Nanjing Adventures

Goodbye!

2009-06-13T03:47:00.000-07:00

Our adventures in China have come to an end! It's been almost 6 months of crazy oriental fun, stress and extreme temperatures. I hope you've all enjoyed reading about our little world.

Beijing!

2009-05-31T00:42:00.001-07:00

When we came to China back in December last year, we flew into shanghai but on our flight home Calvin kindly sent us from Beijing, so that we could have a few days seeing another part of China. Unfortunately, Calvin couldn’t come with us like he had planned but instead a good friend, Ono, from the studio came with us instead.

We flew out on the 27^th May, goodbye Nanjing. We arrived early in the afternoon so had the rest of the day do get some sights seen. We began with the classic Tian’anmen Square, a location infamous for student rallies back in the 80s protesting against the Communist government and where this famous photo was taken.

There really wasn’t much to see there, it was just a really big square (the largest square in the world apparently, as it was designed to hold 1 million people.

It also housed a museum/memorial hall for Chairman Mao, former Communist leader of China, which features his body buried inside for all to see but we weren’t interested in him so we moved on the next part in Beijing, the grand Olympic Stadium. Again, we didn’t go inside, it was enough to see it from the outside. The bird’s nest is pretty cool, all lit up red in the night and opposite is the Olympic Aquatic Center that looks like a building made of bubbles.

Aqua Centre

Bird's Nest

Star fish, Beetles, Grasshoppers, Sea horses and live scorpions on a stick.

The following day we went to visit the Summer Palace, a spot in Beijing where an Emperor from the Qing dynasty dedicated and transformed the land into a summer getaway for his mother’s 60^th birthday, somewhere to go in the summer to keep cool. Before we arrived I thought it was just going to be another temple type thing but the place was massive! A massive lake, a large hill place and lots of different buildings to spend leisure time in. It was really beautiful, my favourite thing in Beijing. There are large dragon shaped boats that you can take across the river that are really cool and the one we were on had a little old guy, I’m not sure if he was part of the staff of just a sentimental old man, who was singing his little heart out. Very atmospheric, being on that boat crossing a large beautiful lake looking out onto traditional Chinese architecture and landscapes whilst an old veteran was singing a traditional old Chinese song.

That evening, Ono took us to find a street that shows very old Chinese houses. The area turned out to be a long street with cool side streets, full of restaurants and cool shops with retro toys, cool clothes and brilliant souvenirs. Too bad we were all already over out weight limit for our flight back otherwise we could have bought so many more cool things!

Friday morning saw us up at 5.30am and on a coach to the Great Wall. Not much needs to be said about it. It’s all in the name!

Strange, but we had to get on this little ride to pull us up to the great wall.

Ya-ta!

On the bus tour we also got to visit some Ming Tombs. That night we went out for out last meal in China…something traditional Chinese right? Nope! Mexican food! Burritos! Nachos! We also returned to the old street to get some drinkies and thank Ono for showing us around Beijing!

Last Supper

2009-05-31T00:12:00.000-07:00

Dr. Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum

2009-05-30T23:53:00.001-07:00

Our last Sunday in Nanjing was spent at what I think is the most famous landmark of Nanjing, the landmark that most tourists come to see, since no one seems to know about the Nanjing Massacre, the tomb and mausoleum dedicated to Dr. Sun Yat Sen. He was an educated Chinese man, who had studied in China, Japan and America and caused a revolution in China which took down the Chinese Empire through violence. He introduced democracy to China, the people called him the “Father of Modern China”. He naturally became the President of China but wanted to hold a public election so that the people would decide who should lead. They all voted for him anyway. During World War II his party became weak and the Communist party became stronger, which lead to their take over.

The Mausoleum is situated within the Purple Mountain, our local mountain, which we climbed at New Year. You must walk ‘1000’ steps to get to the top, actually it’s only 392, thank God it was too, when we went there it was 30 degrees hot.

Next to the site of the mausoleum is an open-air music hall. It was very pretty but nothing much to report apart from the hundreds of doves that feed there. We could buy little packets of seeds to feed the birds with, so we were all doing Ace Ventura, ‘Come to me my jungle friends’. Although I didn’t feel too comfortable around them.

Ace

Dave!

Nanjing Massacre Museum

2009-05-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

The days are running out for when we have free time to see Nanjing and the weather is getting temperamental, so Matt and I took advantage of our penultimate Sunday and went on a happy trip to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. The museum of Death, as we’ve affectionately named it.

Some sculptures exhibited outside the museum, each based on real people from photos the Japanese took during the time.

It documents a major tragedy that happened in China’s history that I and no one I know has ever heard of! 300,000 Chinese people were violently murdered by invading Japanese soldiers.

It was a pretty somber place to say the least! It was interesting though, when we went into the grounds of the museum we were wondering why we felt so sad so soon. The site is cleverly designed with grey stone walls, straight sharp edges and melancholy music to give an overall atmosphere of depression.

The route of the museum takes us through the main exhibition with many photos taken by Japanese photographers, army artifacts, stories of survivors and memorials to people who were martyrs and foreigners who helped the locals.

After this cheery exhibit we walked out across the ‘mass grave of 10,000’ where thousands of bodies are buried below a pebble court.

Then into a small hall to see uncovered bones of killed Chinese people, openly displayed for everyone to see. Obviously, the general mood created by the museum is very depressing, so to lift everyone’s spirits again, there is a peace garden, with the message of, although all these terrible things happened, let’s learn from history and strive for peace in the future. A nice sentiment to leave with…from the Death Museum.

Peace out!

Day at the Lake

2009-05-30T11:22:00.001-07:00

Matt, Nicola and I decided to go cycling on the hottest day I’ve ever experienced in my life. 35 degrees C! We cycled to a near by lake and did some drawing, rented some pedal boats then tried to find some grass to relax on but there were too many bug’s for me and the grass ain’t so soft in China. More dry and jabby! A hot day but a good day. Getting use of our 170RMB bikes!

This one would win a race...because he wants it!

Teaching!

2009-05-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

On the 18^th May, Nicola and I were invited to talk at the school, our Producer and Director teaches at. Matt and Alex have already spoken to students before, when they came to Nanjing for the first time back in 2006/07.

We had been asked to talk about ourselves and making a graduation film, so we put together a quick Power Point presentation to show our films and talk about our processes and stuff.

When we arrived, we were a little nervous but we were trying to keep ourselves calm by saying they’re only students and they can’t understand what we’re saying. If we say anything bad then Thom, who translated, will correct us. Outside the lecture theatre there was an official poster printed up about our talk! Cool for us to see our names!

It wasn’t so bad. I hope that the things we said were useful to them. All the boys in the class pretty much talked all the way through but the girls seemed to take in some of what we said, they were taking notes anyhow!

White Girls

2009-05-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

Here in China, there is a popular fascination with the West. A lot of their culture is clearly influenced by America. From silly things like their spelling, color instead of colour, etc to their music, if it's not cheesy unbearable Chinese Pop its American gangsta rap! You can often hear a bit of G Unit and Snoop Dogg walking through Ladies Fashion. But the strangest thing I've observed, only of late, is how the women here want to be white. Nicola and I are often told how beautiful we are because of our white skin. It wasn't the Sun came out in all its glory and heat that Chinese women so want to be white that they cover up in the sun. They use umbrellas in the sunshine! How strange, especially to us Brits, who as soon as the Sun splits the grey clouds we pack into the closest park, beach or closest bit of grass where we can sit to get a tan!

They also have a special product similar to our body lotion that is slightly tinted with bronzing materials to gently darken our skin so we look already tanned when we go to sun ourselves. Their lotion however, is called 'Whitening Lotion' to lighten their skin in the summer.

