Out and About Again!

Hi Peoples!

So, yes I am back on again before Justine's birthday - i.e. Tomorrow... so again another happy birthday to the pretty lady! :)

Sooo I had a rather riveting weekend I've been out and about heaps and it doesn't seem to be slowing down either!
FRIDAY: To start it off... for the past week it's been really nice sunshine and great warm weather! AND LOVING IT!... However the one day we have an excursion... it buckets rain the whole time! ahhhhhhhhhh.... meh. mei guan xi (no worries) Therefore I had a nice a soggy Friday trekking up and down islands down in Qiandao Hu (about a good 2 1/2 - 3 hrs south-west of Hangzhou). For those who can't read my pinyin (i.e. everyone reading this blog) the simple English translation is 'I went to One Thousand Island Lake' ... This is a HUGE man made lake with over 1000 islands in it. (pretty impressive) ... well it sounded impressive.. I didn't really get to see much of it as it was basically all fog and clouds. (you can see my amazing pictures with their spectacular views in the link)
Our boat (chuan) started off with bird island where you guessed it... we saw birds (very wet, depressed looking birds) poor things. Oh and lots and lots of gold fish, the giant Chinese ones and the smaller ones too. (oh and by giant I mean like 1 metre long... yeah there's serious goldfish over here... not the pet type!)
Next off was monkey island.. haha yeah Marshal, and yeah it's not a rip off the computer game. We were meant to see monkeys here, but alas... it was raining and monkeys don't like rain... so I had to make do with the stuffed animals available in the store. At monkey island it cost 40 kuai to take the chair lift up to the top of the mountain... and of course all of us cheap uni students said 'tai guai le' (too expensive) so we trekked up the side of the mountain (horrible flash backs to year 10 camp... ohhhhhhh the memories Jus.) Finally made it to the top where we were meant to see these AMAZING views... well... you guessed it... clouds! :)
... ANYYYY who... This was all made up for by the fact that we could slippery slide down the mountain to the bottom! :D yes... you heard right. I slid down monkey island!
We then hopped back on the boat for a good old traditional Chinese lunch (basically fish, tofu and weird vegetables that looked like twigs... interesting to say the least). And yes... in the photos that is mean with a large spoonful of fish head! ... and no I didn't eat it!
Finally we finished off the day with a visit to snake island. Well you can just guess was we saw here... I wasn't too impressed and couldn't bare to watch the baby mice get eaten... bu hao!

Over together it was good but, I came home at 7pm tired, drenched but with lot's of photos and memories :)

SATURDAY: Today I spent the whole morning trying to get my internet to work properly... but it kept on dropping out so it's taken me this long to upload all the photos... and sorry people I still can't get on facebook... so if I haven't replied.. it's not cause I don't love you! ... honest (well some of you at least) ;)
In the arvo, my good buddy Kels and I hopped on our little zi xing che (bikes) and headed off around xi hu (west lake) ... I swear we did atleast 7km and I now have thighs of STEEL! (Yeah Rhi, I'll moon walk you all the way to the sun!)

SUNDAY: Today was Kelsey's day... she absolutely loves basketball and because of her knees can't play anymore... soooo I was up at 6:30am on a Sunday morning to go cheer on and watch the male international students play basketball at another Zhejiang University campus. I must admit I'm not a big fan of basketball but it was fun sitting with Kel and watching the games. (Yes I must sadly admit I was a groupy) ... however I must add in that it was also very educational! ... For all those who ever want to cheer on their team in Chinese simply say: 'name' Jia You Jia You!! ... Kelsey's and my chant was "Jia You, Jia You, Liu Xue Sheng Jia You!" (go international students!) Also upstairs there was a taekwondo competition on... so we went up and saw some sparring for a little while as well!
At the end of the day our 2 teams from my campus' results were: TEAM A: UN (Kurt-Englishman, Marious-German and USA guy) 3rd place and TEAM B: Spanish Boys (Marty-pronounced Marrrrrrttteeeee, George - Hoorrrrhhheeeiii and the other guy) came 1st... Hoorrrheeeiii was very impressive with the 3 pointers and won that competition as well.
First prize wasn't a trophy as you would normally guess... but a Pierre Cardin tie (which by the sounds of it is really nice) but ..... it looked like it had been stolen from the early 90s and it DEFINITELY should have stayed there... it was the most hideous thing I think I've ever seen... it goes right up there with the side ponytails, tulle and boys in tight pants!

