TRAVEL & FASHION: SHANGHAI WINTER 16

I was sad to not be able to fully partake in my classes, just going in the morning for the first class and sometimes the afternoon, the lessons were better, the words we learnt more useful, speaking became the more important area. We would watch videos on Chinese, news etc, which let us see and understand current news and topics along with the way people talk and popular words/phrases.  The girls in my class were helpful and would send me notes to write up, which I did nightly. I would often write them up while watching something, then study the words and how to write some of them. There was no pressure but I wanted to continue, I didn’t need to do tests or anything, and as per usual, im still pushing off sitting HSK, but I did start studying hsk5. They had a really nice school trip to chongming Island 崇明岛and island of shanghai, were, as soon as you go over the bridge, the pollution seems to disappear, its quite countryside like, rural, there’s a wetland park which I visited and theres also a forest etc. they went to pick oranges! And because I wasn’t able to go they even collected a bag for me! How sweet! We have 3 teachers, all of which are lovely. The speaking teacher is the youngest, she’s from the north near Harbin, she’s trying to improve English so we helped (well I helped) with some prep work for her tests 雅思 the other, comprehensive I guess? Is also young, she has a boyfriend, friend cute and friendly, , the classes were always the same, she was the first two then speaking and on Friday we had one of the office teachers, she would review and go a bit further, her class was more about talking and had a much warmer atmosphere, we’d sit in a group and bring snacks etc. one day she put on the current popular  mr. donkey  驴得水.  

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6167014/

my teacher on the Friday was older than the others, a head teacher with a desk in the international office, she was married with a son, and explained that on her wedding day it wasn’t anything special, they went to the register office, then back to work, sort of dazed,糊里糊涂得上班 her hubby rang later and was like, should we do something special? 

There was the Chinese culture day at the school (It’s yearly) in October that I went to over a lunch break, meeting Karin.

There was the food samples and name writing ect. (the food is all sort of dessert like, and the odd savory, but if savory its oily/greasy, then again some of the sweet stuff is too, you cant eat too many 点心)Karin and I went to the reed weaving class 编制撸管 it was mainly the teachers at it, and she brought her son. Karin and I were terrible at it, the teacher basically did it for us but my grasshopper still looked woeful 草蜢 however, Karin added a string and Mao mao loved to play with them!

(Mao when we first got him)

Soon after the holiday I took up Tasty’s offer of checking out his gym that mirijam used to go to, near zhongshan, it’s a flat turned into a gym, small, full of body building stuff and a room for the cross trainer which they refer to as running…I waited around like an idiot for ages, all guys, one white girl. And im not the biggest fan of Tasty(worst English name ever), he has an odd presence about him, but I did finally get to meet Mirijam’s boyfriend, Andy. Eventually a small beefed out chinese guy helped me to some training. They all seem to do one on one classes. You don’t seem to exercise by yourself. So a tad intimidating, but it is the better way to do it as they are all trained. The chinese trainer, Harry, was new, and the work out was ok. The guys seem to also live in the gym, well a couple of them, in bunks, some places do that in china, the company provides the accommodation but its usually Dorms, its what Jim has for example as a tunnel engineer in chongqing. Sometimes the meal is also included, maybe even company car/driver. Depends on the job. So thinking about it (my company wont cover visa cost, nor medical insurance) chinese company’s aren’t so bad. Just sucks about the holidays. 

I continued going, Tasty got a bit weird, I had used harry to train as he was offering for free, chatted away to andy etc tasty wasn’t usually there,They ended up having an argument about the gym anyway, tasty bought and expanded another, (they were co-owners) they don’t really talk any more, but Andy bought that one over and changed the name etc, the workers preferred him and he was a popular coach with a lot of clients. Tasty asked me a few times to go to his and I was like…yeah sure.. (no) he then got a girlfriend and stopped bothering me… lol

I continued going and it was fun, I would often chat away to andy, sometimes skype, especially with mirijam on his phone. Harry (the guy who took me the first night) took me for some classes and the work outs were good, lots of squats etc then after there’s a cool down he then started cycling me home which was nice

Had one or 2 nights out with FNIC one night I ended up having a good time with Martin from Donegal and Paul, was fun, they kept giving me baileys and not caring about my “I have work tomorrow” there was also an event with the food / produce and good s industry of N.i who had come for an events in shanghai and Hong kong, free food and drink in an amazing hotel in Pudong, the high life eh! Got to meet with 2 Argento representatives, turns out Argento is northern Irish, THEY HAVE 1 DESIGNER! There was also of course Ormo bakery and tatyo representatives too. Got chatting away to lots of people, especially Stephanie’s hubby, turns out the representative from the thought the idea of intermixing in schools was atrocious…looks like we are still a very secretarian county…