So here us western girls are catching every ray of Sun, lying in every UV bed and coating ourselves in orange can tan to make our skin more like that of the Asian tone, while the Chinese are doing the exact opposite to make their skin more like the Caucasian tone.

Interesting...

Barbie Store

2009-05-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

Before we left Shanghai, there was still some sight seeing to be done. The 6 storey Barbie Store was the one we had energy to do.

Like being born again...gross.

Matt felt uncomfortable.

Glass staircase filled with pink Barbies.

Cupcake Barbie

Themed Barbies. Here's one for you Elvis fans out there!

In fact here's two!

One for Rufus! Rose DeWitt Bukater.

Scantily Clad Barbie. Lesser Morals Barbie. Please suggest other names for this model on the comments!

Ghana Barbie for Rob

My Barbie! Cheerleading Barbie and BF Ken.

The Year of the Tiger Barbie. For all the 1986-ers. Hot stuff.

Trying to look like a girl, who may own a Barbie.

I was well up for the Barbie experience, she seems like a fun girl but I gotta say byt the time I went through the whole shop, I came to really dislike Barbie and everything she represents. Where's the Lisa Lionheart dolls?

There were Barbie birthday cards that had phrases like, "A Plastic Tan Never Fades", "It's OK to be Vain and Self Indulgent on your Birthday", "Make Up is Cheaper than Therapy".

Don't ask me, I'm just a girl.

9 million and 3 bicycles in...Nanjing.

2009-05-07T04:15:00.000-07:00

The three of us that are back in Nanjing (sorry Alex) decided to buy bicycles for our last weeks in Nanjing. The weather is glorious (the buses are sweaty as) and cycling is free and we can go see more places without relying on buses.

Me, Matt and Nicola on our brand new shiny bikes. (that's our apartment block behind us!)

These are very basic bikes...they're pretty much just a frame...2 wheels and a seat. There's no suspension, gears and very little brakes!

10 minutes after our happy purchase...Nicola's chain broke cycling up hill! 2 days later Matt's pedal crumbled away, lost to the cycle lanes of Nanjing and the next the other broke off too. Place bets now for when mine will begin to decompose.

Tattoo Time!

2009-04-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry Mummy...I got another tattoo....but so did Alex, it was all his fault! Heehee. Not really.

We had both been planning to get tattoos here in China and we had asked about it in Nanjing but there were only couple and I happened to pass by one when buying stuff for Nayi at Confucius and it looked so seedy. I wanted to get a clean tattoo thank you very much. Through a series of unfortunate events we ended up in Shanghai, but every cloud has a silver lining I guess and since Shanghai continued to be fairly lame, the silver lining was finding a professional, English speaking tattoo parlour downtown at NanPu Bridge.

Front of the shop.

So we went over to investigate and get quotes etc. about a month ago. The place looked very clean, very professional and it was managed by a guy called Dylan from Drogheda no less! So with good english, impressive portfolio and clean surroundings we were happy to make an appointment at this studio for the end of April.

The lounge area.

The tattoo room.

I like to get tattoo's from where I've lived, so far I have one from Belfast, Bournemouth and Paris. This time I went for a tattoo based on traditional chinese tattoos, but with a little me twist. The traditional tattoo is a carpe fish with water surrounding it, to tell the tale of how the carpe swims upstream and up a waterfall and when it gets to the top, it turns into a Phoenix. It symbolises wealth and prosperity. As most people know, I don't actually like fish/sea creatures at all, they're really gross and wriggly and just generally mingin'. But I really like the tattoo of a carpe and it has also been simplified to not look so fishy. The water has been replaced with clouds, which I've seen on lots of the architecture here in China and that Matt helped me design.

And put it all together and what do you get?

Alex also got his first tattoo here, a design he co-designed with an illustrator friend, on his right wrist, to represent the films he has completed and where his ingenious stems from!

Brilliant Photography...again.

Alex and Ting getting down to business.

The transfer.

The Ink.

Discussion with Ting and Dylan.

The Finished Piece.

Me, Matt and Spidey messin'

Nerves

Putting the transfer on.

The beginning. Ow.

Blood!

Did it hurt?

Alex was very relaxed and very cool about his, even though it ws on his wrist/inner arm...a very sensitive place to get a tattoo but he handled it like a man. Got a little hot at one point and his arm swelled up but he was grand.

I, on the other hand, even though I already had a tattoo on my inner arm and should have been ready for the pain, was in complete agony. When she started with the outline it hurt but I was handling it...kind of. Then she got higher towards my underarm and it was getting excruciating! After the outline was done, she had to darken some lines. Ow. THEN she had to shade it in, more than I was expecting. AND THEN she had to do the darker shading. By the end I was sweating, wincing, flinching, shaking and even let out one little arrrrrh!!! But I survived and it looks cooooooooooool.

Now alls we gotta do is wear cling film around our arms in this blistering heat.

Elderly People

2009-04-28T02:01:00.000-07:00

The lives of old people in China amazes me. People in China generally seem to be more social than the people in the west but old people appear to have this amazing social life with other old people. When I leave my apartment in the morning and walk towards the gate I pass several groups of elderly people gathered together just having a nice sit down and chat with each other, laughing and smiling. Then at lunch when I walk through the streets looking for somewhere to eat I see groups of them, mixed with younger people, playing an animated game of cards or mahjong. In many apartment blocks and public venues there are small public play parks/gyms for the communities to use and I have mostly seen the aged use them. They can work a cross trainer better than I can! In addition, since coming to Shanghai, out here in the Technology Park there is a large square; a very clean, pretty arena-type place that, by day, is deserted (but where we now like to take our lunch breaks to soak up some Sun) but by night, as we walk home, the square is filled with people, mostly 40+ I’d say, dancing away in unison to various beats (including No No Limit by 2Unlimited, no joke). I know my Nanny goes dancing at her British Legion nights, which I think is wonderful and I would love if so many more elderly people had something like this that they could take part in, actually, not just the elderly but all people from a community! A bit of light exercise would be good for us all. It’s outdoors, it’s free, it’s fun and it’s good for you. Note to self, find square in Belfast and encourage all Clonlee residents to attend. Power to the pensioners.

Stealthy Pap-ing

Extras

2009-04-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

And just a couple of other things I wanted to show you.

1) Pig snout.

2) Massive Nayi chillin' and illin'

Drinking in Shanghai

2009-04-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

Good news! We have recently been told that we can return to Nanjing as out work in Shanghai is coming to an end. Very happy. There was just one thing we still hadn’t done here in Shanghai, which we had been talking about for a long time and that was going out for one night into Shanghai center, no matter the cost, it’s something we had to do.

Last night was that night out! And it was pretty good. We found a couple of websites online which lists all the events happening in and around Shanghai and from signing up to there mailing list every weekend you get an email about different things that are going down. This week I received and email featuring experimental/punk bands in bar/club ‘Yu YinTang’.

Since this is our last weekend in Shanghai we decided to go to this gig. When we first got there the outside was a lot dingier and rough looking than the photos online lead to believe. GREAT! We love grot and we love dank. It was pretty cool to go to a rock bar, I haven’t been to one is so long. Their drinks list was pretty extensive and cheap! Only 20RMB for a Budweiser. Unfortunately cider doesn’t exist in China so I was reduced to drinking beers all night, with one special glass of whiskey and lemonade at the end.