Sooo there you have it .. and very exciting weekend!
This coming week is going to be just as packed but so I'm probably not going to have a chance to write anything for at least another week. Today I had my friend David's goodbye party cause on Thursday he heads to Korea for 2 weeks then home to America. Tomorrow I have my Chinese friend Li Cheng's farewell as he also leaves to study in America for 3 months on Saturday. Wednesday we're meant to be heading out for KTV (karaoke) and I have a test... and then Thursday Kelsey, Dalila and I are heading to Shanghai for a long weekend of fun fun fun!

Now that I have finished making you all terribly jealous... my work is done! :)

I love you all miss you heaps and will have many many more stories for you and LOTS of photos in about a week!

Zai Jian xx

Another Week of Study

hello my lovely readers (all 4 of you... maybe more... I'm not sure... none of you have accounts... anywho..........)

I'm sitting here waiting for my American friends so we can all head out to dinner so I thought I would write to you and let you know what's happened in the past 3 days (not much) .... sooooooo.

MONDAY... woke up... went to class... had lunch... studied... ate dinner... studied... went to bed.

TUESDAY... basically the same deal... oh but I also did a load of washing... (you'll be very proud Mum. The washing machine I used is still intact and no one was floating in a sea of bubbles) i.e. last time I used our washer at home!

Wednesday... we I actually came pretty close to murdering some people today... hahah... and you think I'm joking. (Serious face). Soooo like a good little girl (and one who was up till about 3 in the morning twice last weekend) I went to bed at 9:30 to catch up on some zzzzzzzz... at 12:30 I was still staring at the ceiling. Why you may ask. .. I'll tell you... DRUNK HIGH PEOPLE SUCK!

If you don't know my room faces into the court yard in the international building.. and China being a very 'liberal' country ;) doesn't even flinch when the boys bring out the ooba-huge bong and set it up on the patio. WELL... you can just imagine the wonderful WOOTing and WAHOOing that happens when you mix large quantities of Chinese beer and imported ... 'you know what' . They sat directly outside my window and I swear if I had a shotgun... their bodies would still be there! (not really but anyway) ... I have real rage issues to deal with here! ... should be fine by the time I return... you hope anyway.

Apart from that 'kick-starting' my morning the rest of my day has been pretty good. I had class in the morning, and my American bud Kelsey and I worked extremely hard (feichang nuli) all afternoon doing our homework (zuo ye) ... i.e. this means sitting out in the park behind the library sunbaking (with suncream on.... honest Mum). and.... doing homework when we're not dozing. Also just came back in from a good game of tennis with my mate David. Sooo... feeling pretty tired but good.

So ... I'm sure that was riveting.. but it's filled in a good 20 minutes for me so I'm happy :) Hope you all have a wonderful evening and I'll blog again soon... Also, in case I don't blog again (which I should but anyway...) I'd like to say this...

ATTENTION... ATTENTION... ah eh hem (clear throat)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUS!!!!!!!! I love you and miss you heaps and heaps! :)

(Will, If you are reading this... enjoy her while you can... I return in only a few months.. and I plan to hog her! :) )

Steph xx

My 'holiday' weekend

Soooo.. I'm FINALLY up to date with uploading all of my photos! Sorry it's taken so long, but I literally have to leave my computer on all day to get it done!

Last week was a pretty big week, we had our 3 mid semester exams! I was a bit freaked out about these exams because I had Mum and Dad visiting the week and 1/2 before so I was a little bit behind on the lessons in comparison to everyone else. Also, for all those people back in Australia who complain about not getting enough time to study, or being given to much to learn to quickly... GET OVER IT! China knows how to do it hardcore! ... I was given a brand new lesson to learn 4 days before I would be examined on it ... plus 21 other chapters I had to revise during that time. (And this was only 1 of the 3 exams... during those 4 days I also had 2 others to study and be examined on) The new chapter contained 24 new words I'd never seen before including words like ji nian (English translation - Commemorate) Which I had to figure out how to use in a sentence. Which I have now discovered ji nian you piao (commemorative stamps) are very popular here in China!

But... even with all of my moaning and groaning I made it through the week! ... I still don't know what my grades are for the other two exams but I found out this morning I got 91/100 for the 21 Chapters exam. WOOT! :D

Because of this amazing hard amount of effort, the girls and I decided that the weekend was going to be an extreme partying and shopping weekend! So Friday night we danced away at Coco till 3 in the morning. It was heaps of fun, just us 4 girls (Dalila, Kelsey, my pommy friend Jenni and myself) It's awesome exercise jumping around to the music... and I think my lyrics vocab is getting bigger too!

