Kicking off the New Year

Whilst calendar New Year isn't a big deal here, as westerners I think we definitely felt the need to mark it.
Guangzhou became our party destination for the night. After an afternoon on disappointing sightseeing (we did get some good mango smoothies out of it though), we started off our evening off trying to navigate navigating a VERY busy metro journey. The Tiyu Xilu metro station is hell on earth at the best of times (we have to take it to Chinese lessons) but on New Year's Eve it was packed with people - it's made me a little bit frightful of what public transport will be like at Spring Festival (Chinese new year). 

My final view of Guangzhou in 2014 (that's the Canton Tower in the middle)

After dinner at a much raved about restaurant - over-rated in my opinion - we went to meet the others who were saving seats for us at a favourite expat bar.

Fireworks are banned in Guangzhou (my students said this is because of pollution), a bit ironic really, so sadly there were no midnight shows. Instead, Guangzhou have a light show; all the bridges along the river and the neighboring skyscrapers, including the Canton Tower, are lit up in various colours - it definitely gave the city a more lively and celebratory feel.

We ended up celebrating the New Year, in a very busy expat bar called Perry's. They certainly knew how to celebrate New Year by having unlimited cocktails for women for £5 and free beer for everyone - its impressive no one needed carrying home.  

It probably had something to do with all the free alcohol, but we rang in New Year dancing on the tables and taking selfies with the locals - somehow all the other foreigners seemed to have made a swift exit at some point which just left us as the mad locals jumping about on the furniture and being the centre of attention - we had a lot of fun! 

1st January

James and I started our new year off very China style - with steamed buns and milk teas...you could almost mistake us for locals! As we'd spent the night in Guangzhou we decided to spend our day touristing our way back across the city towards Foshan.  Imti, one of my friends who also lives in Foshan decided to join us so we formed a merry little tourist band for the day.

We had planned on going up the Canton tower but we decided against this due to the wind and haze that was over the city - being up very high on a windy day is never much fun, especially if you can't see anything!

Instead I decided to take the boys to Beijing Lu, which is a shopping street in Guangzhou, for a nosey before heading to Haizhu square. They weren't nearly as in love with the Mecca that Haizhu Square as I am - this area is full of little stalls selling anything you could possibly want for the cultural event of the moment,  it's currently packed with things for Chinese New Year. FYI it's the year of the Ram next year...

Next up on tour of tourist delights was the Chen Clan Academy. I'm still unclear exactly what this complex used to be, but it was built by the Chen family in the 1800s. It's been completely restored to it's original glory and is now home to lots of different displays showing traditional Chinese crafts - some are pretty spectacular. It just so happened that there was a boy there who was offering free English tours, because his teacher had told him his English was awful and he had to improve - we thought he was pretty good!

The very beautiful roof of Chen Clan Academy

Our meandering continued around an area of Guangzhou called Changshou lu - this is an older part of Guangzhou, so it's a refreshing change to all the skyscrapers and shopping malls. We went there in search of Bruce Lee's ancestral home which we never found but the traditional charm of the area made up for that.

A canal near Changshou Lu - it could almost be Venice...

Our final destination of the day was Shamian Island. Shamian Island is a former European Concession, with most of the buildings built in the 1800s; it's like a little bit of Europe in the middle of Guangzhou. We didn't spend very long there, so it's definitely on my to-do list to revisit.

2nd January

As the 2nd was James's last day in China we decided do continue packing in the tourist hotspots or 'place of interest' as all my students call them. Xi Qiao Mountain, which is in the heart of Foshan, is somewhere that we (friends and I) have been planning on going to since we arrived,  we just never quite got round to it... So the beautiful sunny day that was the 2nd January provided the opportunity to scale our local namesake landmark. Xi Qiao is famous because there is a giant statue of the Buddha of the top of the mountain - the city of Foshan is named after this (Fo means Buddha and Shan means mountain).

