Just a few fashion tips if you're feeling like looking authentic chinese
hair
either black and straight with a wonky fringe (tres cool) or a ridiculous colour like off orange
eyes
no mascara at all or eyeliner. i saw one boy in eyeliner - but i think he was just a bit cookoo.. NO MASCARA AT ALL
face
erm i saw advert for 'maybellene STAY WHITE UV FOUNDATION' -> aka... the oposite to every girl in bucks. very essential that you stay white as this means you are higher 'caste' (perhaps not the right word at all) in order for marriage
shoes
mini heels... the kind english people never wear 'kitten heels' i think is their official term
lower half
tights to make your legs look pale are often appropriate or those catching on to the western trend are going for brown ones!! scandallloso
top half
wear a t-shirt that says something ridiculous in english but that you probably don't understand
real life examples include
"i want love hnd peace" - a nice spelling mistake slashed across your chest
"memory flask" - the less sense they make the better
"i am in my prime" - best worn on the very young teenage girl i saw today... peados paradise
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Started terribly ended okay
When i woke up this morning I think it really hit me. I cried for an hour, got up and showered and then cried for 2 and a half more. When i dragged myself out of my room for lunch I barely kept it together. But I got on a bus with my book with the sole intention of sitting outside the main starbucks 'westener hunting'
Mainly it's familys - so that's not cool.
I saw a pretty girl and two germanish looking guys walk past whilst i was ordering my green tea frapp. and i nearly ran out and ran after them.
However about an hour in and a hundred pages of dorian gray later i spotted a school trip. granted some of them looked like they were 12 but some of them looked about 18. I played it cool. waited til they had ordered their drinks and sat down, then i POUNCED. felt like a total twat... but nevermind. anyway. turns out they were ALL in year 9. but they seemed pretty fun and they were from australia. I left them to it and sat down again. went to another western hotspot (haagen daz) nobody there so back to starbs. Sat at a table with two chairs and sure enough someone came to sit at that second seat. (MY GOD I AM A CALCULATING STALKER WEIRDO)
she was a student at one of xi'ans many universities. She spoke reasonable english and we spoke for about an hour although i'm almost certain half of it she didn't understand but she was polite and nodded anyway. She just kept talking about EVERYTHING being cheap/expensive... i think she has just done that topic in her english lessons. her 'english name' was Cherry - she has my mobile number and my e-mail... she's pretty much my best friend now.
last but not least - after cherry left - the seat was taken by pretty much my favourite person ever
I knew i would like him the second i saw him
overtly american and yet somehow not - he wore a baseball cap and had a large stomach but he was very tanned with greying hair and very yellow teeth
he reffered to himself as 'the wandering jew'
originally from new york he had moved to LA and then london SW5 was his postcode I think - right by gloucester tu be station (he had a friend who owned a pub in windsor)
then he went to live in amsterdam then on an a dutch island that no-one has ever heard of, then in the curacoa island in the caribean and now he was mooching.
i loved him
he was so witty and charming and although about 50 and a bit gross I think I kind of fell in love with him a bit.
he was a writer and just wrote pieces and articles where-ever he went (he had written one on the plane that morning) but he wrote about the world of commerce and finance etc.
he told me the most amazing stories and shared some great advice. He was going t take up a teaching placement for a year he thought (although he didn't knwo and didn't really care)
he wasn't married but had had plenty of 'girlfriends and friends with benefits' including one he had just left in south china.
it's interesting isn't it how strangers can have perhaps the most impact on your life. I don't mean in the sense of who you are as a person but in what you want to achieve etc. I felt my goals shift completely. Here was a man who had worked in business for years - earned a fortuen - and said F*ck it. It was amazing
Friends influence you to an extent but nothing like a stranger can. Friends know you and you know them and there is always a vested interest in any piece of advice they give you or anything they tell you about. There is an overt and beautiful honesty with a stanger. You don't care what they think of you - so you tell it like it is - and they don't know you - so they accept what you've said for what it is (and visaversa)
I kind of want to meet him again - he was certainly sad when i had to leave - but at the same time i really loved our fleeting friendship romance as what it was.
He smoked nearly a whole packet of cigerettes while we spoke - although i suppose you would at 30 p a packet - and commented on my book choice and we spoke about books for a while
as i left he said 'thanks for the conversation' and i knd of realised that even if I don't make good friends to last me the whole time here - as long as i have a couple of those a week i will be satisfied.
still lonely in general and still want a friend/to come home and be with friends
but i think i will do my best to stick it out and be alright
messages CONSTANTLY would be much appreciated though
xxx
Mainly it's familys - so that's not cool.
