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china
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I returned from my trip to china last night so i thought i'd let you all know how i got on.
Cathy and I were met by her aunt and cousin (i atucally dont know their names so this is how they shall be known) as we exited the kcr statrion in lo wu. I instantly noticed a thick layer of smog covering the sky that quickly rushed into my lungs.
We were taken to lunch at a noodle bar...no rice yes!! I was relieved that the noodles were just noodles and none of the chinese funny business of making you eat random things, little did i know that was still to come. My first new experience was in the form of desert, it was a little like rice pudding but the rice had been replaced by small, clear, squishy balls of a jelly like substance. I have to say i thoroughly enjoyed it. We then spent the remainder of the daylight hours wandering around the shops. HUGE great shpping centres, each with at least 6 floors! In the evening uncle took us out for a drive and a tour of Shenzehn night life. The sides of buildinds had become bilboards with massive adverts being flashed in different patterns of light. The roads and skill of the drivers leaves much to be desired, their impatience is 10 times worse than hong kong with the cars trying to squeeze into the tinyest gaps and then suddenly a scooter would whizz down between. There was a constant tooting of horns as buses skidded to a hault to pick up passengers.
Day 2 began with yum tsa (tea) at a nearby hotel resturant. With a new day comes new food. The waitress' push trolleys around and you just choose what you want off those, then there is also a big table at the side of the restaraunt where they are cooking up yet more intreging dishes. To which Cathy and i would point at and her cousin would order as neither of us spoke mandarian. And of course lets not forget the tea, i think we must have drank about a pot each!!! With our stomaches full to bursting we went to a local art gallery. There was a display of paintings done in chinese ink, many of which dipicted scenes of tranqulity under trees or by waterfalls.
Now for some action, we went to the park to fly kites :D as we hopped off teh bus we were instantly under attack from children trying to sell us kites. Aunt bought us a kite to share so off we ran to have some fun. This attempt is to be my most successful yet, with the help of a strong wind the kite flew straight into the air, without me having to run for ages with dad hanging onto the other end! It was all going well until a gust blew the string out of the cousins hands, we couldnt stop laughing as it sailed higher and higer into the sky. The Aunt and i climbed a hill to see the view but Cathy and her cousin refused saying it was too big. Once we were all totally out of engery we moved on to our next stop. This came in the form of a culural mini village, only Cathy and I went in as the others said it was too expensive for them and when compared to everything else in China i suppose it was but to us or especially me it was on the cheaper side of normal. It showed all the attractions of china in miniture, we wandered around for a few hours, unfortunately we were too late to see any shows, we managed to just catch the end of one with dancers in traditional dress jumping around on stilts. On leaving the village we managed to stop a bus without getting ourselves killed and clambered onboard. Here begginith a slight problem. After being on the bus for 45 mins we decided we must have missed our stop and so got off at the next stop, where we found a policeman. Cathy tried to speak to him using what basic mandarin she knew and in the end we resulted in calling her aunt who spoke to the policeman and then to Cathy. About an hour and 4 phone calls later Cathy's cousin turned up with another family member. To which i discovered his 2 year old daughter (and the rest of his family) were waiting back at their house to have their photo taken with me (chesin gwilo!!). We eventually made it back to the flat a couple of hours later than intended and with a few extra family members in tow.
The following day was like being on a guided tour bus. The uncle drove us around shenzehn to all the tourist attractions and to well everything that had anything to do with schenzehn or china that he could reach in his car. It was a bit of a whistle stop tour but it was good to get to see some things. We stopped for lunch in a floating restaraunt. The menu was in the form of, there are the bowls of living creatures you point and we'll cook! the fish were swimming in nets, kind of like ponds built on a ship. The food was really good, all completely fresh but i have no idea what half the stuff i ate was. and yes there was yet more tea!!!
I made it back to my flat at about 22:00 ready to crash.
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