FASHION & TRAVEL: Shanghai

Tuesday 21st - Sunday 26th April

back in class to be told we have a speaking test on Friday, a performance, we have to use certain set words from a selection (7 each) 3 grammar points and have it a length of 6-8 minutes. My group is of course Lina, Meliah and Kat. Paid for my trip to Yellow Mountain, as I’m scholarship student I pay 200 rather than full price 1500, utter steal! Starting back at peony rice. ever one said a friendly hello, and after some toile deconstruction I was sent to the fabric market and accessories, failing to get the desired organdy as it is quite hard to come by in certain colours and not translucent. practised wrote up and learnt a script for the test on Friday, however the Russian girl Lina left it last minute causing us lots of stress, not fun and unnecessary. we were first on and along with props, learnt lines (though lina's perhaps weren’t the smoothest) we got laughs due to the script (my birthday party, neighbour complains twice we get drunk, 2nd time we find out her husband is in Taiwan she is super lonely so she joins us like a Chinese soap opera!) and the way we acted it out, and we shocking surpassed the time limit with 12 1/2 minutes, the longest! The rest of the class was spent on a high. We even got to watch a bit of a video once we finished comprehensive class. working hard at the new design conceptions for the envelope fold bag I’m doing for mrkt, the journey back, as with the sudden heat spring/summer is fully here with a mid-20@ range (I even got some colour at the park on Thursday) I love passing the park beside the metro station currently as the flowers smell so sweet!!

Had a bit of a disaster on the Tuesday coming home from Peony rice, however was saved by a lovely Chinese man! Every day brings a new surprise and I often witness the kindness of people who are always willing to lend a hand, like today, my bicycle chain became loose, I panicked having no idea how to fix it when a Chinese man came up to me, asked me what was the problem, fixed it, waved goodbye and crossed the road. He literally saved me from a meltdown and hour long walk home pushing my bike. Small gestures can really mean everything, I hope to try and help someone each day, even if it's just a smile. Sometimes in this vast world the little things can mean so much. Thank you for your help today whoever you were!
And to top it off on updating my Tumblr I found I had a lovely comment/question from a girl asking about my work
Spent Friday night in with a headache and in work on Saturday at Peony Rice I was giving the task of starting the range for children’s wear headpieces, spent the day experimenting with different styles of bows, shapes and sizes made of different stiffness’s of Tulle.
On the Saturday night Kat Melia and I went to muse getting free in and drinks through the promoter, it was quite an odd night. the Chinese manager (?) or Muse befriended us (after watching us dance....) and asked us to join him at the table with free food and drinks (gross cognac with flat cola) he looked a bit like and laughed like the Chinese guy from "the Hangover" movies/ he gave us some weird "injection/syringe" shots, with a creamy sort of cocktail in them which you squirt into your mouth, as you can imagine, the effect was just so delightful and not at all done to resemble anything sleazy or pornographic. He started to touch my leg... the dancers as per usual were scantily clad, this time the men in white leather jackets and white speedos, all of which looked heavily into their steroids. We left to the back part of the bar. We had a hilarious bartender down there which found our "wanker signs" amazing and gave us some tea light candles and got some silly pictures giving the finger, he then hilariously sat down a dildo shaped object which pretty much had me on the floor laughing! Met a Canadian guy who not only knew the difference between Northern Ireland and Ireland, but said he had a friend from Belfast. However he killed it by saying he thought I was 26...twat. In the bathrooms the American girl thought I was Swedish and had fabulous collarbones.....drunken people are odd. We got a space on the podium stage ledge for dance and partied hard (though I may have dropped my drink oops) some black guy seemed to want to try it on with us but we turned it into a dance of which he lost TERRIBLY, While his friends stood around awkwardly not really moving never mind dancing at all. On our way out, a Kurt Cobain wanabe tried to seduce Melia and failed, his over friendliness made me think she actually knew him, creepy! She told him she had to go and jumped in the elevator saying her girlfriend was at home waiting....random night! (when in doubt, pull out the I'm a lesbian excuse")
Broke my shower head holder and for the 2nd day in a row the water was cold! Went to the park and studied in the sun getting bit my mosquitos and then went for shisha with Kat. saw a strange  ferret like creative with a broken leg run across the road and spend a long time trying to get up to the grass area. It was very odd looking, Kat thought at first it was a squirrel but not really sure. Was odd!