Walking up the mountain (well group ofbig hills really) was not what I expected. It seems to me that Chinese people are, in general, not great fans of walking, whether this is because of the heat here in the south, the sheer size of the country or what i'm not quite sure, but you can drive all the way up to the Buddha at the top of the hill, or even buy tickets for the golf buggies to drive you there if the mood takes you. We just presumed that most people would walk up the hill, like us in our merry group of 3 (Imti joined us again), but it wasn't until we got to the top, feeling slightly more disheveled and less glamorous that the suit and high-heels clad natives that surrounded us, that we realised this probably wasn't the case. I like to think we had more fun getting to the top though than they did - we also discovered more ancient and impossibly tiny staircases than they did, I think that means we had a more adventurous day out...

a view of Foshan in the background - even on a good day it's never clear

Our city namesake - it's not very old this Buddha so there must have been one before 

Sibling harmony - above us are lucky streamers people were throwing into the trees

I loved this girl in her red outfit

The Buddha from a distance

Personally I think this was a pretty good way to start the new year and finish a holiday.

G x

Christmas in Guilin

Very delayed, I apologise...

For Christmas this year I got a festive visit from my little brother - best present ever! I think he came in the guise of Christmas elf because the number of presents coming out of his suitcase seemed endless - it came to form what can only be lovingly described as ‘Christmas corner’.

                                           
'Christmas Corner' - the Santa hat doubled as the tree

                              

He definitely didn't get much rest when I was in control of the schedule – as soon as he arrived I introduced him to an early morning, sunny, Guangzhou and then dragged him off to my Chinese class. The first thing my Chinese teacher asked when we arrived was if he spoke Chinese – I think his confused face said it all!

Despite my delight at his arrival in Guangdong within 24 hours I’d already shipped him off to Hong Kong – no time for jet lag on this holiday!

Following his return we decided to head north to the city of Guilin for a few days, as I had a few days Christmas holiday.  Guilin is famous across China for its amazing and unusual mountain scenery. 

To get to Guilin from Guangzhou we took an overnight bus, finding the correct bus station in Guangzhou was a challenge in itself! I’d been told by friends that it was a sleeper bus so we would get bed-type things to sleep on; this was something I couldn’t imagine, so I was a bit apprehensive about what kind of night we were going to have.  Before getting on the bus the bus driver told us to take off our shoes. Well actually he was waving plastics bags in my faces and trying to pull my shoes off. I didn't know what he was trying to do, perils of being keen to be first on the bus I suppose. Normally talking your shoes off before getting on a bus is not a good idea, goodness only knows who had been there before you, but I soon discovered he wanted us to take our shoes off because we were walking straight into what can pretty much be described as a bedroom on wheels.  The cabin was full of metal framed bunk-beds and very thick blankets (better not to be too concerned whether they had been washed or not).   The beds were definitely designed for Chinese people. At 5ft7 I just fitted to beds, didn't stop me having a great night’s sleep though, I’m not sure the same can be said for James...

The unexpected interior of the bus

So sleeping on a bus was how we spent our Christmas Eve this year but it did mean we arrived in Guilin nice and early on Christmas day. We opened Christmas corner before we left Guangzhou (James wasn't so keen on the enforced rule of having to wear a Santa hat when opening presents!) so we were ready to start our festive bought of touristy antics.  One of my friends, Owen, who is here through the same organisation as me, flew to Guilin the day before he was tucked up nicely in bed when we arrived bright and early. After a breakfast of French toast and fresh orange juice (fresh fruit juice is impossible to buy here and it was Christmas after all), we were all ready to explore a very misty Guilin. 

In Guilin, the main attractions for tourists are the unusual hills and their accompanying parks, which are scattered throughout the city and surrounding area. Instead we decided to go to the Reed Flute Caves – that way we weren't waiting for the weather to break to be able to see anything. I didn't know what to expect in these Caves. The only cave I've ever been to is White Scar Caves in England, which I remember as being wet and low-ceiling-ed but lots of fun. In contrast the Reed Flute Cave is dry, cavernous and very well illuminated with lots of coloured lights. We had to tag onto the back of a Chinese tour so we had absolutely no idea what was going on so we entertained ourselves with taking a ridiculous number of pictures (most of which got deleted) and analysing the names given to the different rock formations – one which I distinctly remember was called ‘a bumper harvest of fruit and vegetables’ because the rocks looked like different fruits and vegetables. The lights definitely made the cave a more interesting place but it wasn't the most exciting thing I've ever done, probably due to us having no idea what was being said.

The locals thought we were a little wacky to say the least!

Reed Flute caves in all their multi-coloured glory!

