Christmas and the New Year

Christmas:

I finished up my grades and handed them in to Max on Wednesday before hopping on a train down to Nanchang. I managed to catch a cab just outside the train station and had them deliver me, for 60 yuan, to Nathan's front gate where I met him and his parents. We decided to grab some food, Chinese, from the area behind Nathan's apartments for dinner. It was fun, with Nik joining us. It was a loud dinner, and very crowded in the restaurant. In China, Christmas Eve is considered almost a Valentine's day, so many couples will spend the evening on a nice date.

On Thursday, Christmas Day, Nathan and I woke up fairly early. We got ready for the day before his parents joined us, then spent the next few hours opening presents.

We both recieved quite a few books which I shall spend my break sifting through. I'm pretty stocked now, which is fantastic. After opening presents we headed for downtown Nanchang where we would have dinner later that evening. We were on a mission to see the pagoda that sits on the river in Nanchang. On our way there we stopped by a beautiful Buddhist Temple and had a look around before heading on to the pagoda which was closed.

We walked to the restaurant, Detox, and arrived just in time for dinner; turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and for dessert pears in a creme sauce. After filling up, Katie and I went to a hair salon across the street to get our hair washed and styled while Nathan and Rick went to have a couple beers at the local expat bar. After the hair washing was finished, and only 22 kuai each at that, we went back to Nathan's apartment to watch The Office and relax.

Friday morning meant Nathan was back to work at 8am. When he finished and returned to the apartment we were picked up by a Ford van and driven to their local factory for a tour. It was all rather top secret, but a very interesting look at how cars are made in China. The factory was so clean! After our tour, they were kind enough to take us to dinner and a rather fancy restaurant. It was delicious. Post lunch they dropped us back off at Nathan's apartment. He had one more class to teach, so his parents and I joined him. They were just going to have a party, but many of the students did magic tricks, sang, and danced.
For dinner it was more Chinese food at another local restaurant.

On Saturday we continued our quest to find the pagoda and actually get in. We took a mien bao che into downtown Nanchang, then found a cab to take us to the front entrance of the pagoda. It was beautiful and I was excited to finally get in to see it. We walked around for quite some time exploring the many floors and enjoying the views.

After our pagoda experience we decided to walk to the restaurant where we would be enjoying dinner. On our way there, we stopped at a tea shop and enjoyed a few samples. Nathan and his mom enjoy 'dirt tea' which... tastes like dirt. Haha. I'm not a fan, but it was interesting to try it again.

Post-tea sampling we continued our walk to the restaurant. I stopped in one of the shops to buy a Juicy Couture bag that I had been eyeing and then we arrived at the french bistro. It was once of the best meals of my life! I ordered shrimp ravioli with a creamy tomato sauce and Nathan and I shared cheesecake for dessert. Too much delicious.
We headed to Stuart's bar for drinks and to socialize/digest afterward. It was nice to catch up with him and to see Simon who arrived soon after we did.

Sunday we packed and stayed in. Nathan and his parents were to head to Beijing that day and myself back to Jiujiang. My train left a few hours before theirs but they were kind enough to come to the station with me. It was a sad farewell.
I arrived in Jiujiang not too late and caught a cabbie home.

Nanjing/New Years:

Jennifer and I decided to head to Nanjing on Tuesday and stay for a couple days so she could get a better feel for the city and so I could do some shopping. We bought our bus tickets and a few hours later arrived in the city. We decided to stay at Jinn's Inn, but now that we look back on it, perhaps not the best choice. The hotel was under construction at the time of our arrival and the only room available was with one bed that was about the size of a closet. We took it anyways.

Immediately the hotel had issues with my passport, something with their scanning system. They told us to bring down our passports the next morning.
We were hungry when we got there so we dropped off our bags and headed out to find a restaurant. Immediately we found a Mexican place named Behind the Wall. We weren't sure if it was open at first, but a large group of expats walked past us and headed in, we followed.
The food was AMAZING. One of the best burritos I've had in a long, long time. Also, damn good Sangria.
We were exhausted after our trip and headed to bed pretty early.

Wednesday morning we decided to head to Fuzimiao to do some shopping. After taking care of the passport business we were off. It was a pretty chilly day, but bright and sunny. First we had to head to Skyway Bakery to get a sandwich though. It was, of course, amazing.
I did almost kill one of our fellow customers though. He was obviously still new to the China scene. He was on a date or something with a Chinese girl and... ugh, would not shut up about America. That was fine, it was when he started to stereotype about Texas when I nearly went over and strangled him. The poor girl obviously wasn't having a good time and eventually made up an excuse to leave. Serves him right.
We spent a majority of the day shopping and trying to find the underground market which we finally located. I bought myself some sneakers, purple Uggs, and a cute Louis Vuitton purse.