Monday 27th April - Wednesday 6th May MAY DAY HOLIDAYS/ Chinese labour Holiday

Spent yesterday studying in the park and got bit by bloody mosquitos! HATE THOSE CREATURES! (Is killing bugs ok if you're a veggie, I don’t think mosquitos, wasps and flies count as animals they are sooo annoying!)

Unfortunately this week our speaking lesson chapter is yet again about love! Boyfriend and girlfriend etc. they seem obsessed! We had to do a hilarious class lesson were I was getting married to my class from Sudan (who was also with my last semester) and he had to tell his ex-girlfriend, who did not know and was like, did you cheat on me, (tou xing 头型?? was she your lover? Xiaosan小三??.  My response, yeah, I’m a foreigner and I'm prettier than you. ?????????????!wo shi waiguoren. souyi wo bi ni geng piaoliang! 我是外国人我比你更漂亮Had the whole class in stitches, was so funny! And today we had a scenario where I was introducing to my Chinese parents my foreign boyfriend. It was funny because my "father" was why can’t you date a nice Chinese boy, why do you think the foreigner is handsome? He has a big nose!!
Figured out why "No one loved me" back home, my mother had switched off her Wi-Fi so she was actually annoyed AT ME as she believed I wasn’t contacting her and she was sending lots of messages to me, very funny!
In Peony rice I had a disastrous day, they are selling some outfits for a charity pop up weekend shop, it wasn’t too far, however I took a taxi as I had a large suitcase full of items to bring. THE TAXI DRIVER WOULD NOT GET ME TO THE PLACE!! He kept going round in circles (a one way system) and although I told him in Chinese and showed him the address in Chinese he would not seem to go there, eventually I rang my boss, and kept telling him to go straight on. I FINALLY GOT THERE AFTER 40 MINUTES INSTEAD OF 5!! I didn’t get home until nearly 8!! (Though was briefly cheered by a hilarious - and also quite dangerous - Chinese man reading his amazon reader while riding a motorcycle!! crazy! fa Feng le! ??? the rules here are different than those of the EU and well, most other countries! The non-car drivers are responsible for themselves, the driver is not responsible for hitting someone, and hence why it is everyman for them! crazy!! a very nice man also actually stopped his scooter to help me with my bike chain which was kind! Spent the rest of the week with doing some sample flowers and bows for my children’s headpiece range I’m creating for them.
Found out about the EU, Germany and Greece which I found nothing about on the BBC news website which I read most days! So posted a long status online about it having been sent some articles from my German friend Kat.





holiday weekend Fri-Sunday so I’m off class and work so was only in MRKT for one day this week. the American shoe designer company owner was in and got me to look at the Philadelphia Market East station wall art as he said my "rainbow" bag reminded him of it...(now known as Jefferson station) it sort of resembles it...sort of. But was cool that this made him think of it, he clearly appreciates my work a lot more than Tom.

Went to "space" on Thursday night with Kat discussing the politics of the E.u drink a bucket and smoke some shisha. A Chinese guy took a shine to me and bought us two buckets of whiskey coke (we sipped them) and gave us a packet of orange cigarettes. Odd! Especially when I told him I didn’t smoke. We left in a great mood!
Friday was spent in Zhongshan park enjoying the sun and studying, spent the weekend learning all 600 HSK3 words (as they are 50% of the 1200 needed for hsk4 which I plan to sit) I overheard two British girls, turns out one was from London the other was in fact Chinese and had only studied there! It rained all day Saturday so stayed in. My Chinese friend Fei was up from Wuhan for the holidays to stay just outside Shanghai with his parents (he studies Jewellery design and is gay tbh) myself, Kat and the Russian girl Lina and him, went to M2 it was crazy busy and the male dancers wore creepy studded mouth/gimp masks! Do not like! we danced and had fun before leaving around 1 tired (we'd had a disaster getting there as we'd went to the wrong address, thanks google!)
Sunday was great fun! its Laos New year so the Laos students were celebrating, they have a water festival, pools, water throwing and water pistols and hoses, we had so much fun we went back again, getting thrown in the water fully clothed and getting soaked, our old lady boy Laos classmate started giving us cocktails, we were dancing (at one point we got pulled up to the table to dance!!) the French guy from our class was there and he loves dancing, it was soo fun, and the cocktails were great. We kept getting picked dup and thrown in the water or getting the water sprayed or chucked over us! Only problem was it started to get a bit chilly. The Laos guys took a shine to us (think we may have been the only non-Asians) and kept forming a circle and dancing round us, was soo funny. Would definitely love to go to Laos for the actual festival next year! They even pretended to throw one of the main shifu's ?? (receptionist guards) in, and actually did throw in another school worker! Everyone was getting soaked was soo fun! And we were doing Ganbei ?? with our old Lao classmates and new. VERY FUN!
Met fei for dinner after and talked a lot about china and the u.k (he is going to study there for a year)
Got the great news that my sister is coming to china to visit at the end of the year