The music from the first couple of bands was…interesting. The advertisement wasn’t joking when it said ‘experimental’. The support band I remember most clearly, was comprised of a little female singer and 4 guys, all of whom didn’t really have an instrument specialty, they were just swapping around. They were playing short outbursts of song that were not really in any particular tune and the girl screamed, but not in a way I’ve heard in music before. There was even a guy on the violin…I’ve never seen someone shred on the violin until now, he destroyed that thing. And on top of all this, there ‘thing’ was, I guess, standing with their backs to the audience the whole time. RUDE!

The band that followed was the headliner, I think. No one really introduced themselves…or maybe they did but they were Chinese. ‘Fading Horizon’ was a lot better, more tuneful and in sync with each other. Pretty good.

Suddenly after the band played, almost everyone left…What’s going on? I could swear I read online somewhere that there was another band playing after, ‘Boys Climbing Ropes’ who I had a little listen to on MySpaceMusic and sounded wicked, which was why I really wanted to come. Guess I was wrong, since everyone was leaving but the bar was open to 2am so we’ll just hang out till we get tired and go home. Gradually more and more western people gathered and another band started setting up on stage at about 1am. What’s going on? Is it the band I thought I read about? YES! Yes it was, I wasn’t crazy! We hung around for about another hour and half until they finally began there set. This band was made up of 3 Canadian guys and a TINY little Chinese girl who sang and played some electronic instrument like a keyboard. Excuse my ignorance. So many people had turned out to watch them, more people than came before for the headliners. And after they palyed it was clear why. They were bloody awesome and the really got the crowd going. It was a nice gig to be at cause it felt really intimate, that most people there were their friends and everyone was just playing. Great fun.

On a side note, we have had several conversation with the Chinese guys from the studio asking about if the Chinese get drunk and stumble about like us British idiots do and they said, oh no no, we just get tired. BS! There were plenty of wasted Chinese people at this gig. Maybe because it’s a different group of people. But still.

All-in-all though, a good night out in Shanghai having a casual drink and listening to some good (and god awful) music. Done.

(Totally stung by the taxi driver though…100RMB! Ouch.)

Tattoo Taboo

2009-04-20T00:42:00.000-07:00

Tattoos cause mixed opinions everywhere, no matter what country you’re in but I was surprised when I was met with such a firm opinion from the Chinese that if you have tattoos you are a gangster. I don’t think they were calling me a gangster but strongly standing behind that tattoos aren’t for people like us, only bad men. It was a strange opinion to meet. This wasn’t an opinion of whether they personally just did or did not like tattoos. ‘Tattoos are for gangsters’. Fact. Everyone was joined on this opinion making it, in my mind, not a personal opinion but a prejudice that is instilled in them from their culture. Another reason I should keep my body covered in layers during the sunny days.

Traffic

2009-04-16T03:02:00.000-07:00

The roads in Nanjing are busy all the time, full of cars and public buses whereas in Shanghai, where we live in the sticks, the roads are a bit less crowded but still busy enough. We can’t for the life of us figure out the rules for the lights here. When there is a green man for us to walk and a red light for the traffic to stop everyone continues to drive…faster, round corners, buses especially. It’s as if were being told, OK you can walk now but we’re not going to make it easy for you! And other times when the red man is up and the traffic lights are green the cars are sitting perfectly still. Arg. I’m a good jay-walker, I’m up there with the best, only nearly died once but these roads SCARE me!

Shanghai Weekend

2009-04-13T03:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend we received a visit from our Producer back in Nanjing and with him he brought Matt! And because of this we were all kindly put up in a hotel near work! Lush! Breakfast and everything! Omelette, yoghurt, fruit, cereal, toast! We were living like kings! Saturday was spent at work but with an extra long lunch with Calvin and GND people. In the evening Calvin and Aaron kindly took us downtown into Shanghai. We went to People's Square and grabbed some food, extra sugary food, that is apparently very like English Chinese food, I wouldn't know, it's what I'm told! After dinner we made our way towards the French Concession area to grab some drinks but our leisurely walk was interrupted, deliciously interrupted by a surprise DUNKIN' DONUTS! I haven't had a Dunkin' Donut since it was in Belfast and that was a long time ago! I only got two though, I had just eaten dinner so I wasn't at my optimum performance level.

As we continued to walk, the amount of western people grew and grew until the Chinese were the minority. It was very strange. The area was very European, full of bars with clever names concerning Western life, names Nicola didn't quite grasp. Ven-ice. Brow Sugar. Rendez-Vous.

At 'TMSK' we had some familiar alcohol, on Calvin. Mojito, G&T, Cosmopolitan, Tequila Sunrise. Only a few cause they were bloody expensive, even for the west!

Sunday brought another early start with more yummy breakfast. On the way through our apartment block we found a deserted kitty! It was so young and it was crying so much for its mummy but we had no idea where it came from and if we left it, it would wander out on the road and get squished by cars and bikes! But we had to leave it and it was clawing the sh*t outta me. I may have rabies now.

I know this is a horrible picture of me but it's genuine concern for this kitten. :(

Anyway, into Shanghai independently (again :D) to find the Art Quarter as a friend form Uni told us there is a rising art scene in Shanghai and we should find it!

And here it is! Seiji, we found it!

It took a while but we found it eventually but not the animator exhibit we set out to find.

This gallery has a strangely large, heavy door. Art installation?

Shanghai, for some reason, seemed so much bigger this time. I'd never realised how massive the buildings are and how many of them they are. I thought London was big, actually I used to tell people Belfast was big, but they're nothing compared to Shanghai! The apartment blocks just go on and on and on into the sky! I guess there are 20 million people living in this city, they have to put them somewhere and they can't all live in a Technology park like us.

There was some cool graffiti around the art quarter too.

Here is my 'Gillian waz 'ere 09' graffiti, which I did 2 weeks ago in some dirt and it's still here!

After getting some culture up by ZhongtanLu we headed back to People's Square and chilled for a bit on the grass and actually did a little bit of drawing, the galleries must have inspired us or something.

Then onto chocolate land.

Yes...A Hershey's shop!!! Next to a KFC! Next to a Starbucks! Next to an Ajisen Ramen! Whoo!

I discovered the macro close up tool on the digital camera...

We walked around for a bit in the Neon Metropolis that is Shanghai by night.

There is a Tom's World arcade here too, just like in Nanjing. I used to love the dance machines in arcade, but Asian ones are bloody confusing. I didn't have a clue, couldn't get past the 1st round. Lame.

Alex and Nicola found fun on drumming game. Apologies for sideways recording! Check out their timing though!

Nicola has a weird obsession with eggs. She went crazy when she saw this guy!

So crazy in fact, it had to be videotaped.

And just a little extra...if you're looking for a nice gift for a lady friend, don't forget to check out Ming Jewelry, it's where all the chavs get their bling.

Bai bai for now!

Dress Codes

2009-04-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

I think it is fair to say that China in comparison to the West is less liberal. I’m sure my family and friends know the various ‘fads’ I’ve been through, different clothes, hair colours, piercings, etc. You don’t get that much in China. Everyone is more or less the same. But that’s OK. It doesn’t matter what people look like. People can dress however they want. Difficulty comes when it is blistering hot outside, even in March and it is frowned upon to show skin. I’m unsure what part of the skin that it is that is causing offence and surplus staring. It’s either the shoulders or the chest, not cleavage, just the upper chest. If it is not that correct time of year you must sweat out the Chinese temperatures! Well, they must. If we’re hot we’re taking off the layers!

Staring!

2009-04-11T01:44:00.000-07:00

We get stared at. A lot. A LOT a lot. China is a very closed off country. Until recently it wasn’t easy to get in here. They have many visitors from outside Asia but nowhere near the numbers many other countries around the world experience.

