A slice of tomato and chocolate cake please!!!

Monday was my last day at the company, it was just goodbyes.. I felt a sense of excitement once I had finished, that all the hard work is over and for travelling around China next week! On Tuesday me Laura and Kate popped into Tianyi square for a few bits and bobs and we booked all the flights for next week... I have been put in charge of the itinery for everything so I have been hard at work this week, also doing my presentation for Monday, my evaluation, and my report on the experience. 

On Wednesday I had been told to go see Jasmine because she had bought me a birthday cake as it is my birthday on Saturday.... I arrived at her office and saw a massive cake box on her desk, I thought this was so sweet!

Yes they are tomatoes on top of the chocolate cake! haha

Later in the day I joined Emma and Caroline at their work 'Intrex' as it was the fashion show for the next seasons clothes, there was such a good atmosphere, and the place looked beautiful. We had tea and a few beers before watching the menswear show...

On Thursday me Emma, and Caroline visited a knitwear company called 'Dankeyun' I am very interested in knitwear so I was really glad I could see the production of it. 

The delicate embellishment the ladies were doing on some garments was beautiful, I think its mad you could buy a cardigan like this for about £30 when so much fine work has gone into it.

Sunday in Shaoxing

On Sunday we woke and went to find the floor with breakfast.. it was the strangest mix of food I have ever seen! I had a mix of rice, noodles, sweet toast, swiss roll, fried donut, sausages and melon!

As usual Jasmine didn't meet us on time so we were waiting around for a bit, we seemed to have been given the task of entertaining a little girl called cheechee. She was absolutely mental and would not keep still for one second! Her mum and dad looked completely shattered so we felt good for taking her off their hands for a little bit!

Before the show we were shown around backstage

Me and Laura sat somewhere different to the other girls, we were put in seats by the reporters. This was because we were asked to have some questions asked after the show. There is always lots of introductions before every show, we heard our names which were our call to stand up for everyone to look at! Then it was the show...

Afterwards we were asked by reporters some questions, and some even filmed us. They asked us things like, what do you think of the future of the fashion at our university? And what do you think about the show? We had to be very positive about everything..

A weekend in Shaoxing

So on Thursday and Friday I was at the company, my sample top had been made with temporary fabric. Lindsay wasn't sure yet whether the fabric would be swapped for a flower pattern but this was more expensive so she was still deciding. I had also designed lodes more trousers to match with the top and she chose a pair, then I went and chose fabrics. For lunch on Friday I got taken to the same restaurant as last week, saw a lot of dodgy looking things as I walked in.. luckily the snake in the jar wasn’t for me! For tea me, Emma, Caroline and Kate were starved so we nipped to the little restaurant near us and found a new yummy dish… Very similar to sweet and sour chicken at home.

On a very sunny Saturday we travelled to an ancient town called Shaoxing. The schools fashion show would take place on the Sunday for the students work, so Jasmine had organised a hotel for us on the Saturday night. We went to look at the fabric markets through the day, I found my perfect fabric shop!! I wanted to buy everything in there, but allowed myself 3 different ones and got given lots of samples. It was so well priced compared to England... 

After the fabric markets we went to a little Ancient town in Shaoxing and went down the river on boats...

It was a very pretty town and is well known for its bridges

For tea we were taken to a restaurant with everyone, there was lots of new things to try but they still ordered our favourite beef! In the taxi earlier in the day we were told about a bar very near to our hotel so we decided to take a look. At first we were put off by the fact it said S&M on the sign in the doorway, but we were told it was not a strip club, after a while of umming and arrring we decided to take a look and see for ourselves. The man on the door ended up letting us in for free and inside it seemed like a good lively club, we were led to a table and were waited on hand and foot..... 

We realised it was an S&M themed night when acts wearing bondage came onto the stage and started acting out promiscuous dance moves!! haha

holidays are over

Wednesday morning I got about enough sleep and then got up out of bed to plan my lesson for the day.. today it was oral English, I found the presentation from last time that I didn't have time to use... result!! I also had written lots of questions on pieces of paper and folded them to put in a bowl to ask everyone. I started off the lesson asking everyone about their 'May day' holiday. There wasn't as many people in the lesson as usual because of this holiday. They seem to be getting much better at speaking though, even if there is a few who decide to go all shy on me! Most had visited their family, but some had stayed here as their homes are too far away, one girl told me her family were fishermen so she went out on the boats and fished with her Dad. Another said she loved walking and had climbed a famous mountain near her home, and others said they had lovely food that they had missed while at college.