TRAVEL:BEIJING

 CONFUSCIOUS TEMPLE

LAMA TEMPLE

SUMMER PALACE

TRAVEL & FASHION: SHANGHAI & MRKT

Tuesday 7th April - Friday 10th

Back to class and back to work this week. finally visited at Yuyuan gardens properly. also took Mor the fabric market to get a suit, he's getting to full suits (trousers, jackets, shirts and ties) for 1750RMB all tailored to fit of course!(his sister's wedding is coming up, this venue or the south bund fabric market, and also the fake markets are the places to get tailored clothes for those you cant really speak chinese, its more catered to foreigners, its cheap, skill is excellent, you choose style, material colour etc and of course tailored to fit. great for work, special occasions or just a nice treat for yourself, they do excellent coats as well!)

In work got speaking to Tom about where to move with the bags, look in detail about the flat packs, and do an everyday female bag and the fold triangle envelope bag. There’s a children’s wear company who want to work with MRKT and Tom was thinking the triangle backpack would be perfect as one of these. Also doing the New Pandora bag shoot on the 15th with me as the model!! Going to Jing ‘an park for that (since it is so close)and studied for my first Chinese comprehensive test getting an okay 80.5% on the Friday.

Later on went to Muse, the nightclub (for some strange reason most shanghai clubs have M names...), getting our classic vodka cranberry of course! Dancing and doing some shots. Of course the erotic dancers were there. The girls had on cool short hot pink leather studded jackets which I would have worn, however the guys had woeful long ones. When I first told my dad about it he asked if I was actually at a strip club haha. Amazing night after the exam definitely let my hair down. Not getting home till near 6, like a proper shanghai expat student! not particularly drunk, but i dont think drinking too much in one of the clubs with the free alcohol is advised, its renowned for being dodgy, fke or out of date, hence why so cheap/free, if you value your liver keep drinking to a minimum dancing to the max

Saturday 11th April - Thursday 16th

bit of a lie in was needed obviously, thought Taiyung my roommate was back even later, and on Sunday I had to wake her at 2.30! a nice day but I had to revise I was therefore late for Mor as we'd all talked about how the bottle opener is a must go to venue for sunset, light show and drinks.
so I missed the sunset however we did pretty all much witness the sunrise this morning (sunset and sunrise are both surprisingly early in china, no matter what time of year). We got lost trying to get to the bottle opener before finally finding the lift to the bar restaurant area and sitting with a random couple. We completely ignored them and ended up living in our own world. watching the light show at the oriental pearl (nothing amazing, not after the light show at XIAN but still a nice sight, I could spend hours just gazing at buildings - the problems of being an architects daughter eh! i get too absorbed with stupid things like cornerstones, take me too a land full of amazing skyscrapers or architectural beauty and im lost to you for a good while)) the boats on the bund 外滩were lit up and you could see the pudong area buildings and some others in the distance were nicely lit up, you could also see the lovely old architecture on the bund as we all see down to the other buildings like the jin mao tower (which is in fact my favourite of them all)  conoodled for a while before getting kicked out for not purchasing anything 

Unfortunately due to crossed wires I didn’t get to go to church with kat due to confusion on my end, but I met her at xintiandi and we chatted on our return. Studied and sketched a bit before I returned to xintiandi  to go to FUXING PARK in the French concession area. A nice area full of people and couples dancing, went to the rose garden to discover no roses and chilled in the park.went to pizza hut and share a pizza. Yummy!!

Class on Monday and got my test back. Only a few silly mistakes and was in the class average of 80.5 will know to study harder next time and not argue on skype with anyone! Headed to Yuyuan gardens to meet Mor to help him collect his suit.

