Ningbo

Got a pretty early train to ningbo and walked out of the station into sweltering heat with heavy bags, we called gabby and agreed to meet at tian yi a shopping complex in the middle of town, we tried for a bus but in the heat chose a taxi instead and I chatted a bit to the taxi driver in broken Chinese, his accent was pretty strange though and some words he really didn't understand, God damn!
Met gabrielle with no problems and celebrated our return to the developed world with a Starbucks iced coffee, something impossible in our town, before getting the bus to our new residences. Gabrielle had offered to put us up in her university rooms one way or another...
We got there and dropped off our bags before going for a walk around and a spicy sichuan late lunch, we took a walk around the campus and gabby saw some people in the bell tower of the school and confessed a secret dream to climb the Nottingham tower which was closed to the public, Chris and I immediately decided to see if we could get in this one since someone else obviously had!
We foundthe base of the tower but unfortunately it was surroundes by no entry signs and closed doors, luckily however the door was not locked and when Chris tried it and headed in we both followed!
Insiide through a maze of plant rooms and doors we found the iron steps up and Chris led the way, at the top we found a small group of Chinese people who immediately started apologising to Chris thinking he was a teacher come to tell them off and kick them out of the tower! As soon as Chris started taking pictures and they saw us two they realised their mistake hut it was too late to kick us out now so we grabbed a few photos and sneaked away again the whole time acting like we had as much right to he there as them, despite not even being allowed on university property at all, let alone out of bounds clock towers!

That evening we wanted to go back to central ningbo so with gabby and two of her classmates we headed into town. One turned out to be a nice girl similar to gabby and one a rather rich and sheltered Indian girl who complained that her room had not been cleaned when it was a self catered and self sufficient living place not a hotel!
In town we did a little shopping and saw the river before stopping off for cocktails by the river, after rehydrating we walked towards 'laowaitan ' foreigner street.
We couldn't find it at first but did find a swanky and expensive micro brewery we were forced to take refuge in for a pitcher or two!
After that we gave up on walking and I flagged down a taxi and persuaded him to carry us 5 in his small taxi with some awful Chinese and got us taken straight there.
As soon as we arrived the Indian girl promptly left leaving just us four and at first it looked like we would end up in the dreaded Irish bar but just down the road we found a place with Chinese people doing ktv and no foreigners.
We stayed there and ordered many beers, soon in the Chinese way we were chatting with a doctor and plastic surgeon on the table next to us who nearly dragged us away for more drinks in their house, we declined as the music here was good but I got chatting to the barman who it turned out was Ukrainian! A nice Guy and soon he was mixing us an extra strong cocktail and showing us a nearby club he recommended. We hit the club for an hour before grabbing a quick bits to eat and then arguing with a taxi driver until he took us all home for a good price.

The next morning we were all a bit the worse for wear so had a chilled day around the campus and a little shopping and a bit of sleeping before a nice meal in town and an early bed!