Linzhou night club!

A couple of blurry shots of the inside of the linzhou night club, crazy times!

taiyuan to linzhou pictures

A picture of where the bus dropped me, in the middle of nowhere! one way hills, the other, more hills! very cool!

creepy!

A creepy statue from a small garden behind the old street!

Taiyuan old town 2

An 'old' gate, in the 'old' town, some kids walking home from school with a temple in the background, a view of the old town central tower, a view town the old street, and a shot of a reasonably, actually old part of the old town!

Taiyuan old town

A couple of pictures of the old town in taiyuan, a cleaner tidying in the cold weather, and me in my cold weather gear!

Eating in taiyuan

Taiyuan "chuan chuan" (skewer skewer) restaurant, all the food goes in the central pot and its 1rmb a skewer, bigger / more expensive, more skewers, more money! cool!

Also a picture of the chicken hearts with sauce, tasty!

Taiyuan photos 1

A photo of the backstreet behind the hotel, with the huge pipes carrying hot water to all the houses. 

The Mao statue in the entrance to shanxi university, and a picture of inside the university,  a little bit different from Coventry!

Leaving taiyuan!

I had been in taiyuan for long enough and wanted to get out and see some scenery, I told the people from the bar that I was thinking about going to Beijing and they suggested an alternative, one of them was going home to a place in henan I had never heard of and said the scenery was beautiful and they would help me get there, so I accepted. We met at the bus station and got the bus to a town called linzhou in henan, but we would get off at a random place along the way! 

This bus ride was not bad, 5 hours, and we the scenery got more and more remote, and beautiful! We passed at a few power stations and I was reminded of what shanxi is famous for, coal! It gets A lot of its money from huge coal deposits and big coal mines.

We passed beautiful old villages and more and remote beautiful mountain passes and suddenly the bus stopped, this was our stop! We got off the bus and we were in the middle of nowhere! Not a car in sight but in this beautiful valley with a rickety bridge over a river and up the valley to a mountain. The scenery was beautiful, the river had a frozen waterfall tumbling into it, and the valley was bathed in afternoon sunlight, I stopped and took lots of pictures before heating over the bridge and up to the small cluster of hotels where I was to stay. The only problem was, when I arrived, they were all closed!

Luckily my new friend was still with me and she was surprised all the hotels were shut, but of course it was winter! There was nobody here so we walked back out to the road and waited for a car which my friend flagged down, I'm not sure if being with a foreigner helped but the first car we saw stopped and offered us a free lift to linzhou city, an hour away by car! 

Wen we got the he dropped us by the bus station and I went into the hotel my friend recommended to check in, as i walked in alas no foreigners allowed. They recommended a place in another city! My friend was so embarrassed at recommending a place that didn't accept foreigners I felt a bit guilty. We called around the local hotels but all said the same, but the driver of the car we had flagged down also lived in linzhou, and said if we had any problems to call him, so we did! 

He said no problem, drove back over and picked me up and took me to another hotel nearby where he had connections and booked me in using his ID card! Thank you kind man! 

I got settled and my friend headed home as her family lived in linzhou so we said parted ways, but it for long! She told her friend she was in town with a foreigner and he immediately offered to take us out for dinner, and then the man who gave me a lift also called asking me out for dinner! I had already accepted the first offer so went for dinner in a hot pot restaurant nearby. Afterwards I wanted nothing more than a shower and an early bed but the guy who gave me a ride called again asking me to go with him for a beer and since he gave me a ride, and then asked me for dinner but I refused, i felt it best to go, but I asked along my friend as a translator. 

The guy picked us both up and went to a nearby carpark and into a nightclub. This nightclub was just a medium sized warehouse, everything was dusty, with low lighting, a raised dance floor, and a stage with a basic dj set on. As we walked in all the guys were frisked for... Weapons I guess, but the girls left well alone, and inside the nightclub there was no heating, I soon saw why. The guy ordered a crate of beers for us and we had a few beers and every started dancing, I got on the dance floor and everyone was looking, and not because of my undoubtably amazing dancing skills, I think linzhou had no foreigners, and definitely none in this night club before. I knew my place a bit here and so got up and danced with guys who had invited me, being a token white face for them and being introduced to their friends, the translation was something along the lines of this was a traffic policemans party! Random! 

After some drinking and dancing the dance floor emptied and a few singers got up on stage, first a portly woman got up and starts singing and guys would get up on stage and cheers her and drink with her, so I did the polite thing and went too, much to everyone (including the singers) surprise. After her there was a guy and I drank with him on stage too at my hosts insistence. The host was pretty drunk by this point, and his friends were very drunk, but the beer was weak so I was ok! When the host tried to drag me n stage again to sing I decided to call it a night and made my long and painful excuses to leave, leaving the drunk and calling for me to come back, crazy Chinese! 

I walked the five minutes back to the hotel with another of the guys friends and all the way he insisted that if I ever went to his town I would call, and gave me his phone number several times every minutes for the whole walk home, demanding I write it down and in my phone, in case I lost it!

I made it back from my welcome to linzhou tired and very ready for bed!