He looked well, especially in the grey one, however they messed up his ties, he's wanted a papillon bowtie (like the one worn by the Daniel Craig James Bond) but they did a poor job, he won’t use them and he got discount. they had to add a buckle to his coat and do button holes so he'll return tomorrow as he's staying a bit longer now I was really late for work so called in sick. Got some noodles and chilled at the park before we went into Yuyuan Gardens getting a student in. A nice area. with lovely garden and traditional Chinese pavilion buildings, there was an English speaking tour group so we tagged along for a while learning about how the huge dragons with the tongues out where for "protection" sort of like a kimono dragon as its saliva is highly poisonous and its bite will kill.  We sat and relaxed by the water (ignoring the huge scary Koi carp, I don’t like big fish, especially lively active ones, black ones are the worst!)

it started to get a bit chilly by now with the sun starting to set so we headed over to meet Arthur, from the Netherlands, bit of a feisty sort of guy who loves the ladies 花心, very talk, talkative and funny. We failed to get to the Baozi restaurant as it was closed to we ended up going to a fancy Muslim restaurant on Nanjing road. We got a test tube shot of fruit wine which was delicious and a ridiculously cheap 4RMB. We then shared 3 dishes, ones were a lemony hummus with seeds and some flatbread, and one was noodles and another vegetable dish. We then had their speciality dessert, a small slice (again cheap) like a creamy pudding with a light creamy wafer biscuit in the style of vienneta ice-cream. it was delicious and may in fact be the most delicious dessert I have had in my life (Yes it topped the one I ate on my 18th birthday in the Belfast restaurant in Villa Italia where I actually groaned whilst I ate, but I am willing to compare the 2 again of course haha!) went back to mine after this and studied/finished my fashion sketch passed the park at night near the back of West yan'an station. There were prostitutes...yep Chinese prostitutes...least you know where to go now eh!

Wednesday in work was the photoshoot for the Pandora bags for MRKT Tom had a driver pick us wife, Tom's Chinese wife was there too, she asked me what modelling I’d done before and who did my makeup, she seemed quite happy and surprised I’d done none and I’d done the makeup myself, but whatever, just went to a simple natural look. We went to the nearby JING'AN Park to take photos; I hadn’t been there since I first came to Shanghai in September. we took shots with myself and the new Italian/Brazilian intern from the CRSS internship (she was adopted at 1 by Italians) they mainly took ones with me, ofc focusing on the bag, in a variety of areas with different bags and some just in scenery. I was listening to my headphones and playing with my phone (hoping for them to take the hint for a casual photograph which they finally did) Ducky and Toko seemed to be happy and said I was a natural. Fun day and was nice to have some of my bags being used! Thursday was the usual, was happy to be one of the few if not only person in the class who could write haizi (child)

TRAVEL: Zhangjiajie and Tianmen Mountian 张家界和天门山

ZHANGJIAJIE (Avatars) 张家界
SATURDAY 4TH APRIL 2015

which closes are after 6 and so you must go to the front of the station nd get a bus back down to the city. failed to get a warm shower :( and borrowed an extra duvet from the top bunk as there is still only Rosie and I in the room. but its cold! and sooo wet

as they say in China. "drenched like  duck/chicken" xiang luotangji yiyang 像落汤鸡一样

Saturday 5th April ZHANGJIAJIE 张家界 Tianzi Shan天子山

The warning about the monkeys are in fact, not to be taken lightly (I laughed when i first read the signs)

we thankfully got to a pit stop with a restaurant half way up one of the main stair climbs (full of trees and monkey families on the climb)  just as a particularly heavy down pour begin. [ the climb is tiring to say the least, you need to be prepared and a bit fit, not a walk in the park but there are expensive sedans that will carry you, however the price is often approximated by weight, so the slimmer you are the cheaper i guess, also if you arent a foreigner, they all believe we are super rich...they clearly dont understand my student life of no money!) ,  I practiced some chinese with the locals, and made some happy by allowing photos (they are obsessed with foreigners (waiguoren 外国人）, still often a rarity i guess, especially fair hair blondes with greenblue eyes i guess)  they actually invited us to join them for food! we declined however and continued on as the rained eased., climbing upwards and onwards past the "Back garden" & "enchanting" seeing some beautiful pillars at times, as it was often difficult to see due to the heavy rains and mist, and of course the higher you go up, you begin to also be in the clouds!
we really only saw a glimpses of the famous "Heavenly Pillar" (aka James Cameron's Avatar HALLELUJAH MOUNTAIN" +Avatar 

we could see, and walked over "THE GREATEST NATURAL BRIDGE"  Which was in fact a small natural bridge most likely caused by erosion over the millions of years (Rosie study GeoSciences) we barely realized we had as with the trees and the weather (unable to see the area below us due to cloud and mist) as its sort of part of the mountain route path. the small "island mountain" is enclosed with safety barricades (its one huge deathly sheer drop) and has been turned into a love lock pillar, you can buy and engrave locks for it there.longevity (love) lock mountain at least 80% of it was covered, with locks hanging off locks! with a "love" statue as centre piece. +Love Lock Wedding

we continued back around and crossed a suspending ropebridge, not for the weak hearted, especially whne all you can see below is the nothingness of mist! the main famous pillar area's viewing point is an area where you can get a photo of you riding one of the Avatar mounts and they photoshop it to perfection. heavily raining with lots of cloud and mist coverage it was pointless at that time, however peope were sill getting it to say they had been there. stupid really.