The weather stayed pretty good til the start of December which was great! Enjoying living with Karin, though we both have decided we will never have a cat again, maomao is bored in his tiny little home, its not fair, we aren’t home often and when we are back its late and we are tired and don’t want to play. Thankfully, due to Carmen who tried the “couch surfing” in shanghai, the girl she stayed with offered to take the cat! She was a bit stupid at times though, like she left the window open and couldn’t find him (he was hiding nder the sofa) she thought he had jumped out (she lives high up!) then I saw upon wechat that she had some weird bag for him, had set it down and hed walked away….obviously, she got him back. He’s got very big and she got a puppy and another little kitten so he got the good life we wanted for him, even if our hands, arms and basically any skin on show – paid for it. Definitely an experience and a story haha!



maomao <3

halloween time with the twins sunny and Selina 

For Halloween Karin and I along with Jimena, her roommate (also Mexican) and her other friends went to zapatas (the Mexican bar) free in for fancy dress. IT WAS PACKED 忙忙碌碌的 the music was decent and Karin got me up (sober as I had work the next day) to dance on the bar haha. Everyone else was! Every hour there’s tequila shooter poured from the female staff’s bottles you open your mouth and they just pour a measure in haha, so yes, of course it was sticky and noisy but it was fun. I was a demon greek goddess （坏的希腊神、希腊衣服桂冠）I made a sort of black toga to go over my white toga dress, gladiator sandles, laurel hairband, got all golden and added black demon contacts. Karin was a nun, jimena and her roomie were cow girls. It was fun! Got speaking to some guys from Taiwan and became good friends with one called Eason, hes soo nice, we sometimes meet at zoo coffee before I have my class for NAE. He has a sister and the cutest nephew ever! He works in a company that develops parts etc for technical machinery. He’s went home to Taiwan a couple times and brought me treats! (so when I went home I did the same of course)

Soon after there was a british student get together, I came late after work to discover a free bar, made some friends, invited Karin and had a load of free drinks, then because they’d put 20,000 behind the bar plates of snacks were ordered in bulk and then we started just taking bottles, we came home with 2 tequilas, a wine and a newly opened baileys hahaha! Immense.  Was nice meeting all the brits, but was pretty shocked to be asked what was it like getting “on it” here, fun, easy? And I was like, yeah of course clubs etc, because drinking for free in clubs for foreigners if yo know a promoter is pretty easy (though the club is awful, the drink dodgy from being fake or expired – eg, you cant really import Cointreau, theres no import license, u can bring over bottles in the suitcase of whatever, so high class places would have or use a similar type, yet theres lots of the crappy clubs, {which all seem to start with M for some reason, Mint, Mansion, M on the Bund, Monkey, myst etc} that also have this….) however his meaning was drugs, in particular ketamine, which was popular when I left northern Ireland (yes horse tranq, sometimes mix in with an upper such as meth and “bombed”) know at home simply as K/ Ket her its K粉 which I found out from the gym guy was popular in china too. I was pretty shocked by it all, I did say drugs seemed to be easy to get a hold of here in clubs, nowhere near as bad in HK though. But still, I knew the drug love was bad at home but for it to be so directly asked and for me to believe it was just drink was sad.

Karin started interning at askcucu (I helped) she took over my Wednesday class, but then passed it on to jimena. Its student housing/renting a room in a shared flat. Shes based in jingan but like an ejit stays late, and often has to reply to potential customers on her free time - she works too hard!. She did a thing for Estonia, where her and Carmen where flown to kuming, she organized the pay and the expenses that needed covered. But lost her purse with the cash during the first day! She did have a great experience however and got lots of contacts, but she got a load of bad luck, and then of corse needed to cancel bank cards and order new ones from Denmark/Estonia. But she came back with a load of goodies. Estonia does its own vodka and cider (the cider was good!!) She’s hard working, wants to really prove herself and is really making her most of the time and opportunities of being in shanghai. She’s also hilarious, good kind, and an overall great caring person, living with her is great. She’s fruit obsessed too (reminds me of my sis/rosie) 

