Hi all,
Since the world decided not to end I guess I should provide another blog update. I've been trying to do these somewhere near the end of every month but obviously I missed that by a week this time. Apologies. I do, still regularly upload pictures and I try to have captions there so you can follow me that way if I lag on the blog.
December got cold. Far colder than it ever was last year. Others say they don't remember it being so cold here. It even snowed a few days and didn't have the decency to melt quickly. Salt is not used here (ALL of it goes into their food I'm guessing from the taste) so it makes things quite slippery. Add to that the fact that most people here have no experience with slippery surfaces and it makes for some amusing moments watching people very gently walking along.
Christmas here is not an overly special time. Everyone knows about it and there are trees outside some places but that's about it. Last year my mom sent me a santa hat so I wore that around for a few weeks and got even more looks than normal. One restaurant that I like to go to took a picture and he shows it ever time I go there now. I planned a party for the foreigners at a wine store. I talked to the owner and he said it would be fine but when we showed up the store was completely closed. I called him and he said "oh, is that still on?" In China, just because you plan something doesn't mean they'll do it. YOu have to remind them 10 times leading up to the day. It's quite annoying. Fortunately he said he'd be there in 10 mins which I thought could be an hour but 7 mins later he was there. Some people made great desserts, others just brought food they picked up at restaurants but it was a great meal.
My mom sent me a cool chair for Christmas too. The mail for such things from Canada is tough but I buy stuff all the time online so it occurred to me that she could do the same thing easily enough. So I told her about www.taobao.com which is where I buy everything from. It's all in Chinese but if you use Chrome it will translate. Pay is a bit of an issue as you need a chinese bank account but it's easy enough for me to pay and get reimbursed in my cdn account. Also ZZF helped out so it would actually be a surprise :-)
For New Year I went to Qingdao again. It was fun to show some new people around that city. I also found a shop that sells delicious cream buns and some stores that sell chocolate milk. On the last day I asked if they sell cases. The man said no, so I just asked for a bag and emptied out their whole inventory. Good times.
In a few weeks I head to Xiamen with zzf for a few days before joining up with some guys and going to Macau (the Vegas of Asia) and then Thailand and Cambodia with a friend. Really looking forward to getting to some warmth again!
Happy New Year all!
Wiseguy1
Since the world decided not to end I guess I should provide another blog update. I've been trying to do these somewhere near the end of every month but obviously I missed that by a week this time. Apologies. I do, still regularly upload pictures and I try to have captions there so you can follow me that way if I lag on the blog.
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| Great snack food by my school. |
Christmas here is not an overly special time. Everyone knows about it and there are trees outside some places but that's about it. Last year my mom sent me a santa hat so I wore that around for a few weeks and got even more looks than normal. One restaurant that I like to go to took a picture and he shows it ever time I go there now. I planned a party for the foreigners at a wine store. I talked to the owner and he said it would be fine but when we showed up the store was completely closed. I called him and he said "oh, is that still on?" In China, just because you plan something doesn't mean they'll do it. YOu have to remind them 10 times leading up to the day. It's quite annoying. Fortunately he said he'd be there in 10 mins which I thought could be an hour but 7 mins later he was there. Some people made great desserts, others just brought food they picked up at restaurants but it was a great meal.
My mom sent me a cool chair for Christmas too. The mail for such things from Canada is tough but I buy stuff all the time online so it occurred to me that she could do the same thing easily enough. So I told her about www.taobao.com which is where I buy everything from. It's all in Chinese but if you use Chrome it will translate. Pay is a bit of an issue as you need a chinese bank account but it's easy enough for me to pay and get reimbursed in my cdn account. Also ZZF helped out so it would actually be a surprise :-)
For New Year I went to Qingdao again. It was fun to show some new people around that city. I also found a shop that sells delicious cream buns and some stores that sell chocolate milk. On the last day I asked if they sell cases. The man said no, so I just asked for a bag and emptied out their whole inventory. Good times.
In a few weeks I head to Xiamen with zzf for a few days before joining up with some guys and going to Macau (the Vegas of Asia) and then Thailand and Cambodia with a friend. Really looking forward to getting to some warmth again!
Happy New Year all!
Wiseguy1
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