It was back to Behind the Wall for dinner. Nachos this time, which were also delicious.
Around 10pm we decided to head to a bar/club for the countdown. We met up with some friends there and also made some new friends too. Guess who I saw there... sandwich shop boy! He disappeared before I could smack him though. I had a nice time talking to a man from Spain named Antonio. His Chinese was worse than mine! I drank far too many long island iced teas before our group decided to go to a different bar.

This bar was much more quiet. The boys bought a bottle of whisky, I ordered a Tequila Sunset (yum) and we sat around a chatted for a couple hours. It was great. I forgot what it was like to be in company like this, where everyone is just relaxed and friendly.


Jennifer and I checked out of Jinn's and headed for the bus station. I actually bought our tickets by myself using all the Chinese I could remember. It was a pretty proud moment for me, and I answered all of the ticket ladies questions.
Jenn and I had to wait awhile for the bus so I started reading On the Road by Kerouac. I was finding it hard going at first, but I'm slowly getting into it. Some of the lingo still throws me a bit though.

Now I am home, although I don't want to be. I get paid on Monday and thusly will begin my travels yet again. I'm not sure where I shall go though, but I need to make sure that I stay semi-close to where I need to be, in case Spring Festival travel gets too crazy. At the moment I'm thinking of going to Guangzhou, Hangzhou, or doing this nice little trek. There are so many options!

I've also been thinking about looking into bigger cities for work next year. I was planning to stay in Jiujiang, but after experiencing/remembering how nice it is to have friends who speak English fluently/understand my culture, I'm thinking that I really want and need that in my life. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but I guess that's all part of the adventure.

Nanjing

Jennifer and I hopped on a bus around 5pm heading to Nanjing last Friday. The bus was one of those nice charter-style ones, and only had about 6 people other than us on it. We stopped for dinner in the evening at one of those rest stop/convenience shops. The driver came to talk to us, and we communicated in our garbled Chinglish.
The rest of the trip we napped and didn't do much. We arrived in Nanjing around midnight, then took a cab to Beijing Lu and Shanghai Lu where Chris met us. We headed to a bar and waited for Nikolai and Nathan to meet us there. The boys arrived a bit later, and we hung out at the bar for awhile with Chris, Jennifer, Ann, Leif, Brock, and James. It was good times.
Jennifer and I hadn't had any luck finding a hotel once we had gotten to Nanjing, so Jennifer decided to stay at Lief's apartment, and I went back to Nathan and Nik's hotel to stay with them.

The next day we got up around noon. We walked around Fuzimiao then spent the next few hours looking for a sandwich shop, which we never found.

We ended up at Salsa, a mexican food restaurant, which didn't have very good food. We did meet a really nice man there, a principal of a Canadian school in Nanjing, who told us some fun bars to visit. I had a bad headache, so we went back to the hotel to get some meds before we headed out.
Our first stop was in the Sheraton hotel, Danny's Pub. We met another Canadian there who was working as their foreign expert. Nice guy. We had a couple drinks there, and I got to try my first chocolate martini. Tasty.

We headed on to Blue Sky (I think that's the name) because there was supposed to be a big party there, and we were going to meet everyone there. It turned out to be a bit more subdued than we thought, but Chris and Lief were there, so we joined them in a couple games of fusball before heading to Castle Bar, where the rest of our group was. It was a good evening.


I woke up feeling a bit sick so I said bye to the boys, who had to head to the train station and went to Jennifers hotel room. We napped for a couple more hours, then got up to meet Chris at the Skyways sandwich place. We stopped at the international grocery store first where I picked up a microwave Taco Bell meal and some chocolate pudding cups (yum!).

Then we headed on to the sandwich place. It was sooo good to have a sandwich, despite feeling ill. After eating, Chris took us to the bus station and helped us buy our tickets.
The next bus wasn't for a couple hours so we hung out in the bus station. We had some pretty rude picture takers while we were there, and Jennifer very nearly decked a boy.
The bus ride home was uneventful. We watched a really good movie which we don't know the name of since it was in Chinese. Shame.
We arrived home around 10pm, exhausted from a good trip.



Today I spent my birthday money. Here's what I bought: