but they wouldnt eat anything because they dont like chinese food - bit of an error coming to china then. Afterward lunch some of us went to the big shanghai library again to use the internet and then we went back to Huaihai road to do a bit of shopping. On the way to Huaihai road it started raining loads and we didnt have umberellas, not good. We saw a Mister Donut tho and went in there to get something to eat and try and dry off. They had a really good english magazine to read with a list of loads of bars and clubs in shanghai so we stole it because we thought it would be useful.
4th September
This morning we went on a mission to find the English supermarket. We got really lost and asked several people for directions but no one seemed to know where to go. We asked one lady who was so helpful. She took us to a bus stop and waited for the right bus to come, and then she told the bus driver to tell us when to get off. So thanks to her we managed to get there. It was in a really posh shopping centre. It was quite expensive but worth it, I bought a couple of boxes of rice krispies so i can have a normal english breakfast. They had an english book shop so I bought a radical book which should be useful. When we got back to our room we discovered that we had been locked out so we went down to reception and said that our key wasnt working and they said that they'd locked us out because we havent paid our rent. So we explained that we were waiting to see if we could change rooms and they said that there was a spare room and we could move straight away. So we moved down to the same floor as fran and sarah and the room is so much better. Im no longer living out of my suitcase!
Later on we got a call from Beki asking if we wanted to go to pizza hut. so we got on the bus to xujiahui and met them. This was the worst meal we've had since we've been here. The pizza wasnt very nice and so much more expensive than all the other food.
We got the bus back from xujiahui and when i stepped off the bus there was a little moped cutting round on the inside of the bus, and it hit me just as i stepped off the bus. It was so funny. The guy was really concerned that he'd hurt me but I couldnt stop laughing and he just looked really confused. Its so bad trying to cross roads or even walking down the pavement because there are cars and mopeds and bicycles everywhere.
5th September
Today we went to ikea which is just near uni and got a few things for our room. It was so exciting. We had lunch there which was exciting, it was just the same as what you'd get in england. After we left all our stuff in our room frankie and i went to the bicycle shop up the road and bought new bicycles. I have decided that cycling is safer than walking. It was so nice to cycle down the road, and we pointlessly cycled around campus because we love our bikes.
Sunny and Vanessa came to our halls for tea and they ordered some things off the menu that they thought we would like to try. There was some kind of fish that was really nice, but i tried to tofu for the first time and it wasnt very nice, and there was a strange kind of soup that wasnt very nice either. Tomorrow night we're going to karaoke with them for sunny's birthday, how exciting!
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