At first it was very difficult to deal with the constant and very blatant staring but since we’ve been here so long…it’s still just as strange! I wonder what makes them stare at us so much. I have narrowed it down to 3 possibilities.

1. There simply isn’t a lot of westerners here, especially smaller major cities like Nanjing. It’s maybe the equivalent of us seeing an albino in the street. They are few and far between. They want to get a good look while they can. One lady spoke to me in a clothes shop and I believe what she was trying to say was that I have a large nose. No offence intended I’m sure, although it is pretty big, but our face structures are extremely different to theirs, our noses are massive compared to their little curvy buttons. This is most likely the reason why they like to stare.

2. They think we’re celebrities. I’ve come to a possible conclusion that the majority, if not the only western/white people they see are movie stars and pop singers so when they see us, the assume we COULD be famous.

3. They think we’re hideous. Like I mentioned in the previous point, they mostly see westerners in the movies or music videos. Beautiful glamourous people who are visually perfect. This is what westerners are to them. Then they see us. Our pasty white skin, bleak dress sense and funny voices. Not quite Julia Roberts. So the stares are simply looks of OH MY GOD! WTF!

Government controlled media.

2009-04-10T05:37:00.000-07:00

I’m not to sure if this one is positive or negative.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a huge film fan. I love to go to the cinema and watch DVDs, you name it, if it’s a movie, I’m in! We tried to go to the cinema once here to see Disney’s Bolt but unfortunately it was only in Chinese and it was bloody expensive. The equivalent of £8! I’m used to my old £2.50 on Crazy Tuesday down Dublin Road, thank you very much or at least half price on Orange Wednesday.

Therefore, we haven’t seen a film in a film theatre in months. A conversation about movie screenings in China was sparked with our friend Thom where he informed us that film in China often have sections edited out before screening if it contains material that the Chinese government do not want their citizens seeing. Things like nudity, sex, drugs or anything political. Violence however, you can have all the violence you want and with no certificate. I could take my niece and nephew to see the newest, darkest, most violent cinema releasing in China. (I wouldn’t though, I felt bad when I let Harry watch The Mask once, too many Tommy Guns.)

Just the other day Nicola and I were discussing the safety of the streets in Nanjing with Dumpling, a 20 year old girl who we work with who has lived in Nanjing all her life. Spawned from her not needing Nicola and Alex to escort her home the previous night because it’s totally safe here. In the UK I don’t feel safe walking to the end of my street never mind walking through the busy streets of a sleepless city. Can it really be safe for a girl to walk through these streets at night unaccompanied? They never hear anything bad happening to people in the newspaper, so it must be OK. But the newspapers don’t report crimes like these in the papers, or that’s what we’ve been told (obviously we can’t ead the papers here). Perhaps there’s a lot of crime in China but people are sheltered from it. Or perhaps there’s not a lot of crime because it’s not constantly pushed in people’s faces all the time like in the UK.

On a lighter note, I’ve heard of news articles reporting how Avril Lavigne was banned from performing in an Asian country (which one it was escapes me) because her stage moves were considered to sexy for their audiences. I love Avril but really? Come on. She’s no Britney Spears or Alicia Moore! Sexy moves. HA!

And I do believe Oasis were due to play in Shanghai in April this year but they were banned because…….

"According to the show's promoters, officials within the Chinese Ministry of Culture only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher appeared at a Free Tibet Benefit Concert on Randall's Island in New York in 1997, and have now deemed that the band are consequently unsuitable to perform to their fans in the Chinese Republic on 3rd and 5th of April, during its 60th anniversary year."

Crazy.

Sunny fun in Shanghai

2009-04-09T02:45:00.003-07:00

Grass. Bench. Crisp Sandwiches. Puppy. Done.

Bicycles

2009-04-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

Before I came to China, I had absolutely no knowledge, or interest in China, or any of Asia really! I’m more of a west European or American girl. I had nothing against China or anything, just never caught my attention. Through this ignorance I came to China with what I like to think of as a completely open mind. I had neither high expectations nor had I any prejudices.

From living and working in East China for several months, it has allowed me to find the things I love about this culture and things I hate. These discoveries have also highlighted things I love and hate about where I’m from. (I’ll say the whole of the UK because I’m not in Northern Ireland enough anymore!)

Since I have this blog outlet, I thought I’d take some time to comment on particularities of the everyday life I’ve encountered here. Things that are positive and I think should be introduced in my country as well as negative aspects which make me want to go back home ASAP!

This is in no way an argument for/against the way Chinese people live, everyone to their own as my mother always says.

I shall begin with a positive! Bicycles!!!

There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing. Apparently. I don’t know. I do know that there is a hell of a lot in Nanjing! The roads in China are extremely wide, correction, the main roads in China are very wide, all others can barely fit the popular Buick through! In addition to 4 to 6 lanes for cars and buses there is an extra lane on the outer edges of each main road. Fairly decent in breadth and all. This is for the millions of bicycle users that get from A to B everyday.

Can you imagine if so many people took a bicycle to work in the UK instead of taking their own car or jumping in a taxi. I guess people don’t cycle cause the roads are so busy and it wouldn’t be safe to get in amongst all that traffic but if there was a special lane of notable size for cyclists then maybe they would, but if you took away a lane for vehicles and gave it to bikes the congestion would be even greater, but not if everyone ditched the car for the bike. Too many ‘buts’. We should think about it though.

Why do so many people use bicycles in China anyway? Just to beat the morning rush? (Which is dreadful by the way…being stuck in a jam-packed, motionless, heat omitting Nanjing bus at 8am every weekday morning.) My figuring is that most Chinese people can’t afford a car of their own. In fact, I often see a family of three, instead of getting into the family Buick they hop on the family scooter. Dad drives, mum on the back, child in the footrest bit. In addition, everyone lives in apartments here. Where do people park their cars? There is no driveway or garage. Also, even if they could afford a car, could they actually afford to run a car? I don’t have one but I hear it’s very expensive. Most people here, if they don’t physically cycle, they have an electric bike, motioned by a battery, which they can just plug in and charge up next to the TV at home.

So through poverty, the Chinese get a bit of exercise and help the environment that little bit extra. We have the privilege of being able to choose if we want to drive of cycle. We choose heart attacks and global warming almost every time. Brilliant.

Nanjing Weekend

2009-04-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Nicola, Alex and I had a relaxing weekend back in Nanjing. Well, I did, Alex and Nicola were super busy singing karaoke and playing arcade games in town. Because my weekend was just eating and watching movies I have nothing to post! But check out Nicola's Blog to see what they got up to.

By Ono.

Shanghai Nights

2009-03-30T18:15:00.001-07:00

Our first week in Shanghai is almost past and on Sunday, or one day off in the week (same working hours as Nanjing L no perks) we all went downtown into central Shanghai. Since I don’t have Matt here to be my guide around Shanghai, as he has a freakishly good sense of direction and a mini map etched into his brain of everywhere he’s ever been, I paid extra EXTRA attention about how to get to the train station and through the train station into Shanghai so that if we ever want to venture out on our own we can without having to rely on the Chinese people all the time.

Since we live on the outskirts of Shanghai we have to get a bus to get the metro into town. At the metro station there was a woman selling puppies…and a man selling RABBITS! I miss Nayi so much but I have to resist buying another rabbit!

We had briefly been through central Shanghai on our first business trip here back in December but this time we got to see a lot more. We also noticed how many westerners there are here.

Losers.