For Christmas lunch we found a network of food streets in the centre of Guilin and settled down for some Chinese fare served out of interestingly shaped wooden bowls (they looked a bit like shells or giant nuts); the people on the next table were eating out of bamboo shoots. We felt Christmas lunch called for something different for Christmas lunch, and quirky bowls fitted the bill nicely. The rest of our Christmas day was spent pottering about Guilin and trying to catch a glimpse of the famous ‘Elephant Trunk Hill’ (a rock that looks like an elephant drinking out of the river), personally I’m not convinced it looks like an elephant but I wasn’t about to pay the extortionate entry fee to change my mind.  It’s pretty fair to say on our low key Christmas day we all got far too excited when we saw the many fishing with birds – it’s not something you see everyday (certainly not down here).

We retreated late in the afternoon to the warmth and comfort of our hostel to escape the slightly miserable weather (It was colder and damper than we are used to down here, and even James thought it was chilly!). Our hostel had a very good bar (obviously very important) and casual area so we treated ourselves to a few cocktails and chilled out in preparation for the evening’s festive activities.

 

Our festive activities involved a Christmas party which was organised by the hostel. Our festive spread for the evening was very impressive – there was dumplings, noodles, fish, pork, beef, chicken, tofu, vegetables and of course rice (everything but turkey) so we spent a good amount of time tasting our way around the table with the other hostel residents. Some of our friends from our Beijing training (who live in Yunnan province) were also in Guilin so they came and joined us for the evening which made for an even more festive atmosphere (we were all wearing antlers). The ‘Wada Girls’ (the lovely ladies who run the hostel) rolled out the party games for the rest of our evening’s entertainment – here was numerous rounds of Chinese dice game with cups (I’ve forgotten the name), but I’m happy to say I won at least once, peanuts carrying races with chopsticks – James absolutely blew the rest of us out of the water there, he can no longer peddle out the excuse of ‘I can’t use chopsticks’ and of course the obligatory rounds of charades. And for the winners and losers there were plenty of prizes and forfeits – Owen’s one-man nativity still leaves me traumatised.

We were even treated to jingle bells on the Erhu (two stringed traditional Chinese instrument) by the janitor, who then really started the party by dishing out the rounds of Baijiu (Chinese rice wine - 60% alcohol – tastes revolting).

So my Christmas was more fun, festive and more gin fuelled than I ever expected. I haven’t had gin in months, what was I supposed to do?!?!

Boxing Day was spent doing the Li river cruise. The guide told us that a misty day on the Li river was one of the must see things in China (I think that’s what they tell all the tourists when it’s raining!) The Li river is famous because of the startling scenery (when it’s not raining), so famous that it’s even on the money (20 Yuan note). The cruise was lovely but I’m very glad I had my gloves on. Our afternoon was spent on another tour around the Yangshuo countryside (a small city near Guilin) – we ended up feeding a buffalo and going to a tourist attraction that was definitely not historically authentic but trying very hard to fool us otherwise – we ended up dancing with traditionally dressed actors and James ended up in a wedding ritual! I’m still not sure what was going on!

The famous mountains along the Li River

A fisherman and his birds

The view on the money -  worth every penny

Apparently this is a windows 7 background view?!?

The 'historical' village

The LongJi rice Terraces

Our Saturday was spent at the LongJi rice Terraces – this was the day I’d most been looking forward too. Before I arrived here, when I thought of China I thought the great wall and rice field – I’m happy to say I've now seen then both. After a very long and winding bus trip to the paddy fields, we dined on some VERY fried noodles cooked by the lady in the car park (glamorous or what!), before starting our assent to the top of the paddy fields in the hope of experiencing the breath-taking scenery – sadly again the weather was not on our side. Despite not being able to see the most famous view (the one shown on our very glamorous tickets), I’m still happy I saw the paddy fields – the mist had cleared lower down the mountains and imagining Chinese scenery is something I’m getting quite good at!

The bus journey back to Guilin was a slightly surreal experience for me. The bus (which was public) was so full that I was forced to sit on a tiny plastic stool in the bus aisle whilst simultaneously being grilled by a fellow passenger (in Chinese) about where I was from, what my job was and most importantly how much I earned (I lied to her about the last bit) – definitely not how I expected to spend my afternoon when I woke up that morning!