I saw a pretty girl and two germanish looking guys walk past whilst i was ordering my green tea frapp. and i nearly ran out and ran after them.
However about an hour in and a hundred pages of dorian gray later i spotted a school trip. granted some of them looked like they were 12 but some of them looked about 18. I played it cool. waited til they had ordered their drinks and sat down, then i POUNCED. felt like a total twat... but nevermind. anyway. turns out they were ALL in year 9. but they seemed pretty fun and they were from australia. I left them to it and sat down again. went to another western hotspot (haagen daz) nobody there so back to starbs. Sat at a table with two chairs and sure enough someone came to sit at that second seat. (MY GOD I AM A CALCULATING STALKER WEIRDO)
she was a student at one of xi'ans many universities. She spoke reasonable english and we spoke for about an hour although i'm almost certain half of it she didn't understand but she was polite and nodded anyway. She just kept talking about EVERYTHING being cheap/expensive... i think she has just done that topic in her english lessons. her 'english name' was Cherry - she has my mobile number and my e-mail... she's pretty much my best friend now.
last but not least - after cherry left - the seat was taken by pretty much my favourite person ever
I knew i would like him the second i saw him
overtly american and yet somehow not - he wore a baseball cap and had a large stomach but he was very tanned with greying hair and very yellow teeth
he reffered to himself as 'the wandering jew'
originally from new york he had moved to LA and then london SW5 was his postcode I think - right by gloucester tu be station (he had a friend who owned a pub in windsor)
then he went to live in amsterdam then on an a dutch island that no-one has ever heard of, then in the curacoa island in the caribean and now he was mooching.
i loved him
he was so witty and charming and although about 50 and a bit gross I think I kind of fell in love with him a bit.
he was a writer and just wrote pieces and articles where-ever he went (he had written one on the plane that morning) but he wrote about the world of commerce and finance etc.
he told me the most amazing stories and shared some great advice. He was going t take up a teaching placement for a year he thought (although he didn't knwo and didn't really care)
he wasn't married but had had plenty of 'girlfriends and friends with benefits' including one he had just left in south china.
it's interesting isn't it how strangers can have perhaps the most impact on your life. I don't mean in the sense of who you are as a person but in what you want to achieve etc. I felt my goals shift completely. Here was a man who had worked in business for years - earned a fortuen - and said F*ck it. It was amazing
Friends influence you to an extent but nothing like a stranger can. Friends know you and you know them and there is always a vested interest in any piece of advice they give you or anything they tell you about. There is an overt and beautiful honesty with a stanger. You don't care what they think of you - so you tell it like it is - and they don't know you - so they accept what you've said for what it is (and visaversa)
I kind of want to meet him again - he was certainly sad when i had to leave - but at the same time i really loved our fleeting friendship romance as what it was.
He smoked nearly a whole packet of cigerettes while we spoke - although i suppose you would at 30 p a packet - and commented on my book choice and we spoke about books for a while
as i left he said 'thanks for the conversation' and i knd of realised that even if I don't make good friends to last me the whole time here - as long as i have a couple of those a week i will be satisfied.
still lonely in general and still want a friend/to come home and be with friends
but i think i will do my best to stick it out and be alright
messages CONSTANTLY would be much appreciated though
xxx
Saturday, 18 April 2009
I confess I have started badly.
I have been here two days and not blogged a word. well i say two days... it's 19.37 now. so I've been in Xi'an 24 hours.
So i better start at the beginning which is basically an e-mail i wrote last night..
ANYWAY
flights were all fine. barely slept on the first one.. i maybe got 3 hours max. but i was sat next to a cute overtly 'chinese' boy who kept getting his laptop out and playing asian-sensation video games and looking at pictures of his girlfriend.
i watched a bit of troy : the simpsons movie : 'the ultimate gift' (i cried - it had the old guy from the notebook in and the girl from little miss sunshine) : knocked upmeals on that flight were ammmmazingas in. had some sort of beef and rice stir fry thing
could have cried with yumness and breakfast was egg pancake with sausages, tomato, hash browns and a fruit salad on the side.IF YOU CARE AHAHA
next flight i mainly slept and read. nothing too wild. got to xi'an in good timethe woman thought that i was coming in on my original flight (the one that got cancelled) so i called her and let her know i'd arrived.. she sent MR YU (formally mis-remembered as Mr W) down to meet me. By this point I've had a rather expensive tea in a plush yummy sofa ridden cafe.. the tea was water mixed with what looked like a cross between pine needles and weed -- tasty all the same though. get into the taxi with mr YU who speaks NO english. so we joke about how heavy my bag is and that's about it.