Taiyuan day four

I had been told that the was a nice old town an hours bus ride and making my excuses from them left on my own. I was the last bus stop so I couldn't really go wrong! When I got to the bus it was packed, so full of people they really couldn't fit any more people into the bus! I was standing in the doorway! 

The bus ride was cool through some very poor scenery to a place two towns over and once there, as it was winter, there was no entry ticket! I walked around the old town and it was cool, once you go out of the central square lots was yet to be renovated, and so actually semi original, or at least more than 10 years old! 

I also ate a local snack of candied strawberries on a stick, and some other fruit they recommended but I have no idea what was! 

I took lots of pictures and found a huge square all locked off and unused with weeds growing it, I really wanted to get in but couldn't get in! Damn it! So after an hour or two I wandered back to the bus stop.

After the bus ride back I went back to the tasty man coffee shop for a cup of coffee before back to the hotel.

Taiyuan day three

The people I met yesterday seemed nice and were keen to take me out again and show me around a bit, we walked a bit and then went to a very tasty place for hotpot, they first got a huge catfish and cooked that in some soup, which was very tasty with a peanut dip, and then they brought lots of vegetables to add to the soup, but we were all already stuffed full from the tasty fish! 

After a bit more walk in got seriously cold again so they invited me to go to the cinema to see a film again, about Jackie chan recovering stolen treasures from other countries! Very.... Patriotic, haha, and typically Chinese.... 

After the film we went back to the bar again for a few drinks but I made my excuses a bit early and let, the bar was very studenty, with silly games and prizes and a girl walking around dressed in the clothes of a six year old girl carrying a huge teddy bear, I asked why and they explained that you could buy the bear for 30gbp for a girl you liked, or just to show you had lots of money, and some girls would be interested in you... A weird town! They even had a raffle for one bear which was a chance for the guys to prove how much money they had and buy a bear, the same as the ones sold for 30gbp ( and 3gbp outside) but in the raffle it went for 800rmb! 80gbp! Crazy! Ad the people that bought it were a group of guys! They left it sat on a chair in the corner so everyone could see that they had more money than sense... 

Taiyuan day three

Near the place I'm staying is shanxi daxue, a big university, possible with foreigners in! I wandered around for a while but it seemed a very bleak place, the fountains were empty, the trees had no leaves and the architecture was almost soviet, but still interesting, and like everything in china, very very big! After that i got a taxi to the town center again and was so cold I looked for anywhere to keep warm, and found a cinema! So I went to watch a film, as the only foreigner in the places got quite a few stares but the film had English subtitles so all was ok! After the film I was chatting with a few friendly students who invited me to a nearby bar, I agreed for one drink and so we went and had a drink or two in a cool little nearby bar before back to the hotel again.

Making a break for it!

As soon as the term finished we were out of ningbo traveling as quickly as we could! I jumped on a flit up north to taiyuan, a city in henan province. 

I couldn't fly direct from ningbo so I first got a train to hangzhou then flew from hangzhou airport to taiyuan.

I arrived in taiyuan late at night and went straight to the hotel to rest, it was a 10 or more hour trip door to door, with three hours in the airport in hangzhou waiting for the flight!

Arriving in taiyuan one thing was immediately different, the weather! I had left behind the cold 0-3degrees of ningbo and arrived in taiyuan to minus 12! It wasn't snowing but it is a place that gets frequent snow, and there was snow on the ground still from the last snowfall, daytime temperatures here also rarely get above 0degrees, lovely! 

As soon as I checked in I wanted some food so left the hotel looking for something to eat, I found a place with an inside rainforest type glass walled greenhouse, inside it was 30+ degrees C! I had some food from a buffet type deal before heading back for bed. 

Peters chinese writing is better than mine!

Peter sent me a gift and wrote the merry Christmas tag in Chinese! I showed it to some Chinese people who came over and they were very impressed! Apparently perfectly readable! And probably about as good as I can do, you are right Peter, Chinese writing is really damn difficult!

Christmas presents!

I had heard news of a mysterious package from England for a few weeks now and after searching around and chasing it I had given up hope, but it finally arrived! A wonderful package of goodies from England, Chris and I sat down and opened our gifts, some lovely coffee which we immediately started drinking as the last of be old bag had just run out, some tasty cadburys chocolate that is impossible to get in china, some much needed matching socks for me and Chris, and a shirt and t shirt from home, very cool! Pictures of the unboxing attached, thanks for the wonderful gifts family! Especially Peter for the crazy magnets, when we opened it we were a bit confused but then followed a good few hours while watching tv of three grown adults, Chris me and Mina, sitting under the air conditioner for warmth from the cold outside eating chocolate and making silly magnetic shapes, very fun! Merry late Christmas! 

Snow in ningbo!