A lot more than in Nanjing but even though our kind were more popular here, it didn’t stop every other native staring. Although, I must admit, I stare at white people here too! by the end of the day I was so sick of westerners! All I could think was that they were just petty tourists, not soaking up an experience like us, however, I’m sure they were, lots of the them looked quite at home. I liked us being the only ones but in Shanghai, suddenly we were special anymore. I felt like Leonardo Dicaprio coming back from the beach into mainland Thailand! (Note to parents: ‘The Beach’ is on my DVD shelf, watch it to understand this.)

We met Jackie Chan!

We got some taxis to take us to a different part of the centre that is more like the Confucius Temple in Nanjing.

How cool is this? Dragon Gate.

Lots of little stalls with various items; old coins, Chairman Mao memorabilia, fans, shoes and crap.

Warren buying house shoes. 12 Yuan. Bargain.

My favourite type of place that is native to China. Amongst all this clutter I finally bought what I’ve been meaning to get in Nanjing. An art stamp carved with my name in English and Chinese characters for stamping my art pieces. It’s a very popular tourist souvenir but I will actually use. I want to get another one that doesn’t simply say ‘Gillian’ but that has a little motif or logo that will act as my signature on my art.

Chinese markets like these, like any market really, have some lovely items, worth buying even if they are popular souvenirs or real finds, but then you really do get the crap…

He is selling baps with faces drawn on!!! Whaaaa?

There was a man selling a ‘Chinese Bamboo Sax’. It did sound pretty cool. He was a great character when he played. Unfortunately I only caught the last note of his show!

We grabbed lunch in some crazy busy place that was like a massive over-glorified canteen. Everyone was moving so fast and there was so much to choose from but mostly non-vegetarian, so I just grabbed a couple of things, some noodles and some tarts and moved on. I was raging when my bill was totaled to 23 Yuan!!! When I found Alex, he told me that he paid 55 Yuan for his!!! Not happy.

On our last visit to Shanghai we were taken to a place called People’s Square where we could look out across the river and some remarkable architecture.

Shiny!

This time we went to the other side of the river to experience the buildings. We found a Starbucks, sat down with our coffees and Nicola’s perfect Tuna sandwich and watched the sunset over the Shanghai skyline.

Warren, he has The Cool.

Mini Tour

2009-03-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

Mini Tour

Allow me to show you our new digs in Shanghai. Like I mentioned in a previous post, it’s like a house on top of an apartment block. 6 rooms, 3 large (for me, Alex and Nicola) and 3 small (for Sin, Colour, Warren, Jack, Aaron and Phoenix – we offered to swap so the pairs can have the bigger rooms but they insisted, they think I can’t handle a small room…they don’t know of my 16 years in the box room and 2 years in the box room at university!)

There isn’t a lot to show really, the house is fairly empty, containing only a few pieces of furniture. I doubt it will become full of things and more homely, we all don’t want to be here, the homes we want are back in Nanjing!

Like I also mentioned before the area we work in a a large technology park or industrial estate. This is our scenery…

Last Day in Nanjing

2009-03-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

It was our last day in Nanjing and also the last day for some of the Chinese people at the studio who are being sent to Shanghai along with us, so we all went out together to what we thought was Nanjing Zoo. When we got there, there was a lot more than a zoo!

This place was far outside Nanjing so we had to be up early to meet Ono and Dumpling at our studio to get the subway to the bus that would take us to the ‘zoo’. At the bus stop there were lots of people and as soon as the bus pulled up everyone ran to get on board. It was completely crazy. Only other time I’ve seen that was when I met Avril Lavigne! It was honestly like a celebrity had showed up and everyone wanted a feel! The reason everyone wanted on first so badly was because the journey was over an hour long and you don’t want to be standing up that whole time…like we did.

Matt, Nicola, Alex, Ono, Dumpling, Moon, Colour, Jenny, Macy, Animo, Animo’s ‘girl’, Aaron, Aaron’s wife and I all arrived at the zoo. Turns out the ‘zoo’ is a lot more.

The Chinese people had brought lots of food for a BBQ, we figured it was just an us thing that we would do, like you would have BBQs on the beach in Bournemouth or in the park at Stormont but there was a massive BBQ area where dozens of people could have their own BBQ.

Before we cooked and ate we went on the many rides the ‘zoo’ had to offer. There was a large fairground located here, with a rollercoaster, dodgems, swing thing, shaker thing and other rides I can’t name.

Animo getting competitive!

High speed collision? Not so much...

So we each forked out 120 Yuan unexpectedly to go on all these rides but it was bloody fun. Of course Matt got sick! He was the only one however, the swing thing took it out of everyone.

While the rest of us were feeling a bit nauseous Nicola and Moon went on the suspen

ded bouncy ball ride thing! After that we decided to eat.

It's a long video...skip to the middle!

Animo got the fire a-going with a faggot of sticks that the park provides, as well as little stools and a grill.

They had a strange method of cooking their BBQ. They placed a large sheet of tinfoil on top of the grill and placed the meat on top of that and doused the meat with oil. I thought, ‘That’s genius! I’d never have thunk that up!’

But then…

…that’s why. They had brought veggie stuffs for me, eggplant, corn on the cob and mushrooms, which were all delicious. Note to self, put cumin powder on stuff, it’s goooood.

Poo twins.

After our BBQ, we eventually headed onto the zoo. This is the infamous zoo that Tori, a previous AIB student who came out here on work experience with Alex back in 2006 (?), came out crying from because of how they mistreated the animals. They have an animal show in which they whip the animals to make them perform for us. Luckily/unfortunately we were too late to see any showing. Obviously it’s a terrible thing and I don’t want to see any animals being mistreated but the new found journalist in me wants to see it so I can show you all and experience China in all its not so much glory. Hopefully, when we return from Shanghai in April/May we can go back and catch the cruelty show.

Most of the animals here were locked up in their cages. Usually zoo leave the gates open so they can come in and out as they please but not here. The also let you buy food to feed the monkeys. People were just throwing oranges and peanuts, not to the monkeys but AT the monkeys! Scornful looks were fired at them from all four of us. Their variety of animals wasn’t great, they actually had Lions and Tigers and Bears…and monkeys, I think they belonged to the Wicked Witch of the West we saw earlier…It is a pretty dreadful zoo. The animals clearly aren’t there for conservation but they’re a lot bigger than Nayi, so I can’t save these ones.

Shanghai Adventures

2009-03-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

Alex, Nicola and I have been relocated to Shanghai from Nanjing to work on the film’s character design and model pack more closely with the Shanghai animators who are helping. An early start at 6am saw us up and getting ready to head to the train station. Each of us packed enough to almost fill the suitcases we moved to China with…then we met Warren outside our apartment equipped with one small rucksack and a small sports bag…well he’s a man, of course he won’t take as much…but then we met everyone else and they had the same if not less than Warren. Embarrassed. The lame westerners need all their stuff.

We arrived in Shanghai at around 10am and made our way straight to the animation studio where we grabbed some lunch and then remained in the studio kinda doing not much until 8pm or so. Warren had spent his whole day house hunting for us and when he found somewhere he had to go get bedding and stuff. Busy day for him.

I needed a new desktop picture...so I drew Nayi.

We were taken to our new house around 8pm. I couldn’t understand why everyone was saying ‘House’, ‘House’ surely there are no houses in China! Not in the major cities anyway. It turns out it’s an apartment but a massive one with 2 floors and loads of rooms, so it really is a house, a house on the sixth floor of an apartment block.

Downstairs there are 3 larger bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom and upstairs there are 3 very small rooms with no windows and a smaller bathroom. The Chinese kindly let us have the downstairs, so I guess we can be with each other and they can be with each other but it’s completely unfair on them! I’m living in the biggest room in the house with 2 beds (one mattress) and loads of space, while Warren and Jack are sharing a small room with 2 mattresses on the floor. I tried to offer to sway but there hospitality won out. Hopefully they will ask me to swap soon, cause 2 months in that little room will be a nightmare for them!