Karin like me sleeps pretty late too, so we are like a perfect blonde match made in roomie northern Europe heaven haha. Family for her is also very important, She has a younger sister, her dad can be a bit of a header (like mine) and her mother is top of her nursing industry for wounds and dressings.  And she became a workaholic like me, taking a job in a bar called “Caxton” waitressing, but it did lead to great contacts. I FOUND A HILARIOUS “rap” song called re shui zao. Wash with hot water 热水澡Karen had it blasting one morning on my speaker in revenge to the French/Koreans who are loud at random hours when we would like to sleep. There’s one with this horrendous cough that sounds like they are dying. The French Africans still love the loud music. Nothing seems to change. And we watched some random chinese telemarketing once, and it was ALL GREEN TEA. Seemed we actually enjoyed coming home to our small shared room, crazy cat and chatting/bitching about the day. 

I got some more one on one teaching, including an adult named Jackie, a boss of a financial firm, he has no English but hes so nice to me, he always gives me this really nice tea from gz called LUOHAN tea 罗汉茶. I took over for one of my classmates, the girl from cyprus, in 2 of her students, one, Tony, is so shy but so sweet, his family are 本地人 so when they invited us both for dinner so I could get to know them , they made shanghai food, which they dad cooked (ofcourse, shanghai men need to cook for their women apparently) they had lots of seasfood, made me a great salad, plus some chinese cabbage down in beer, was different! I go to his grandmothers to tea him after I teach the twins on a Sunday (they are always giving me little sweets, the dad gives me rose tea, which is kinda rank so probably great for you) then I got to a place in xingzhi road, and teach about 8 kids in one parents house, using everybody up, they are all such characters, Jackie the only boy and one of the youngest, isn’t the brightest, he has sticky out ears, he could be ok if he studied, the second youngest is Emily, shes very cute and can be a bit of a chatterbox at tiomes, she started to study at home and I could see some improvement. The slightly bigger girl (they are all skinny minnies) had no English name so I gave her the name Lily as her name started with an L sound, shes a bit shy as shes not as far as the others, but shes Nancys (the mother) daughters (annie) best mate. One week she said she didn’t like animals, listing several including rabbits that were too smelly, fish were ok, cos she could eat them haha. The week after she kept staring at me, until finally burstin gout (in chinese) that my earrings, my thai elephants were very ugly老师你的大象好丑(I quite like them and they have sentimental value) my retort, well sure lily u hate all animals so…. Annie, then asked to see and gave one a kiss, shes very affectionate. Fifi is perhaps the smartest. Sh elikes to outdo herself when making sentences, so although quite far and late, I do enjoy my little class.  I also had one girl, Olivia, she had lived in the states so had amazing English, although just 5, and her mum had recently had 2 twin boys. I didn’t teach her English, we played and practiced speaking and sometimes picking up new words, there was about an hour of magic sand playing were we had to make “cakes?” then fed her my little ponies, then we usually tied scarves around us and she became queen elsa and I was princess anna. It was quite the experience haha. 

Ryan got on the Deans list for his first year, super proud, and got a certificate and a sort of lunch gathering. So proud. 他让我特别骄傲 and reb graduated from her masters!!!

My stupid bike got stolen!! It was broken (id got hit by a scooter – kuai di of course and although theres was a huge gathering and argument (I felt so chinese) (it was in donghua) the guy gave me some money and I got a new whel etc from my shifu. The back hubcap with broken, I cellotaped it together… in the end I took it off, I lost the lock too, someone stole this awful thing! Thankfully my hero of a shifu gave me a more sportier one, the breaks are the pedals (pedal back to halt) with multi colour spokes, no basket though, but I can cycle fast, all for 100! It was weird at the start getting the hang of the breaks but its great. Of course, I had a couple tire bursts etc – usual. But he chats away to me (he has a granddaughter too who dotes on him) and gives me a fair local price. His friends are a gag, they are like oh be charging her, and then I reply back and end up chatting and having a laugh, of course, always asked if I have a boyfriend and I always get the advice to find a nice shanghai boy, jst like tony’s dad says, he can apparently tell shanghaiese 上海人／当地人just by seeing them, he just knows ha.  Skin is pretty crap as always, and the pollution gets worse with winter coming in, those in the north using more central heating etc. 

 finally had a random Saturday afternoon off due to the students being sick mainly in the school ,so cookie and I met up and went to the pearl tower 东方明珠 which neither of us had been too. Expensive and lots of queuing but it was really cool on the level with the class floor! Could see a lot of shanghai on the level above, there’s a new fancy building which completely lights up but done quite beautifully and not tacky. Its perhaps the new building with hotel area which is 7*!! I believe the only other 7* hotel is in Dubai. And its not actually a ridiculous amount to stay in for a night haha, maybe 2000 rmb? We then went and had a really nice dinner together.  

