Spring Festival Dinner

Nanjing Museum

On Sunday, on our one day off, we actually did some sight-seeing! We got out of the apartment and away from Mario Kart, tea and biscuits. Thom and Letitia took us to the city's museum, which exhibits lots of very old artifacts that show how ancient China used to craft things out of other things! The main exhibits were of Jade, Earthenware and Brocade? I'd never heard of brocade before but its like making clothes. 

Looking trampy at the museum!

Grr....Arg.

Happy Face!

This is a classic Chinese instrument. Others like this only have 5 bells, because their musical scale only has 5 notes unlike our 7. Apparently if you listen carefully to the Beijing Olympics music that was played last year you will notice they only use a 5 note scale. FACT!

The Chinese are crazy about their detail! This is CARVED out of a tree to look like a smaller tree.

Artist working table for water paintings.

'NO PHOTO' Ah well.. This is an very old 'machine' that was used to make the emperor's clothes. No one knows how to use it, engineers have tried to work it out but the method has been lost in time!

Worn by an actual emperor.

CARVED in wood!

Ancient throne. No sure whose though. I figure an emperor, how many people had thrones back then?

Enjoy the narration of how I figured they handled jade. I have no idea! 

Looking poetic and tranquil at the lake outside the museum. My back hurt, that's all! Stretching out the pain in a ball. 

I almost died!!

Well...not really. The bus started giving out loads of fumes that were filling up the inside of the bus. Had to make a speedy escape...by waiting till the bus driver let us off at the next stop! People then boarded the bus at the stop we got offf. HELLO??!!! THE BUS IS PRACTICALLY ON FIRE!!!!

Food

Food in China. Nothing like the UK! Eateries aren’t as up market as back home, but they have much more character and charm. I like to look at the dirt while I eat. Honestly, not being sarcastic. They are usually small building, not much more than 4 walls, a few steel tables and miniature stools. The kitchen is sometimes located outside the building, the front or the back and that’s where not only the chefs have to stand all day and cook, but also where the dishwasher has to wash all her dishes in the freezing cold. 

OMG! I FOUND SOMETHING LIKE POTATO BREAD!

The local supermarket usually provides us with some of the foods from home that Chinese people just never eat. Namely, breakfast cereal. They don’t have it at all, except in one French supermarket that carries really expensive imported cereal which we cant afford, like a small box of Kelloggs corn flakes for £5…don’t think so! But they do have small bags of nestle cereal for about 70p. Unfortunately, I think we’ve bought all the cereal they have! So no, no breakfast cereal! We are having to find alternative breakfasts. Recently I have taken to egg and spring onion wraps from street carts, which we were warned to avoid eating from cause they have nowhere to was their hangs etc. but what the hell. Bit of food poisoning never killed no one… They are like pancakes with an egg broken into the middle and mixed with a bunch of veg and herbs and then to top it off a long stick of fried bread is put in the middle and rolled up. All for only 30p! Bargain! The women how own the cart love us and laugh that we ask them to go easy on the chili! 

Recently I’ve become aquainted with fish soup that literally has half a fish in a big bowl of soup. Which half of the fish? The face half! And they eat the face, the whole face! It’s eyes, it’s lips its gills. Gross. I’m lucky being vegetarian! Nicola is not. 

The supermarket next to our studio sells foods like warm corn on the cob and bread buns filled with meat. Good snacks.

 

January 1st 2009

The first day of 2009. What shall we do? Climb a Mountain! 

The local mountain called The Purple Mountain is next to where we live. 

Warren took us up with Jenny and Moon. It was very cold the very warm then very cold again, a lot of taking clothes off an on again. It was really steep and there was actual climbing that we had to do holding onto rocks and stuff. 

It was really fun and nice to get some exercise. Our photos are really cool, awesome views all the way up. I’m worried now about the mountain Thom wants to take us up in Chengdu, it’s gonna be way bigger than the Purple Mountain, we may die. The Sichuan visit is the next thing on our itinerary to look forward to.

 Since we’ve had a few days off work because of the New Year, we took the initiative to go exploring around Nanjing ourselves rather than having to rely on the Chinese guys, I’m sure they would like time off to chill too. 

We used the map that Thom gave us that is for English speaking tourists. 

There is an area around the Nanjing University and the ‘Normal Nanjing University’ (whatever that is) that has lots of “western’ food eateries. We found one that apparently sells sandwiches, a French restaurant and a Mexican restaurant which we went into for lunch but it doesn’t just do Mexican food, it has Italian, English, Spanish, American. 

CHEEEEEEESSSSEEEE!

...Cheese...

Between us we got spaghetti, carbonara, steak and chips, a breakfast burrito, French fries and garlic bread. We will be returning there. We reckon on a Saturday night it might be really full of westerners. 

A trip into town wouldn’t be the same without a visit to the DVD shop. Unfortunately, this tie we lost Nicola on the way and she got pick-pocketed! Luckily it wasn’t a mugging like you’d get in England. They managed to get into her bag, her purse, take out 300 Yuan and put her purse back all without her noticing. I guess that because we are westerners we are seen as easy targets, We must keep our eyes open at all times. Maybe we’ve been lured into a false sense of security because most people have been very kind to us and we don’t see any hostility, but now we know there is some out there and to not let our guard down.