Our final day in Guilin was just James and I. Finally we had a sunny day, and even a little bit warm! We whiled away our lazy Sunday strolling in the sunshine around the lakes and river in the city as well as eating A LOT of bread (it was tasty and unusual). It was a change to all the noodles I felt like I ate in Guilin!

For some reason our (very uncomfortable) bus trip home only took 6 hours rather than the 11 hours it took us on the way there – not quite sure how that works. It did me the chance to us hone my Chinese navigation skills on our late night taxi ride home – I definitely need the practise!

G x

There are lots more pictures on my Flickr - blogger was being annoying and not letting me add some of my favourites.

Earning my teaching stripes

Happy New Year everybody! I know 11 days after the event is slightly belated but the last few days seem to have run away with me.

Over the Christmas period I was introducing my students to a variety of Christmas movies - it's not Christmas without a good festive film! Arthur Christmas was a definite hit, with both them and me! If you haven't seen it I recommend it (no matter the age group) - it's an Aardman production so the sense of humour is great. I hope it's satisfied their endless demand for movies for a while...

Interesting welcome back to work this week - I was told first thing on Monday morning that I have to conduct speaking exams for all my 1200 pupils over the next few weeks! I'm a bit annoyed I got absolutely no notice or guidance to prepare for these exams - it's made for a slightly stressed week this week trying to work out the best way to conduct 1200 exams! ahhhhhhhhh I was under the allusion that I didn't have to do anything with my students like conduct exams (they seemed as shocked as me) so next semester will definitely be taught in a different way in preparation for next semester's exams.

I feel a bit sorry for the students if I only got a weeks notice to prepare for a speaking exam I would have started a riot.  Saying that the announcement was greeted by a lot of "NO. I don't want to." I think though, after the preparation lesson I did them all - including teaching them what the word 'revise' means - we are all much more confident about what the next few weeks holds (me included).

So basically the next few weeks will be an experience in itself.

It also turns out that no-one was telling the students that I have been for intermittent holidays for the last few weeks - they all thought I had abandoned them - I went into a lot of puppy dog faces and "long time no see's" this past week. It's more evident than ever that there's a serious lack of communication going on...

G x

Christmas is a-coming (fast)

I'm massively loosing track of time probably because all the hype in the run up to Christmas doesn't happen here, it's nice not having to think about Christmas and all the associated mayhem. Saying that though, our local supermarket was playing awful cover versions of western Christmas songs using Chinese singers with bad English accents -  it took me a while to work out which songs they were murdering. Surprisingly the supermarket also had a small section of Christmas decorations - not sure what the quality was like though. I've decided to just sort of pretend Christmas isn't happening this year, swapping turkey for tofu might be quite refreshing (ok maybe not the tofu part).

I did come across an area in Guangzhou where I could buy enough tinsel and Christmas trees to decorate the whole of Guangdong if the mood suddenly took me....

Owen and I went Christmas browsing in this area on Saturday, here are some of the gems we found.

 This is an ingenious way to use strawberries!

G x

Winter's coming

So after last week's sweat inducing temperatures and humidity, the weather has changed to more winter like weather. Saying that the temperature is about 12oC so the swimming pool isn't quite freezing over yet...

The change in temperature has made everyone dive into their wardrobes and dig out every item of clothing they own and proceed to wear it all at the same time - even last week's sports day jumpers. Everyone looks like they've landed in Siberia. I don't think i've ever seen so many ski-jackets in +0oC temperatures. 

I walk into every class and i'm greeted with 'are you not cold?!?' and all the teachers just stare at me when I walk past because i'm still wearing skirts and shoes with no socks - I have donned a cardi though. I think i'm going to have to go and buy some tights at the weekend just to pacify everyone - I think they are all concerned that i'm a bit mad and that i'm trying to get hypothermia or something - even the male pupils (who hardly ever talk in class) are concerned for my welfare! Next week's topic is definitely going to be about the weather (except I think it's supposed to be warm again next week).

I walked into on classroom yesterday and just laughed. In one corner of the classroom a group of boys were eating ice cream, which they'd bought from the school tuck shop, whilst simultaneously moaning about the cold and on the other side of the classroom a girl was knitting a scarf! (not something I expected to see this year).