Saturday was awesome! ... we all headed out to the clothing markets :) VERY HAPPY STEPH! I bought 2 dresses and a cute shirt. It was literally a street of shops minimum 4 levels tall for each building. We only made it through 1 1/2! That night, even though I was pretty tired Kelsey and I headed out to watch her friend Alex DJ at a warehouse graffiti party (she'd promised she'd go and I didn't really want her to go by herself.) After downing a HUGE bottle of ice coffee I was set to go!
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1hour later we FINALLY reached the venue. The poor taxi driver couldn't find it for the life of him! and no wonder, it was down the back of the highway behind the railway lines... (now to my parents and grandparents, don't panic... it sounds like it's in some creepy neighbourhood... but it wasn't and we were hanging out with boys we knew all night!) ... plus the 'graffiti' part of it... was literally like finger painting it was heaps of fun! :D It was like art gallery/ club / pub / paint studio.

Sunday, I was completely exhausted (since we didn't get home till 2:30 in the morning... it took us an hour to catch a taxi) but I really needed to get some cheap shirts to wear around campus and also Mum wanted me to get a mosquito net for my bed. So I was off again (in the pouring rain) to the small products market. I got 5 shirts for 60 kuai (about $15 aus) and net for about $4. So all together good buys :)

I was very proud of my shopping efforts this weekend and we had sooo much fun :)
Today I had to be up by 6:45am (Almost didn't make it) ... pressed snooze. But I'm heading into the 2nd half of the semester (yes, they don't have a weeks break in between terms like we get in Australia) and already I got 44 new words to learn today! Soooo... yes, I love China, had a great weekend, but really regretting going to class this morning as I now have to sit here for the next 2 hours trying to cram more stuff into my overloaded head! LOVE IT!

I hope you've all enjoying your Easter break and you remember the true meaning of Easter!

Love you all, keep safe and email me often! :)

Steph xx

SUNDAY - Shopping and Mum and Dad's week in Hangzhou

Today was so much fun!... okay for all the girls reading this... you want to do some amazing shopping... Beijing Silk Street is the place to go!

Imagine... 6 levels of hundreds and hundreds of stores... A level dedicated to handbags, another dedicated to pearls, watches, sunglasses and jewellery and another to clothes. I was in HEAVEN!!!!!

I walked out with 8 new shirts, 2 leather handbags, a watch, real pearl earrings and pendant necklace! all for about $230 Australian bucks!

It was absolutely amazing and hopefully I'll get to do a little more shopping again before I leave.

As for the rest of the week, we flew home on Sunday night and I had to head back to classes on Monday morning at 8am. I REALLY wanted to sleep through my classes! ... I think the teacher could tell I was a little tired, even coffee didn't give me my usual morning perk!

TUESDAY - Today I skipped class and headed back up to Shanghai with Mum and Dad to visit 2 factories. They were both very impressive! Though I must say what impressed me most was that they both fed us! :) The first one took us out for a traditional Chinese lunch in a beautiful garden created back in the Ming Dynasty... we had over 7 dishes for 4 people... I almost died from happiness! The next one fed us coffee, oreos and other chocolate nibblies! VERY VERY HAPPY! :)

WEDNESDAY - I had to head back to class again, but Kelsey, Mum, Dad and I headed out to the Hangzhou Silk Markets that afternoon! It was beautiful, bought a few presents and a silk dress and skirt for myself. Mum bought some lovely scarves for herself, and Kelsey got a skirt and some silk pjs and dressing gown for her Mum. It was really good and fun to just hangout with Kels and my parents.

THURSDAY - Today was a kind of lazy day and I had classes till 2:30 in the arvo so we couldn't really do too much gallivanting! ... but Mum, Dad and I did head out to a western restaurant for dinner and eat 2 yummmmmmmyyyyy pizzas! ah... so GOOD! ... and then headed back to Mum and Dad's hotel to watch Wolverine the new movie with Hugh Jackman. This was kinda funny because someone had pirated it when it hadn't been finished yet, so you could still see some of the wires attached to the actors as they flew through the air, and raw computer graphics! but you got the jist on the movie :)