In work there was a big clear out of stock when I was doing the show room so we got to keep a few things which was cool. (I needed another backpack) the weather was good and quite cool (could wear a light jacket) up till December, it was randomly 30* in November one day!! But of course, but December it got freezing 降温了，冬天来到了 

In the rest of the world, we discovered America is majorly racist, sexist and stupid, voting for trump as president (yes, the guy who has been bankrupt, was in home alone, had ridiculous hair and orange skin, a young foreign wife,  has had sexual harassment cases and said he wanted to keep the Mexicans out of America but getting THEM to build a wall to keep them out…..) I was disappointed, but it shows the dissatisfaction of the people in the world, looking for others to blame, and hating is easier, especially in regards to ISIS and the terror attacks. Trump wen ton to ban severl countries from entrance of USA expelling ones with Visa’s, like one girl from iran(?) stranded on her way back from holiday to go back to her studies in the uk. There were more terror attacks, mainly in France, with several people dying. But what’s more disappointing is that the majority of people just blame Muslims, but its not Muslims its extremists, members of JIHAD and Isis. There are extremist in all religions, societies and countries. A minority that ruin it for the majority. A bit like bees and wasps. A bee stings once in self defense. It leaves people alone, pollenates the plants and lives a simple life, the wasp likes to be a dick and sting people. Some people can see the difference and hate/fear them all. Focusing hatred on the bee when he had done nothing wrong, (I watched a video with this reference which I thought although a bit childish was actually quite good) it seems like the safest place to be, is china haha

Soon it was the cold, quite polluted winter (the north uses a lot of heating as its super cold resulting in a higher amount of pollution and smog in winter, this year it got really bad, with a yellow warning being released as on several occasions it went over 500 and schools etc had to be closed!! This was in Beijing and Tianjin mainly, shanghai is far away from that, but we get some of it eventually as it travels down a bit with the winds) 

In class we did a secret santa, I got phil’s girlfriend hyee ji (the Korean girl I also studied with last semester) and maria got me (she even got me a little neckbell for the cat hahaha)

Christmas eve was good, as soon as work finished came home drank some abileys with Karin, made mulled wine with jimena, simba came, gave me a gift, Jimena got me a cute mickey hat, we drank a lot of wine before coming to my room and doing tequila shots, a lot of tequila shots…then we went to the bar, for more drinks and shisha for xmas day after I took the twins class I watched Arthur chrimstas (cute movie) skyped the family (nan had spent it with jim shawneen etc which was a bit odd, but she wanted something different, not in the house for the first year) Karin and I swapped presents, she gots me a unicorn bag and an AMAZING LEOPARD SILK DRESSING GOWN, like hers but VERy kelly. She loved her fruit (its Karin, ofc she got fruit) and I had made/ordered a bag with luchabiao 绿茶婊 on it, which she loved. Successful xmas. We had all worn my xmas hats out, but I think one disappeared?! My xmas present from my family arrived AFTER I had received a bday one, the post is stupid. I got it a couple weeks later, at least. Nan sent some Monday and samba gave me a thick long toasty toasty scarf . 

Miri arrived xmas day, (xmas eve is the big one back in Germany) Finished my shift on NYE then got ready to meet Jimena, who was bringing her latino friends and the Russians. andy met us at the bar beside the dorms, mia’s. had a good few drinks, danced a lot,Came home a bit drunken (miri and andy made me leave at 2, how dull!) at the bar had done a quick video for mum etc not that anything could really be seen or heard. Had a baileys on return, was off on the Sunday as the schools closed and the twins dad told me to take it off. Went to work on the Monday like a dick to discover it was a public holiday and no1 was working, if I had known that I would have planned something instead of being a dick. Ended up meeting cookie for a coffee and chilling. Boring! 