Alex and Nicola have the misfortune of not have mattresses, but instead wooden slats with a thin spongy blanket over the top, I fell really bad for them, if I’d have had to sleep on that I think I would’ve broken down in tears right on the spot! I’m spoiled…with my mattress rich life I’ve led!

When we were here last back in December for 2 /3 days, we thought that the place where the studio is was completely abandoned. It’s in a place called a Technology Park, like the one in Belfast next to the docks. A massive place of nothing but offices and random companies and building work and when we returned here we wondered how we were going to eat and live in such a place but if you glance down the side roads, it turns out there’s lots of places to eat, just like in Nanjing…almost.

There are some perks of being in Shanghai. Number one is the number one room. There is an actual toilet here, on you can sit down on and it has a door and everything AND there is soap in the bathroom too! One shop we went into sells KitKats, which is cool, even though it’s smaller that the normal KitKat. Living it up in Shanghai. More perks yet to be discovered.

UPDATE

2009-03-20T05:59:00.001-07:00

News of the week! No photos to upload this time, just some changes to announce. The adventures of us 4 are being divided! Alex, Nicola and I are being sent to Shanghai to work on the model packs for the film for the next month and a half while Matt is being left in Nanjing to carry on work on the storyboards. Sad times. But we must get on with it. So no longer will the site tell you of Nanjing Adventures but now, Shanghai Adventures.

Nicola's Day of Sadness

2009-03-16T05:18:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, the Sun finally showed its face here in Nanjing! So we all sat outside in the sunshine for an extra long lunch and luckily Nicola was overcome by a need to take more photos...again. Above is a photo of most of the people from Glory & Dream studio.

And this is my illustration of that day! Done on the concrete with Matt's brand new mechanical pencil.

The sunshine does bring out the crazies..

Nicola was feeling a little home sick a couple of weeks ago when Betty was about to go home back to Bournemouth, so Calvin took us all out for some western food that night.

We went to a french restaurant in the University area called Les 5 Sens. It was the best food I've had since I've been here. I've never been a huge fan of eastern food, I like my junk food and bread and cheese, so I ordered French Onion Soup and Apple Tart with Vanilla Ice Cream. I will be returned very soon to get Mushroom Quiche and Chocolate Fondant and/or creme brule.

The following day Matt and I went out on a day trip around the local spots in Nanjing and in search of a magincal Bakery I had read about online called Skyways. It was allegedly located in a place we had frequented several times before...the DVD shops!!! It was a blistering hot Sunday afternoon and we walked up and down the road it was supposed to be on and just as we were about to give up we noticed a massive modern white building called 'Skyways'. It was brilliant! They have little forms that you simply fill in what you want in your sandwich and which bread etc. kind of like Subway but you know....good and actually fresh! they also sell lots of pastries and cakes and ice cream. It was a good weekend for food!!!

More at Confucius

2009-03-11T21:35:00.001-07:00

I was talking to my friend Ashleigh and she mentioned how upset the animals in cages made her, so when I went there again I made sure to take better photographs of the place to show you more clearly how these animals are kept.

These rabbits are so teeny! I reckon they aren't much older than one month.

Poor hamsters stuck in running wheels with no where to move to, just round and round and hung up like christmas decorations :(

I might buy this brown one...

These kittens are also so young, they have really weak meows and can barely open their eyes. They should be with their mother not out on this cold street.

And how funny is this cat's face!!!

Below is a video of the street where one of these animal shops are. Listen to how loud it is. this shop is right next to a beauty type shop blaring out loud dance music in a street full of bright lights and even though it's March...it's still bloody freezing, all the animals are huddled together trying to keep warm but they are still shivering.

The Confucius Temple has this cool little market place where everyone will be receiving their gifts from! And excuse me for being bigheaded but how awesome are some of these photos?!

Production Company Meeting/Dinner.

2009-03-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

Another event which happened this month wi=hich slipped my mind was a meeting and dinner that we had with the film's production company to encourage the new working term after the Spring Festival break.

Peeps from Glory N Dream:

Sin, Phoenix, me, Nicola, Alex, Matt, Jack, Warren, Betty, Ono, Wen, Aaron, Animom Thom

Nicola, Me, Wen and Betty.

Studio girls and UK boys.

All us girls.

Dumpling Day!!!

2009-03-07T04:27:00.000-08:00

Dumpling (far right in yellow) preparing veg for making dumplings!

As I mentioned before, we have 2 whole days off, us and the rest of the guys at the studio, so they ALL came around to our apartment and taught us how to make dumplings.

It was pretty cool. We made veggie ones and 2 diffferent types of pork ones. Jenny and Colour taught me how to fold them properly.

My perfect dumpling...(centre bottom)

Wicked.

We played some Wii and laughed with Nayi. It was a nice afternoon, so good to have time off and spend it with Chinese people learning something of their culture rather than us playing the Wii all day and eating Oreos. Good times. I hope we can do it again before we leave.

Wii anyone????

Moon and Nayi.

Colour and Phoenix.

Nothing much else has happened this month, like I said everyone is pretty busy with the film. But here is a couple of other things I wanted to throw in but couldn’t find an appropriate place to mention them!

Ono took photos of us.

Phoenix Drew us.

And last but not least. We can order food by ourselves in restaurants now! As long as it egg fried rice or noodle….lol.

Nayi

2009-03-07T04:01:00.000-08:00

Nayi and Matt playing Wii.

CUTE!

There was some drama this month surrounding the rabbit because somehow she cut her leg and it got infected and then it spread to here eyes and her ear! But she’s on the mend now, it did look well gross though. Get well Nayia nd stop biting it!!!

As quickly as Betty came to Nanjing, in a flash she was gone again! Bon Voyage! And now our 5 in back down to 4. We had her leaving dinner at the classy Hot Pot place.

Betty and Alex pouring over the menu.

You are served a plate of raw vegetables which you cook yourself in a pot of boiling soup placed in your table. You also get a plate of either raw meat or mushrooms in my case which you also cook. Clever...pay lots of money to cook your own meal.

Matt's Birthday

2009-03-07T03:49:00.000-08:00

Matt’s birthday was an exciting time, for me anyway because I had to undercover once again to find him a present that would out do his Valentines gift, a comb made of special Chinese wood, very fancy! I went on 2 secret squirreling missions on the back of Warren’s Scooter, I do wish I had a photo of that to show you but you know…undercover! For his 23^rd birthday I got him a traditional Chinese imstrument called a liuqin (lee-oo-chin), which is apparently mostly played by girls….but who cares!

Matt and his girly Mandolin.

Thom rockin' out on the liuqin.

It is pretty cool…not as similar to a guitar as I had thought, it’s proving quite difficult for him to play but he’ll get there. He is a talented boy.

Hello Kitty Birthday cake. the manliest of cakes.

For his dinner the Chinese people told us that you must eat noodles on your birthday to give you a long life…I guess it doesn’t matter that we eat noodle every single day we’re here! So birthday noodles it was…it may give you long life but I guess it doesn’t stop you getting pooed on by Japanese sumos…

Betty

2009-03-07T03:01:00.001-08:00

A day after we arrived back from Sichuan we had a new arrival, current AIB student Betty le Bon of 2^nd year animation joining us for work placement, just like Matt and Alex had done a few years before.

Betty le Bon...bigger sugar fiend than me???