FRIDAY - This was my final day with Mum and Dad. I finished classes at 9:30 in the morning, so I headed across to their hotel shortly after that, we had our own person Good Friday service and then headed out to explore Xi Hu (West Lake) It was really beautiful and there's heaps of photos to see, but for some reason my computer is having pink kittens trying to upload photos at the moment so you might have to wait awhile to see them all. We visited the local art gallery (which surprisingly had very political art pieces in it. and some a little raunchy too. Next we headed to the museum. I loved it here, Australia has such a short history, but this humble little museum in Hanghzou had pieces dating back 7000 years!!
We then caught a boat across the lake to the island with the famous lakes mirroring the moon. This was really beautiful too, apart from the fact half the island you couldn't go to cause it was under construction! lol... but there was these amazingly HUGE goldfish (carp) ... but they sure did look like goldfish. I'm not even exaggerating when I say some were as long as my table I'm typing on write now... they were MAMMOTH!
After all this we hopped back on the boat and travelled to the other side of the lake where he headed down to the famous Lei Feng Pagoda. This was pretty cool, but I wasn't willing to pay money to stand on top of a pagoda and look out at the smog so I only saw it from the ground. Funny story though, we though we were heading to the pagoda, when we went down a road with two officers at the end, when we approached one turn abruptly, clicked his heels together and put up his hand saying STOP! ... we must have wondered down into some rich person's driveway at the base of the pagoda! ... As we were walking back a black car with totally tinted windows drove down past us, as it pasted the guards they both in COMPLETE unison turned, clicked their heels together and saluted! We were very impressed... timed to perfection!

Anyway we spent the rest of the afternoon wondering up the edge of the lack, they have they most beautiful gardens absolutely everywhere, and being the 'ritzy' side of the lake, the other side of the street was all high end retailers, coffee shops and car dealerships including Maserati, Ferrari, BMW, Merc... etc. oh and a mini as well :)

We finished off the day heading to the Hangzhou wine centre like we do every Friday night. Enjoy the free buffet, a good glass of Aussie red and then went back to the hotel room to watch a movie.

I have to say it's harder saying goodbye the second time around knowing Mum and Dad were going home to Grandma and Poppa, Marshal and Larissa and all good things Aussie. But I do love it over here and I have a fresh stock of chocolate to keep me company over the Easter weekend (thanks Mum and Dad!) ;)

But in summary, I had such a fantastic time while Mum and Dad were here. I learnt a lot about business, ticked off all the 'must sees' in China, got to introduce Mum and Dad to all of my family over here in China and I got to see Dad trying to use chopsticks :) It was great!

Thanks Mum and Dad for coming over I absolutely loved it and I was spoilt rotten with the ritzy hotel rooms and showers with water shooting out in straight lines! Thanks! :) and Grandma and Untie Lynden, thanks heaps for the letters I've received both of them. I hope you both had a wonderful time down in Victoria and Grandma and Poppa, you both have a lovely time up at the unit in Caloundra! Also, happy b-day Poppa for today :) I hoped you liked your Chinese birthday song!

Love you all and will let you know how all my mid-semester exams go this week.

Zai Jian xx

FRIDAY & SATURDAY- Shanghai & Beijing

Soooo... didn't end up posting later that night, once again we've been extremely busy and I only have a 1hour break before I have to get to my next class... so I'm going to type quickly.

Friday we headed back to Hotelex we saw a few different companies and organised some meetings. We had Italian coffee that was terrible and saw many more dishes and plates. Afterwards we headed out to famous Renmin Square... sorry to disappoint, but it literally was just a square. We had Dairy Queen for lunch (which is the American version of Wendy's) it was great to have some real milk again!

That night we flew to Beijing, and miracle... I wasn't air sick! YEY! but we were pretty tired so we headed to our hotel, then out to Maccas for dinner (which was in a 7 level shopping centre down the road... including stores like Burberry, and many other expensive swiss watch places which I can't remember the names of right now. Oh we also saw a beautiful catholic church up in Beijing, and there was artists painting characters with huge brushes in water on the front sets, it was very impressive. The guy had a brush in each hand and was literally mirror-imaging the characters at the same time.

SATURDAY
This was the big day! :)

We were up at 6:30am - even though I felt like I was up half the night! (I've discovered Dad snores VERY loudly!) Our private little tour started at 8am with our guide 'Jason'. He was really nice and made the trip very entertaining with the mispronunciation of a few words! :) Like 'restaurant' instead of 'rostrum'.