Thankfully when we began walking down a bit we were able ti see YUBEI PEAK before going to the more scenic route on our left avoiding all the tourists and pretty much everyone. it was so peaceful! so nice in a main tourist area, let alone China! we past lots of interesting shades of green (green as I'm sure you know is the colour with the most shades) plants and trees on our way past the "MOON VIEWING PLATFORM" we again were chatting and joking with the few Chinese we did meet,  before finally passing under "SOUTHERN HEAVENLY GATE"

 natural bridge

southern heavenly gate
Monday 6th April [Easter Monday] Zhangjiajie Tianmen mountain

we left with the 2 girls sharing our room for tianmen famous for its glass bridge, both chinese students from Guangdong in the South of China near Hongkong. it was raining already at half 8. the journey to the mountain is done via cable car, apparently the longest in the world with a journey time of 30 mins, to a height of over 1500m. paying a student entrance in of 158RMB including 3rmb for insurance. we waited downstairs and then up in the queue for the cable car, it was ridiculous! only 8 per car at a time. the view up was lovely, the mountainous area surrounding us and the town disappearing the higher we went and the further we got. there was a huge beautiful waterfall, a stunning sight to behold. unfortunately the rain got worse and then we disappeared above the clouds and into the mist, unable to see anything, on past the mid way stop and near the top stop. we got out and could barely see anything. going to the west and looking at the villa, we could barely see 3 ft in front of us, unable to make out people nearby or where to go, it was crazy, i felt like i was in the horror movie "the mist" or "silent hill" we decided to go right first hoping that by the time we were round to the East we would be able to see the sights below on the glass bridge. we could see nothing of the sights as we walked around. looking down was all white, it was eery and confusing to behold. not to mention freezing and very wet! the odd names of areas continued, just like at Zhangjiajie, there was an area called "love between the rocks and trees" I really dont know where they come up with some of these names?!

we were able to sort of see the Tianmen temple area, barely even though it was large and colourful, dripping wet and bitterly cold we could at least see the temple inside, but again the outside was deep thick hazy mist. round at the East side we still could not see anything nearly an our on, see like we were floating in the middle of nowhere when on the bridges. on the suspended bridge we walked across with a biting wind that shook the bridge! to actually use the glass bridge you have to pay an extra 5rmb, and put on shoe coverings which were sodden due to the rain. we saw nothing but the white beneath us. bit pointless i guess. we queued up again and got the cable car to the mid section grabbing a seat in the free and nicely heated bus to the "gate" driving up the famous "99 bends" as we were below the clouds now we could actually see the surroundings, the beautiful green mountain landscapes, the waterfalls, all in views from either side with the bends curving to show all. with a small lake area far below. after 1 minute we arrived. again barely able to see as the clouds had come back, covering the sight and hiding the tops of the 999 steps to the summit. as time was running short we decided against walking it, however the clouds shifted and we were able to view some of the sights and surrounding waterfalls below. and one point we were even able to see the cave hole at the top, to huge cheers from the crowd gathered at the bottom. though this didnt last long for only a few photos. e headed back down thankfully the rain had ceased but we were still cold and freezing. the queue was ridiculous, we waited outside on the stairs for a while. inside some young chinese kids were playing beside the queue, playing some sort of grotesque "lets spit on each other" game. thankfully they stopped. time was short, so we bunked the queue slightly as the chinese girls had a train to catch at 5 and Rosie and myself around 6. it worked and we were able to head back down sooner than if we had waited patiently. rushed back to the hostel before saying our farewells to each other and heading to the train station.

unfortunately for me, i discovered 2 minutes after i had sat down on my seat (opposite 4 small chinese ladies sitting on 3 seats) that i had in fact booked my ticket for the day before. A chinese man took my seat and I had to sit on the floor with the chinese for 5 1/2 hours. thankfully the girls (two of whom were identical twins) said i could sit with them as their friend left at the Changsha station. so i got to sit and to sleep albeit uncomfortably for the next 17 hours, making friends with a guy from Hong kong and practising chinese. exhausted I arrived back in Shanghai around 3, and thankfully to a new iphone lead thanks to kat. An early night was needed indeed!