Month Two

Month two has just finished and it’s been great. First I started with a great holiday in Anhui province then back to school and now at the end of the month we are studying like mad and have exams over the next few days.

At the start of October (十月) me and Alexandra flew from Tianjin to Anhui province to meet (见面) her teacher (老师), Anna, to begin 5 days of great holiday fun. First we went out for a meal after a 4 hour drive from the airport to her home, dancing, eating nice food and talking to lots of Chinese people inside. Day two we met Anna’s friend Jonny to eat hotpot- I ate cow stomach and Shrimp paste... not bad (不错) even though the thought of trying it was horrible! The next day it was time to leave Anna’s home so after dumplings and pictures with her family who did everything they could to keep us happy and pack extra food in our bags we left and headed a number of hours in a taxi (出租车) to a large train station (火车站) (that looked like an airport) heading out for hours on the train to the Yellow Mountains (黄山)! We arrived late at night at the base of the mountain in a lovely hotel ready to wake in the early hours for breakfast (早饭) and start to climb the mountain (爬山). Early hours came and following a couple of hours queuing for the cable car we were there. Before coming to China I spent 3 weeks travelling around beautiful countries across Europe however the view is the best I’ve ever seen in my life. We were tired, shocked but completely amazed and loving the views, every next peak we visited better than the last! The day was hard and we were glad to get to the next hotel... it was at the very top of the Mountains. There there was a performance by the hotel staff for the National holiday (放长假) celebrations. The next day we got up early at 4am to see the the sunrise from the top and then took the day slowly climbing back down before heading on more trains to a hotel near the airport (飞机场) and before we knew it we were back in Tianjin. Having loved the trip but glad to be back in our own home, being able to have a lie in and wait for the others in the group to come back over the next few days.

This months weather (天气) has been very interesting, we have suddenly come into a colder spell where the wind is much stronger and we normally cannot leave without a jumper and jacket but it’s nice not to be in a very sweaty and humid environment for once. I have been super busy for over the past week studying like crazy as I have found that Starbucks here is always full of people studying for school or working on their laptops. I have been for no less that 4 hours and once up to 7 hours studying over the past 2 weeks. It will definitely and is already paying off as I feel much more confident in class but it might be a hard couple of weeks to come keeping this amount of studying up!