Unfortunately the weather was shocking when Betty arrived…rain for most of the time she was here and because everyone is so busy at the studio working 12 hour days 7 days a week, this mixture meant that Betty didn’t get to see much Nanjing, mostly the shopping hot spots which we know and can get by on with our minimal Chinese. Warren did however take us to a Temple in Nanjing, his favourite place in the whole of the city.

Female monks live at this temple and of course theyre all vegetarian so we got to have another vegetarian meal! Veggie miantiao (noodle soup) and “bow-zi”. Yum.

Visitors buy small wooden blocks and write their prayers on the surface and hang them here. I wish I had beliefs.

Prayer with incense.

The 7 floor Pagoda.

The temple had so many beautiful Prayer altars with gorgeously decorated and lit statues of female gods but I wasn’t allowed to take photos of them…I did manage a sneaky one though…sorry for the blurriness and bad angle but I was undercover.

On the same outing we got on top of the Nanjing wall, the largest city wall in all of China reaching a massive 33.7km long. Find out more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Wall_of_Nanjing

New Part of Town: Confucius Temple

2009-03-07T02:45:00.000-08:00

Apologies to my parents and Matt’s parents ands Nicola and Alex’s Parents for not updating our Nanjing Adventures all month. It’s partly been because we’ve been busy at work aka valuing our time off work in the evenings and would rather be playing Mario Kart than recording our time here and partly because nothing of huge note has happened recently! But now we have 2 whole days off and a whole months worth of little adventures to make it worth my while making a new post and worth your while reading my new post. Enjoy!

In my last post I finished off by telling you of my new bunny rabbit Nayi which we saved from the cruel loud streets of Chengdu. Now that she was safe in a new home e could no longer expect her to sleep in a cake box! Animo from the studio took me to a new place of town that sold animal products. On my first visit to this new place, The ‘Confucius Temple’, I didn’t seee much but when I returned ( as I had found the cage I picked out on my first visit had bars which were too big and Nayi could squeeze through to escape) I walked around the corner and found a whole new world of animal products and general shopping. This is where all parents and close friends can expect their Nanjing presents to be purchased from FYI. Yes, Lots of animal products but also actual animals being sold as if they are products…a simple new CD you might buy on whim while you’re walking through the city centre. Very sad.

Chinese Spring Festival - Sichuan Style

2009-02-06T05:24:00.000-08:00

Chinese Spring Festival Holiday

The year is now 2009, has been for most of us, but the Chinese like to celebrate it twice…kinda like the whole country is the Queen! So although we had a big special dinner on the 31^st December 2008 for the New Year we also got to have a whole week off for the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival. It’s the time of year when Chinese people take a break because, honestly, they work everyday all day all year round, until Spring Festival. Their shops are open 9am – 10pm Monday – Sunday and there are a lot of family businesses that have to work every minute they can, so their New Year celebration is well deserved. It’s also the one time of year they open the alcohol cabinet and get merry, not like in the UK when it being Tuesday is enough of a reason to go out and get hammered.

Our Chinese Spring Festival Journey began on New Year’s Eve, 25^th January 2009. We flew from Nanjing airport straight to Chengdu, the capital city on the Sichuan Province, inhabited by 11 MILLION people, that’s twice as much as the whole of Ireland in one city!

Packed and ready at the airport.

Nicola and I.

Letitia’s father picked us up at the airport and took us to their apartment home where her mother and Thom’s mother had prepared an absolute feast including the best foods I’ve eaten during my whole time in China, sweet sticky rice and veggie dumplings! Letitia is going to pass on the family recipe to me…hopefully!

From the apartment’s balcony we got to witness the massive midnight firework display that consumed the whole skyline! It was amazing, something really special, to experience welcoming in the year of the Ox in China with new friends over traditional Chinese delicacies.

Our animation studio was kind enough to put us up in a hotel next to Letitia’s home, called 9 Points. It was really nice and modern, of course the staff didn’t speak a word of English, so we couldn’t order room service on the company’s card! Haha! (Calvin, if you’re reading this, I kid!)

Monday 26^th January, New Years Day, Aaron, lead animator from our studio who was also in Chengdu for Spring Festival because it’s also his home town, took us with his sister and wife to the Chengdu Panda Research and Breeding Centre, which houses most of the worlds Panda population. They were very cute but pretty dozy! And they don’t really know Kung Fu, like I’ve been led to believe!

In the evening we were left to explore the busy Chengdu city centre. Another massive neon land but we found solace in the near by Dairy Queen. God Bless you Oreo Cheesecake Blizzard. Trust the whities to sniff out the closest American brand sweet treats.

Tuesday was spent at a market type place, unfortunately I can’t name these places correctly because the tickets are all in Chinese! Wednesday was spent in a similar place that was next to a monastery that was really cool to look at, very peaceful but it did have a small lake filled with dead animals, terrapins, fish and even one bird! Maybe they didn’t pray hard enough. There was also a vegetarian restaurant within the monastery that I insisted we went into cause everywhere else we go, I end up eating garnish and nasty roots for lunch! When we got the menu I was disappointed to see meat dishes all over the place! Shark fin soup and monkey heads! Appalled I was! Appalled! They had worse carnivorous foods on their menu than normal menus! The guys ordered some pork and beef and I ordered sweet glutinous rice. To my surprise however, and more so to the boys, when the food came it wasn’t pork, it was potato, it wasn’t beef, if was tofu. All the dishes on the menu when meat themed but made 100% from vegetarian foods! It was marvelous! Even the meat eaters said it was one of the best meals they’d had in China.

Nicola, me and Alex.

Aaron's Wife, Me, Aaron's sister and Nicola.

Nicola buying her smoked meat, later to be eaten from her pocket.

Nutritious Pig Face...

Actual smoked Dog.

Pounding some sweet thing...like taffy.

Lighting incense for prayer.

Now that's a beard, Chinese style.

SUUUGGGGAAARRRRR!

MORE meat on a stick.

Chinese New Year is Biizzzzzaaayy!

We ventured back in the city centre for dinner because hawk eye Alex had spotted an Ajisen Noodle restaurant, a Japanese chain that he is obsessed with and must eat in at least once a week.

While waiting for our dinner a Chinese guy came up to us and asked it we would join him after dinner to walk around the centre so he could practise his English so we did. We couldn’t pronounce his name so behind his back we gave him the affectionate name of Gaylord. He wasn’t camp or effeminate in any way, we just wanted to give him a silly name. Infact he was really nice and recommended lots of places to visit and more importantly he didn’t mug us.

Matt, me, Gaylorde and Alex.

Thursday brough Thom back to us, as he had been gone for 3 days visitng his home town 3 hours away from Chengdu to see his family. An early start took us to Chengdu bus station to wait for a coach that would take us to a town called Moxi on a possible 9 hour drive. Luckily the roads were very clear and it only took us 5 hours road time to get there. I say road time because over one hour was spent abandoned on the side of a main road somewhere. On beginning our drive to Moxi, about 1 1/2 hours into our journey a massive thud came from beneath the coach. Alex and Thom, with cameras in hand within 3 seconds of the noise ready to pap the incident, we all got off the coach to see that happened. The metal plate that makes part of the side of the coach just above the wheel came off and shredded the tyre leaving it in an un-drivable state. But that’s not gonna stop the Chinese…no no! Ripped tyre you say? Too dangerous to drive you say? Possible risk of further wheel damage or even further road accidents you say? Pish posh! This driver got another good 30 minutes outta that hazard, driving the coach and its 40+ passengers along the motorway to a mechanic. The mechanic we came to didn’t have the materials to fix the problem, so the driver just kicked us all out and drove off with all our belongings under the carriage, passports, money…deodorant! Without a word to anyone about how long he’d be. Now, in the UK, another bus would be sent for us, the paying customers to take us to where we paid to go but the china way is to ditch you on the side of the road with nothing but a manky but adorable puppy to entertain us! After and hour or so, he did return with all out stuff and a spanking new tyre!