It finally snowed! All the Chinese people had been promising snow for days now, every time I went for food in our local cheap restaurant they said it would snow and it didn't and then, finally, it started snowing just after the new year! The first day I had no work and so went out to take pictures in the snow, getting seriously cold! The second day it snowed harder but I had class. I went into school and the first class most of the class turned up so I taught for twenty minutes before they all bounced out of the classroom excited as anything. After lunch it came time for my afternoon class and I had seen the students that morning, they asked if there was a class and I stressed that I would be there and had to be there, but only if no students came could I leave, luckily their English was good and so they got the hint, when I came to class only three out of 34 had turned up! I stayed and chatted for ten minutes and spoke some Chinese before ending the class fantastically early. Mainly because this class was a spillover, due to new year years and Christmas the other classes missed their lesson but this class had an extra one, and I didn't have anything to teach and they didn't want to study, so an early ending was best! After the lesson I went out again to take some more cool pictures in the snow! As I was leaving I got suckered into a playful snowball fight with most of the students who had skipped the lesson! Haha! 

Pre news years eve drinks!

A few days before New Year's Eve we went out for some drinks in Lao wai tan , the bar street in ningbo, taking some masterful and model quality pictures! Attached for general amusement!

Christmas pictures 2

Chris, Mina, mike, me and Linda mikes wife all together, james gary and yuki together and a few more random Christmas pictures! Including some wonderful pictures of me in my Christmas panda hat! 

Christmas party at home!

Some pictures from our Christmas dinner at my house, showing off my wonderful hat, James's wonderful bald hat, Mina's ability to always anticipate a picture and pose, and the general level of drunkenness! 

Office Christmas party

A little before Christmas we had an office Christmas party, well the foreign teachers, and we had a meal in the ningbo university hotel paid for by the company which was nice. When we arrived Mina and Yuki the Japanese teachers had a young boy sat with them talking with them, apparently on his fathers orders. His father, a fellow teacher, had told him to take the chances to speak with as many foreign people as possible and improve his English. When Chris and I sat down he jumped up abandoning the Asian looking girls and sat between me and Chris, there followed the most awful company for a meal, a young, bored, Chinese kid trying tto use the chance as a free English lesson, I wasn't in the mood and basically ignored him as best I could leaving Chris sat between him and the kids dad and sending the evening stuck there, sorry Chris! 

I made my excuses and shot away as early as I could but Chris stayed on, we were both gifted a present from the university though, a 'silk' scarf, mine was a disgusting orange brown with a horse tackle motif, awful, at least I have something to clean the bathroom with now! 

A few pictures of the 'party' attached thanks to Gary's camera! Try to spot the awful kid and a bored looking me!

End of term

Finishing up the term meant exams and so I had already given them an advertising exam, I wanted to give them another exam, unfortunately the timing didn't work out and so they missed out on a second exam, the writing coursework had some highlights, two of which I included here

Whilst marking:

The teacher really clobered us"

And also many stories of leaving school to play games in an internet bar all night, or to go drinking, or to spend time with their girlfriend.

And when writing a visa application letter, writing that they wanted to meet a foreign beauty, or they wanted to try the amazing Canadian wine!

Western new year!

For western new year, 2012/1/1, Chris, Yuki, Mina and I headed downtown together and first went to the office bar, a foreigner filled bar that is a usual haunt but tonight we fancied something special so we splurged and went to a bar around the corner called constellation, as we walked in the waiter came to seat us and appologised that the place was completely full, and it was true, since this is the most expensive bar it was full of rich people in suits and expensive dresses sipping expensive cocktails and smoking cigars from the bars walk in humidor! At that point the Japanese girls started talking Japanese and the waiter responded in Japanese, it turns out he was a Japanese major in university! After a bit of chat he mentioned that a two seater was about to be free, and got us that, adding another chair when it became free and with one sitting on the arm of an arm chair we got a small table. Wonderful! We ordered drinks, a hot rum for chris, Jin and tonic for Mina and me, and a fruity cocktail for Yuki and Chris wanted to indulge in a cigar, so we had cocktails and cigars in the swanky bar as we waited for midnight, at midnight we counted down and then the bar gave away a bottle of champagne and an ipad, but unfortunately we didn't win either! Nevermind! 

After midnight we hit another bar before heading back around 2.30. Chris went to bed and Mina and I stayed up drinking until 5! Happy new year!

Christmas in ningbo!

Christmas this year was on a Tuesday, and in theory I had to work on that Tuesday, and possibly even give an exam! Luckily it was in my contract that I could move my classes from Christmas Day to another day, so I moved them to Boxing Day forenoon, much nicer!

For Christmas Eve I organized a meal in my house for any foreign teachers who were interested. In the end we had Chris and I, Mina and Yuki the Japanese teachers, Gary the Australian and his wife, mike the English doctor and his wife, and James the Australian too. Everyone brought some various food, James brought sushi and wine, the Japanese brought pasta and Chinese food and I bought a roast chicken from the supermarket, we put it all together with four or five bottles of wine, beer, whiskey and gin and had a great Christmas meal!

After the meal we had a secret Santa in which I received a beautiful panda hat, and various presents were given to all! 

For Christmas Day an American, Dennis, who teaches in the technology college , invited the foreign teachers to his house for a Christmas drink, we spent the day around the house relaxing and then wandered over the in the evening to his house along with quite a few others for some social drinks and chatting, it was a nice evening and a lovely Christmas, and you can see from the coming pictures, it is a beautiful hat!

Lingxi pictures two

Pictures of us at the tasty coffee shop in lingxi