Now for those who don't know, this weekend was a special long weekend to pay respect to your dead ancestors. I thought that maybe that would mean the tourist destinations would be a little less crowded as everyone would be doing family things. OH NO! ... Tiananmen Square was PACKED! ... and I mean literally. I will never complain ever again about ques in Australia! If you know how big Tiananmen Square is, you'll understand how many people I mean when I saw that the que filled up majority of the square! (see pictures) So you might be asking... why so packed out?? ... well the Chinese are huge fans of Chairman Mao and that's where his grave is. So it was literally like a pilgrimage for Chinese people to come up to Beijing for the weekend que for hours in the sun and pay respect to their leader.... Imagine if that happened in Australia! hahaha... queing for hours to pay respect to Kevin Rudd?!? mhhhh... I think not!

Next was the Forbidden City, this was AMAZING! ... I can best describe it like Shrek does it's like an onion! It had gate after gate after gate! ... courtyard after courtyard, building after building. It was basically impossible to get into the middle section where the emperor lived! The detail that was put into it was incredibly beautiful! Everything was gold or hand carved/painted.
Also it was really interesting having a guide to tell you all about the history of it and it's design. Did you know that the ground in the courtyard is 20 something layers deep of bricks each layer going in a different location because the emperor was scared that someone was going to dig up underneath the walls and kill him in his sleep!

Also the dragon symbolises the emperor and the Phoenix the empress... it just had such amazing history!

Afterwards we headed to the jade factory, there's not much to say about this one, but I can tell you there is a lot of different types of jade and jadenite is the best! ... Oh and for Untie Lynden I know how much you love your feng shui, so the low down in China is that you should get a bok choy made from jade and have its leaves facing in to bring in good fortune and money!

Also the best way to test whether it is high quality jade is by wrapping a piece of hair around the jade and then lighting it. A high quality jade will protect the hair from burning (because of the very cool temperature) Also jade changes colour to a deeper green the older it is.

Finally, we stopped in for lunch at a Chinese Cloisonne factory. (This is amazing hand crafted copper vases) we got to see how they are made all the way from making the vases through to carving, painting and firing! Mum and I each bought a 'masterpiece' vase (these designed and crafted by the master) they are really beautiful! However, upstairs was the restaurant and that's where we headed first! ... it was nice 'western' tasting Chinese and we also tried some famous Beijing liquor which knocked our socks off with 56% alcohol! (it tasted and smelt like straight metho!)

After lunch we then headed across to the 'Badaling' section of the Great Wall! It was BREATHTAKING! The views from up there were incredible and the wall just stretches on and on and on......... We climbed to the 4th turret (about 1 1/2 km uphill) it was incredibly steep, it definitely would have kept the Chinese soldiers fit! You can check out the pictures for yourself... I'm slowly uploading everything, so if it's not up yet, sorry you'll have to wait a little longer. :)
Also our guide Jason informed us after we'd finished climbing, it's said that you aren't considered a real man unless you have climbed the Great Wall, so yes I'm feeling very manly right now!

Last but not least, we finished off our huge day with a performance by the Chinese acrobats. This was really good, with people flying everywhere and about 20 people on 1 bicycle it was impressive to say the least! But by far the best was one guy lifting another guy up and down using only his calf muscles! He was ridiculously strong and yet he wasn't overly buff!

But all together it was an amazing day, we came back to the hotel completely exhausted, I soaked in the bath for a good 1 1/2 hrs. We knocked over all the 'must-sees' in China and I must say they were all just as amazing as I expected them to be!

Well I have to head off to my Ting Li Ke (Listening Class) so I'll make you all extremely jealous tomorrow when I tell you about the shopping we did on Sunday.

Zai Jian! xx

1 - WEDNESDAY M & D arrive and THURSDAY in Shanghai

Hey Everyone.

Okay, so this weekend has been absolutely crazy but heaps and heaps of fun. So I've got a heap to write about. To make sure you don't get RSD from reading my blog I've split it up by day. So you can read at your leisure! :)

So here goes! .... ... ...

Mum and Dad arrived on Wednesday last week. It was absolutely fantastic to see them again! :) And I think they enjoyed their 'real' China driving experience with their taxi driver ripping them off for the fare in and driving like a total maniac to get them there!
Once in the college, we discovered that 'unfortunately' they weren't going to have a room for the entire duration of their stay. (even though I had specifically gone to the lady at the front desk WEEKS prior and booked it.) So Tuesday -Friday night Mum and Dad are going to have to find another hotel or bunk on my floor! lol... but once again, it's all part of the China experience!