the taxi ride was commentable however! so, in china, there are loads of cool traffic lights telling you how long you will have to wait etc, this i expected. What I did not expect was a blatent disregard for these traffic lights. I saw well over 20 cars just decide enough was enough and plough straight across junctions on red lights. There also exists no such thing as right of way, cars do not use the lanes and i feared for my life after one near collision. I was considering renting a bike. I have since decided against this. Also pedestrians are just as bad! i watched a woman cross a 5-pronged intersection where all the cars were just plowing through, even though there was a perfectly good set of pedestrian crossings not far from her - and to make things extra special... she walked the whole thing whilst texting on her mobile!!! didn't look up once!some great things i saw on my journey- tai chi outside with about 50 people at least- a market- soooo many amazing buildings- a poodle (i wonder whether they will eat him) got to the house.
I have my own room. some of you might remember me telling you about DAVE AND MARIE.... THEY ARE MARRIED. so no incest twins for me. well, at least i think they are married, they could be 50 something siblings. They are nice enough - we had a chat - they have been in Australia for 6 months. but they leave to go 'live' at the panda sanctuary on monday... i may have this big apartment all to myself for 5 days :Si guess i will see.
TODAY HOWEVER
i found out i have the apartment to myself for my entire 2 week stay! so I am pretty bummed out (the reason I swapped from the beautiful teaching placement in hainan island, AKA tropical paradise, to this was because I wanted company and a social life. Dave and marie are here until monday.
I also found out that because there is only one of me I will not be able to go up the mountain as they showed in the video or do the mandarin lessons - both these activities need a minimum of 5 volunteers.
I will be spending most my time (which is quite flexible apparently) looking after younger children but on thursdays will teach 8 year olds. Today I went to the bell tower and drum tower which are pretty standard tourist sites although amazing and so beautiful. One problem with being a solo tourist without any friends at all is that you can't have any people in your pictures... it's just scenery. i did take one with me in it - i looked ridiculous taking it!
Group of chinese students asked for a photo with me. all four of them had one. then they stalked me for a bit taking pictures of me looking at stuff - i preended i couldn't see them but they were being MORE than obvious about it.
Then I went to the muslim quarter to the market - and then cheekily had a starbucks!!.. (i had to try the green tea blended creme frappucino. it was yumyums). However I got lost after that and walked round for three hours in the pouring rain. Bad times. I cried a bit. Also! I can't even see the sky it's that polluted, let alone the sun!!
This really is a third world country. even with all the technolgy - the bus i went on today MUST be older than me! the engine was 'duct-taped' in and there were huge levers for things like windscreen wipers. they have no concept of queing (but i suppose i'm anal about that because i'm british)
I like xi'an. It's quite lively and although on the whole quite ugly there are some nice areas. It is the cultural centre of China so it's a bit intense with gorgeous buildings... but they're dotted in between KFCs and Pizza huts.
Anyone want any fake things?! I might get a fake watch. fake rolex pahahaha
they love it
I think I will be quite lonely for my next two weeks, and maybe even more lonely (although thinking about it less in the following week)
I hope that Thailand settles down so I can go because; although I am really loving being in China and experiencing it - being COMPLETELY alone is not something I ever intended to happen and I think that a good group of people would set me straight.
please facebook me or whatever... i have access to a computer in my HUGE EMPTY APARTMENT
xxx
I have been here two days and not blogged a word. well i say two days... it's 19.37 now. so I've been in Xi'an 24 hours.
So i better start at the beginning which is basically an e-mail i wrote last night..
ANYWAY
flights were all fine. barely slept on the first one.. i maybe got 3 hours max. but i was sat next to a cute overtly 'chinese' boy who kept getting his laptop out and playing asian-sensation video games and looking at pictures of his girlfriend.
i watched a bit of troy : the simpsons movie : 'the ultimate gift' (i cried - it had the old guy from the notebook in and the girl from little miss sunshine) : knocked upmeals on that flight were ammmmazingas in. had some sort of beef and rice stir fry thing
could have cried with yumness and breakfast was egg pancake with sausages, tomato, hash browns and a fruit salad on the side.IF YOU CARE AHAHA
next flight i mainly slept and read. nothing too wild. got to xi'an in good timethe woman thought that i was coming in on my original flight (the one that got cancelled) so i called her and let her know i'd arrived.. she sent MR YU (formally mis-remembered as Mr W) down to meet me. By this point I've had a rather expensive tea in a plush yummy sofa ridden cafe.. the tea was water mixed with what looked like a cross between pine needles and weed -- tasty all the same though. get into the taxi with mr YU who speaks NO english. so we joke about how heavy my bag is and that's about it.