Met miri at work for a starbucks, then we hung out for bday drinks for her last weekend with andy and harry. Harry was drinking with us, we did shots of vodka, I was good didn't get drunk.

china style #pimp

My boss suddenly announced that we were meeting with primark in reading on the 19^th, I was to go too. And fly on my bday! But he said I could workk at home etc sicne the week after was chinese new year,  so would come back the first week of feb. told no1 in my fam, wanted a big surprise, and got cheap ass tickets for myelf nan and reb to go to Milan for 3 days haha, 

end of year dinner super expensive in Pudong Shanghai food, boss ordered way too much. did prizes from a box - carrefour vouchers different amounts, top prize iPhone 7 plus 128gb my name was picked! (later sold and bought a MacBook ha) for example...he ordered 3 Beijing roast ducks....

I got up super early on my bday, Karin the lengend that she is got up too, she had cake, candles and a birthday cactus with a hilarious guide on how not to kill it hahah. First time in a long time I have had a cake with candles to blow out. What an amazing considerate friend~

Unfortunately the main bulk  of my birthday was spent on an airplane with tracy. And 2 suitcases of samples to show primark. Direct to London we got the metro then rain to reading. From reading train station a taxi. James called round and bitched a bit. We were then meeting the next morning at breakfast to go over the plan. Shower then sleep. 

Included breakfast, it was cold and brisk outside (tried to help tracy get always) but clear and beautiful, Reading is quiet, but we are quite far from the city centre. Nir requested I do work and print out things. Stressful, so my day was spent inside, not visting the city with the others or checking out primark with them, 

We had another review over dinner, I had a nice veggie curry but I had had a nice bath in the afternoon art least

icy morning in reading

I was nervous the next morning. Our taxi was late and nir freaked. Primark had forgotten we were coming so we were delayed anyway and we moved halfway through to the canten, wasn’t very good and nir’s foot wrecked especially with climbing up narrow stairs and going for a traipe through the whole office floor. 

I hit it off with the buyer and we discussed  a load of ideas, I was to work on back home along with writing up the notes – cos nir apparently didn’t understand much, once over, we got our stuff and got taxi’s to London to where james and tracy were to be staying. Then went for lunch in an really good isreali place. The others didn’t like itm but the salads homous, breads and fruit juice were great. As per usual he ordered way to much, but there were some tray bake likes things I was able to take to go. I rang ryan – having bullshited about my laptop (which actually was on its last leg) he was shocked but agreed to sneakily pick me up. 

Got a lift to the train station and got a train tot eh airport for my short late night flight home. Ryan picked me up! We listened to music and chatted, going down a road like a roller coaster. 

Upon entering, mum (whom ryan had told he was meeting josh briefly) called down sleepily to see if he was in safe, I sneakily replied back, yeha of course. But was too slow as she had entered her room. So up the stairs I went to reb, who was busy working away (it was near midnight by then) her mouth was open and her eyes nearly fell out of her head haham she was in shock. I then went into my an dad, the light was off, before I entered I started my favoruite “hey big spender “ before putting on the light. Mum had to look twice, nearly telling me off, thinking I was reb and was loosing the plot, and repeating HUHHHHHH?!?! Bit like Rebecca. He sleepy eyes took a moment to adjust as I came over. Dad was grumbling about the late and sat upon upon realizing it was me. He kept grabbing my a checking I was real. It was amazing. We all got up. Tired and chatted briefly downstairs, getting xmas gifts etc (ryan had recently got on the deans list for his first year so I had bought him a lovely watch and gave it to him at the airport as a gift – Japanese) 

But it wasn’t the only surprise to be had! Dad dropped me over to nans, I wore rebs coat ith the furry hood and pulled it up, knocking on nans door, tring to not show my face, she pulled open the curtains and glanced my face, so I pulled of the hood, she couldn’t believe it, started crying, then counting find her keys, mmore tears, I toldl her through the glass I was gona freeze to detah, and if she was so sad and crying id just go. She opened the door and pulled me into her arms. More tears, why didn’t I tell her etc. there were phonecalls etc. then reb finally got her butt over. For the 2^ndsurprise. Nans hongbao. I told her to open with reb there, and she couldn’t understand it haha. So I grabbed it and told her. 3 tickets, me reb and her to Milan for 3 days, its early but is it ok? ( I was worried reb couldn’t go cos of uni and it would be too early for nan) nans reaction upon realsiing , what clothes shall I bring? Haha. So a suitcase was booked and the hotel. Along with staying up beside the airport that night too. Ryan and mum came up with us and we all had a drink and some selfies. I had wanted ryan to come too but he hadn’t got the new passport yet! Early 5 am start totally worth it. None of us had ever been!

ryan being the technology king that he is