Gotta love China and all it's quirks

G x

Sports day

Last week was easy peasy teaching wise - I only had to teach 10 out of my 19 weekly classes - gotta love sports day! It did mean I didn't really get to teach my St. Andrew's Day lesson though so I haven't quite got the youths of China greeting each other with 'Fit like i' day' but there's plenty of time yet for that.

Sport's day here is quite and affair. Each class designs and wears their individual t-shirts or jumpers, some were were better than others, it has to be said but funnily enough most of the slogans they had written on them were in English  - this made for an entertaining morning for Tom and I. 

I'm not really sure how sports day works at the school - not everyone seems to take part but sports seem to include track running, high-jump, long-jump and shot-put so not all that different from sports day anywhere else - not a half-time orange in sight though!

To be honest I think the main attraction of sports day turned into Tom and I - i've never had my photo taken so many times in the space of an hour. Everybody seemed to want pictures with the white teachers - I didn't even recognise half of the pupils who all seemed to know my name (not that they can pronounce it properly - Julian seems to be the closest pronunciation they can manage!).

There were even two pupils (well at least I think they were pupils) dressed up as Minions. I say I hope they were minions because Tom and I decided to simultaneously run at one and hug them - definitely not what they were expecting when they excitedly waved at us - he ran off pretty sharpish afterwards as well which was funny.

So whilst the students were pretending to do two days worth of sports I got 2 days off work to enjoy the very hot weather we were having - i'm not complaining! Here's me thinking I was going to be worked to the bone and I think i've had more weeks incomplete weeks than complete weeks!

G x

Culture kick

So somehow the whole of November has runaway with me so i'm very behind on the blog posts - time for some serious catching up!

A few weekends ago I had a very full on Chinese themed day. The university, where some friends and I go to mandarin class, has some cultural events every now and again and November's event was an afternoon of Chinese tea art and Tai Chi.  Maybe not the most thrilling sounding way to spend a Sunday but when in China...

The afternoon started with some displays of different kinds of Tai Chi (there are 5 different types apparently). One type involved a very large sword, the woman wielding it was very impressive...

We also got to have a go at practicing some Tai Chi - I was rubbish but it was fun. In order for the Tai Chi master to prove his strength, 10 of us had to try and help each other push him over - it all ended with us in a pile on the floor and him merrily standing there looking strong! I enjoyed the Tai Chi - it's definitely harder than it looks!

After the Tai Chi, there was a tea ceremony demonstration. I've got to say it's not quite as exciting the second time round - maybe it was the lack of wishing frog this time - didn't mean I didn't happily drink the varying rounds of tea though (some habits never die).

The following weekend I was invited to one of the teacher's houses for Sunday lunch, China style! She used to live in the same building as me with her son and husband but she had recently moved to a new apartment and Sunday lunch was her house warming party. I am genuinely chuffed that she invited me to join her and her friends - none of the other teachers have really paid any attention to us!

There was a group of about 8 of us in total, the only problem was though that everyone else was Chinese and they were all talking a local Cantonese dialect so my basic Mandarin skills didn't exactly come in handy.

I definitely experienced the Chinese hospitality - i've never eaten so much mutton in my life! I had been warned that you will just kept being fed until you put up a fit or collapse from eating exhaustion. I was treated to a traditional style  Cantonese hotpot - a famous local dish in these parts. It's a bit like a stew - it's the closest thing I can think of to compare it with. The meat of choice in this dish was mutton. As the guest who didn't have a clue what the etiquette was at this my bowl was promptly ladled full of mutton, I think only about one vegetable made it into the mix.  I definitely wasn't quick enough off the mark when my half empty bowl was snatched away and refilled. After we'd all polished off the mutton the stew (which was kept on the heat) tofu was added and then vegetables and it probably would have just kept going if we hadn't all refused to keep eating - hilariously enough after being made to sample everything on offer (at least twice) I was told I don't eat much...this definitely isn't true!

After the meal it was repeated rounds of tea and a giant grapefruit type thing - both good but I never learnt the lesson that if you drink your little cup of tea (even if it's just a sip) it will promptly be refilled! 

If I sounds skeptical, I don't mean it, I genuinely had a great day mingling with the locals the hardest past is definitely trying to work out what are good table manners when it comes to spitting out the bones and eating 12cm long bits of vegetable!

The had nice views out of Foshan too (or at least I think they are nice)

G x