THURSDAY - We were up at 5:45am to have showers, breakfast and be at the train station (huo che zhan) on the other side of town to depart at 7:40am. The train ride was great! we were in 1st class and sat opposite a lovely pair of Chinese ladies who were heading up to Shanghai for a girl's weekend. We attempted to have conversations about different things in Chinese, but as you can guess with my not so large array of vocab it was quite jilted... it kind of reminded me of a game of pictionary. I think I improved my drawing skills as well as my spoken! ... even Dad attempted to draw a picture of a slicer to try and explain the family business!
Oh, we've swapped details too, cause her daughter is my age and she's studying English, and is hoping to come to Australia at some point.
Anyhow, it was a great way to pass the time and I think they enjoyed themselves. I know the rest of the train did, the whole carriage was looking over their newspapers and books to see what we were doing, finding it hilarious that this crazy waiguoren (Foreigner) sitting with her parents was trying to speak Chinese! Even people from the other isles were putting in their 2 cents worth trying to help translate what we were saying!

So Shanghai itself is very very big! ... and it's true... the whole city is literally constantly under construction! everywhere you looked something new was being put up, or being renovated! it was amazing! ... we had so much trouble trying to find our hotel because the entire thing was surrounded by roadworks and construction! ... I can't even remember how many times we circled the block on Thursday and Friday trying to find our hotel!

Thursday arvo after we dropped off our bags at the hotel, we went straight to the Hotelex Food Equipment Expo, though we were quite grateful we made it in the first place and our taxi driver decided that it was too difficult to get into the inside lane to do a u-turn. So instead went to the far outside lane and swung out in front of 5 lanes of traffic to turn! ... quite the experience... I think Dad left finger imprints in the sides of the chair!
Hotelex itself was pretty interesting, we found some products we liked and we're heading back up to Shanghai tomorrow to check one of them out. But I have to say the majority of it was just the same things: cutlery, plates and duplications of everything else.

Thursday night I yanked Mum and Dad back out again and we headed to the Bund (No rest for the travel crazy!) ... for those of you who don't know, the Bund is the famous pictures of the needle like shaped tower you see in all of the postcards from Shanghai. It was BEAUTIFUL! It truly is old meets new. You look to your left and see huge skyscrapers with the side of the building lit up (a TV screen on the side of the skyscraper!) Look to your right and you see heritage listed architectural brilliant buildlings! You can check out the pictures on the link! We also had dinner in this little tiny 'out-of-the-way' kinda store in a back street. They were very suprised to see westerners off the beaten track and every person in the place stared at us as we attempted to eat slippery noodles with chopsticks... put it this way... they killed themselves laughing! but the girls were beatuiful and even let me take a photo with them! (The girls in yellow - see the photos) :)

But anyway the first day of our long weekend was crazy busy, but heaps of fun. I'll let you have a break from my HUGE amount of typing and I'll post about Friday later tonight. I'm going to head out with the guys and play tennis while Mum and Dad have a nap! :)

Zai Jian! xx

Hey Everyone,

So this is an extremely quick blog to so I'M MEGA EXCITED!

I just finished calling my Mum who is in a taxi, heading to the university RIGHT NOW! ... yes you heard correct people! ... my parents are in China!

Oh and to make things even better I just received their care-package they sent 2 weeks ago which includes 2 family blocks of Cadbury chocolate! ... I don't think this day could get any better! :) (also we've been blessed with no rain for their arrival!) WOOT!

So here's the scoop... I won't be posting anything probably for the next 10 days while my parents are here.. but I'll let you know what we're going to be doing....

Tomorrow we're getting up bright and early to catch a train to Shanghai where we'll be going to the Hotelex Food Equipment Expo. We'll be checking out all the equipment for the next two days and I've planned a few little touristy things while we're in Shanghai as well. :)

Friday night, we fly to Beijing where on Saturday we're taking a private tour around the famous city! including ... the great wall, tianamen square, forbidden city etc... and we're going to see the Chinese acrobats that night for dinner! :)

Sunday we're going to do a spot of shopping and then fly back down to Hangzhou so that I can get back to class. :(

The rest of the week will be spent doing a few little business trips but mostly relaxing and spending time with the parentals! :) I promise to take lots and lots of photos for you all and have a HUGE blog for you to read afterwards!

Grandma and Poppa I hope you have heaps of fun down in Brizzie with Marshal and Larissa, and happy holidays to all of my uni friends. ( I think you've got easter break soonish..)

Zai Jian :)

Steph xx