the taxi ride was commentable however! so, in china, there are loads of cool traffic lights telling you how long you will have to wait etc, this i expected. What I did not expect was a blatent disregard for these traffic lights. I saw well over 20 cars just decide enough was enough and plough straight across junctions on red lights. There also exists no such thing as right of way, cars do not use the lanes and i feared for my life after one near collision. I was considering renting a bike. I have since decided against this. Also pedestrians are just as bad! i watched a woman cross a 5-pronged intersection where all the cars were just plowing through, even though there was a perfectly good set of pedestrian crossings not far from her - and to make things extra special... she walked the whole thing whilst texting on her mobile!!! didn't look up once!some great things i saw on my journey- tai chi outside with about 50 people at least- a market- soooo many amazing buildings- a poodle (i wonder whether they will eat him) got to the house.
I have my own room. some of you might remember me telling you about DAVE AND MARIE.... THEY ARE MARRIED. so no incest twins for me. well, at least i think they are married, they could be 50 something siblings. They are nice enough - we had a chat - they have been in Australia for 6 months. but they leave to go 'live' at the panda sanctuary on monday... i may have this big apartment all to myself for 5 days :Si guess i will see.
TODAY HOWEVER
i found out i have the apartment to myself for my entire 2 week stay! so I am pretty bummed out (the reason I swapped from the beautiful teaching placement in hainan island, AKA tropical paradise, to this was because I wanted company and a social life. Dave and marie are here until monday.
I also found out that because there is only one of me I will not be able to go up the mountain as they showed in the video or do the mandarin lessons - both these activities need a minimum of 5 volunteers.
I will be spending most my time (which is quite flexible apparently) looking after younger children but on thursdays will teach 8 year olds. Today I went to the bell tower and drum tower which are pretty standard tourist sites although amazing and so beautiful. One problem with being a solo tourist without any friends at all is that you can't have any people in your pictures... it's just scenery. i did take one with me in it - i looked ridiculous taking it!
Group of chinese students asked for a photo with me. all four of them had one. then they stalked me for a bit taking pictures of me looking at stuff - i preended i couldn't see them but they were being MORE than obvious about it.
Then I went to the muslim quarter to the market - and then cheekily had a starbucks!!.. (i had to try the green tea blended creme frappucino. it was yumyums). However I got lost after that and walked round for three hours in the pouring rain. Bad times. I cried a bit. Also! I can't even see the sky it's that polluted, let alone the sun!!
This really is a third world country. even with all the technolgy - the bus i went on today MUST be older than me! the engine was 'duct-taped' in and there were huge levers for things like windscreen wipers. they have no concept of queing (but i suppose i'm anal about that because i'm british)
I like xi'an. It's quite lively and although on the whole quite ugly there are some nice areas. It is the cultural centre of China so it's a bit intense with gorgeous buildings... but they're dotted in between KFCs and Pizza huts.
Anyone want any fake things?! I might get a fake watch. fake rolex pahahaha
they love it
I think I will be quite lonely for my next two weeks, and maybe even more lonely (although thinking about it less in the following week)
I hope that Thailand settles down so I can go because; although I am really loving being in China and experiencing it - being COMPLETELY alone is not something I ever intended to happen and I think that a good group of people would set me straight.
please facebook me or whatever... i have access to a computer in my HUGE EMPTY APARTMENT
xxx
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Admin
Finally sent off for my visa for china
so i only have to deal with my visa for thailand and then i will be ready
need to do a huge primark shop
and holister for assorted denim wear.
and then trekking boots
and perhaps a few little tasties
and more cosmetics and sun cream than you can shake a stick at
eeeee! i'm starting to get really excited
i finish work in less than 3 weeks.
oh lordy!
x
so i only have to deal with my visa for thailand and then i will be ready
need to do a huge primark shop
and holister for assorted denim wear.
and then trekking boots
and perhaps a few little tasties
and more cosmetics and sun cream than you can shake a stick at
eeeee! i'm starting to get really excited
i finish work in less than 3 weeks.
oh lordy!
x
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
THESE ARE THE SITES THAT I WILL BE 'EXPERIENCING'
http://www.i-to-i.com/volunteer-projects/volunteer-work-overseas-with-children-in-china.html
http://www.realgap.com/Thailand-Experience (with the trekking option)
The prep.
Just setting this up because I will be jetting off to spain then china then thailand in 49 days. Wow that seems like ages! although I'm starting to feel like it's not. And I will be getting very busy from now on.
This is just to keep people up to date whilst I am out there.
For everyone that doesn't know.
I'm going alone. Doing some experience type preplanned gap year stuff and also doing some hitch-hiking slash using trains as hotel rooms slash I will definately die crazy stuff. (don't worry mother I will be safe)!
So check this space come mid april!
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