My presentation was about my own life at university, at first I told them about my first year and what living in halls of residence was like. Also about magazines I love and read for inspiration for my own work, and I showed them some of my work, styling shoots, a dress I made when I was learning to knit, and some different projects. I even showed them what freshers week was like because they have nothing like this here, they told me only 'bad girls' would go out like this in China. They said their culture was very different and it was interesting to see the contrast between them both. I showed some pictures of 'student nights' and organised events such as halloween, I don't think they could work out why I was dressed up as a 'zombie nurse'!! hahaha. Luckily I had 10 minutes left so I got my bowl full of folded pieces of paper and they took one at a time reading and answering questions such as, "describe what the person next to you is wearing".


After this lesson I went to my office and waited to see what was going to happen with my lesson with the teachers. They seem less reliable than the students! A few ladies came including the lady from last time who will be visiting Southampton university in two weeks, she seemed to have practised what I had told her but still her speaking was very poor. I thought the most useful things to tell her were how to get on forms of transport, and very basic everyday things. It was hard because some ladies could speak very well and some had very low levels of English - hard to get the balance right. They seemed to think I was amazingly knowledgeable and know everything about England with the kinds of questions they were asking... this is obviously not true but I think (hope) I got away with it!!! Also previously they have learnt English from the London accent so my northern accent sometimes confuses them. Its so funny when you tell them a new word and they become really broad yorkshire!

The Pearl

Me, Laura, and Emma woke up early to go see the Oriental Pearl tower, so we would miss all the queuing. There was still a que but we ended up acting like the chinese do and walked to the front of the line. Everyone stared but we couldn't work out whether it was just because we were foreigners, or because we were pushing in front of them all... never mind, maybe a bit of both?

When we got there the smog was covering the top, even so it was well worth going up! The top levels were foggy and we couldn't see too much, but the level with the see-through floor was fine.  

When someone paps you... you pap them back!! (this is my new rule, they never like it done back to them!)

Me trying to hold a straight face while being pretty scared that there was nothing between me and the ground apart from a bit of glass!!

So we found a roller coaster inside the pearl! I am a big scardycat though and think I made myself more scared than I should have before the ride.. it did take ages until they set off though as they were waiting for more people to come on the ride. Don't think Emma was too pleased with me squeezing her finger till it nearly dropped off though! 

We also heard there was a history museum in the pearl as well, though it was worth a quick look...

Afterwards we got a taxi to Yu Gardens, it was the most packed place we had been yet. All I could see was a sea of black hair! We didn't stay for too long as we were getting harassed by lodes of people, but decided to hoard our way through the crowds to get a photo on the bridge, It is May day for people here so there are zillions of chinese tourists.

ok.. so we are getting slightly fed up of rude randomers taking photos now!!! haahaa

We met up with Kate, Caroline and Tong Tong and decided to visit an area of Shanghai very similar to Lao Waitan in Ningbo. I think everyone wanted to chill for a bit as were very tired and feet were aching so coffee and cake were in order. The others seemed very tired and considered getting an earlier bus back to Ningbo, but me and Laura wanted to stay to see more. Tong Tong got the bus back with them as she was very tired too and we decided to visit the art gallery and fabric market. As we got in the taxi and travelled for a few minutes we noticed the Antiques market (DongTai Road) to our left, so we jumped out. I was shocked we hadn't considered going here earlier, we loved it!

Lots of 'old treasures' in here!

    

After the antiques market we went and retrieved our bags from the hotel and walked to the bund for some photos of the lights in the evening. Me and Laura were so glad we had stayed for this as it was stunning...

My annoying umbrella that wouldn't go down had to be binned!

I am so happy with my gorgeous pictures.. I think they really capture the beauty of the city. After taking these is was time to go back to the coach station.. we were shattered!