Cute cute cute cute cute!

Middle of nowhere.

The best photos I got over the whole trip were from my coach seat! I had a massive window in front of me, so while Matt was sleeping, drooling on himself, I took pictures of the beautiful Chinese landscape. I had no idea that China looked like that, now I can see where the inspiration for the water paintings comes from.

We were abruptly ushered off the bus at some random bus stop that no one else was getting off at and we almost lost Nicola cause she just woke up out of a snooze and didn’t get off the bus in time, but Thom stopped it before it drove off. Then we clambered into a tiny 5 seater taxi with us 4 in the back and Thom in the front on some guy’s lap next to the driver which took us into the mountains and to a little town called Moxi on Tibetan territory. It is such a lovely little village, it’s just what I imagined in my mind when Thom first told us about it. A really small community of people, very poor but all so happy. During the evening everyone is out on the streets playing mahjong, working in their open kitchens, setting off fireworks.

Sunset in Tibet.

Nihao!

Mahjong.

Spit Chicken.

Lots of bull head shops, Alex and Thom bought one each. Gross.

That night we stayed in a massive pink hostel that had just been built I think! Bloody freezing but a bed is a bed!

The next morning was another early start to get tickets and catch the bus that would take us up to the glacier on Hai Luo Guo Mountain. I can’t really write much about the glacier. It was just amazing. You’ll have to appreciate its grandness from my photos!

Our sexy climbing gear.

The Glacier.

I'm on top of the wooorrrllllddd!

The glacier is really high something like 5000km, above the clouds and when we got out onto the actual glacier the sun was beating down on us all.

Suffice to say, we got sick. We all got headaches and Matt got a little heat stroke. Being so tired and having a spliting head ahce, I wasnt really in the mood for walking back, so I got a people taxi. 2 guys who carry me on a bamboo chair UP HILL! I couldnt even muster the strength to walk it never mind carry someone else! I felt sorry for the 2 tiny chinese men who had to carry big westerner Matt!

When we returned from the glacier we the took the cable car up even high to view the glacier from the sky, a choice the crippled me and Matt. My head was ready to explode and my stomach began to churn. Even though we were sick as parrots we had to get the bus back to village. For most of the trip we did pretty well, as we got lower and closer to regular land level I got better…Matt did not. “Gill, you still got those plastic bags?” BLARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH! Vomit in a bag! What to do with vomit in a bag in a public coach? Wing it out the window on to the nearest cabbage patch!

This night we stayed in a different hostel, a really cool one advertised as a backpackers hostel. It had so much character and the couple that ran it was lovely. Brother Liu who forced oranges upon you every time you went there but he was lovely and helped us a lot with the mountain and going to a hot spring spa in the mountain.

The taxi to the hot spring broke down so we had to push it to get it going. Nothing is easy in China.

Eggy Hot Spring. SO2.

We returned to Chengdu on the 31^st and just took it easy. That night we went out for dinner with Thom and Letitia for Alex’s birthday and farewell from ChengDu. After we took a little walk around the city centre again where we saw a woman selling hamsters, rabbits and guinea pigs in tiny cages on the cold loud streets.

Nayi is the white one on the right.

If anyone knows me you already know whats coming. Yes! I bougth one! I had to save at least one of them! She’s tiny and pure white with pink eyes and we called her Nayi, which is Sichuan Mandarin for beautiful…and tasty, but we’ll never know if the last one is true.

We went back to Letitia's apartment after and gav eher a good feed and some freedom from the cage. The day we were up the mountain was also Alex's 22nd birthday, so Letitia and Thom bought him a lush birthday cake which we all scoffed that night. Happy Birthday Alex.

The next day we were leaving ChengDu but our train wasn’t until 8pm so we squeezed in one more activity before leaving. We visited a dam that was built over 2000 years ago, pretty impressive for not having machinery and stuff.

Year of the Ox.

Year of the gay Ox.

Part of the Yangtze River, that runs all the way back to Nanjing.

When it came time to catch our train, we thought it was going to be OK to take the rabbit on the train in a secure box but they said no, but luckily quick thinking Thom came up with a story that I was from some animal welfare organization and when I saw is in the street I had to save it. Luckily the train people were all women, if they had been men I don’t think Nayi would be with me now :’(

The train journey lasted from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning, a long time to hide a rabbit on a train!

Aboard the train we met some Chinese people who were sleeping in the bunks above us. Obviously we couldn’t talk properly to them because we know no Chinsese ad they knew no English. But the Steven came along. Autralian, Chinese teacher going to Beijing where he teaches. He was able to translate for us. We allexchange email address, but I doubt we’ll be bothered to correspond!

Steven, woman, Nicola, man.

The cabin were 3 bunks high and 2 sets in one section. Me and Matt were on opposing bottom bunks, Nicola was above Matt and then the rest were randomers. But of course who would be on the top bunk in my stack? THE smelliest man in China. As soon as he took off his shoes the whole place got all stinked up! You couldn’t sleep cause the stench was so choking! Eventually it eased but if he rotated or wafted his covers the smell would soar down to my nostrils!

All in all, it was a brilliant holiday, we really got to see some of the beauty…and smells…China has to offer. Thanks to Thom, Letitia, her family, Arron and Calvin.

THE END

Spring Festival Dinner

2009-01-22T23:54:00.000-08:00

Nanjing Museum

2009-01-21T23:19:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-01-19T02:10:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-18T20:30:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-05T22:31:00.000-08:00

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.

New Years Eve

2009-01-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

New Years is a bigger event in China than Christmas Day is. Calvin took us out for a lovely dinner in a traditional Chinese restaurant with his translator for the film and Warren. It was a lovely big restaurant with 2 live musicians playing authentic Chinese instruments. Unfortunately, when we ordered the food, Calvin accidentally ordered me something which we both thought was vegetarian but actually had what Matt thought was pork. And I did swallow one mouthful and on the second mouthful as I chewed I started to realize it wasn’t vegetarian. So on the last day of 2008 I ate meat for the first time in over 9 years! Apparently everyone in China goes out for meal on New Year so the restaurant was packed.

Classic Dumpling.

Dinner was followed by another session of pool.

First Post in China

2008-12-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

Northwood Hills, London, 8.30am, we leave for the airport. 12.10pm flight departure. The flight from Heathrow, London to PuDong, Shanghai wasn’t too bad considering it was 10 and half hours long! The in flight entertainment was amazing! It had over 60 movies to choose from, loads which I hadn’t seen before, as well as albums to listen too and TV programs to watch. I opted for 4 films; Pineapple Express, Ghost Town, Mirrors and the Sex in the City movie but the plane landed before I could see the end of that one. So for the entire flight I stayed awake. Even though it was Virgin Atlantic, the economy seats are still tiny, only one way you can possibly sit really, absolutely no chance of getting any shut eye. 7.30am (China time, 11.30pm GMT) flight landing.

Calvin was at the airport to meet us coming out and to take us on the coach from PuDong airport to Shangahi city centre where we boarded a 3 hour train to Nanjing around 10am. At Nanjing train station we were met by Thom and Warren from Glory n Dream, where we all jumped in a taxi and headed to our apartment. The taxis in China are strange…they have a special caged seat for the driver, to protect him I guess, but it’s a bit Death Proof and with their crazy roads and drive wherever you want policy, I get a little nervous in them! Around 2pm, we arrive at our new lodgings for the next 6 months.

At first when we go in the place looks a bit ghetto but after some time you realize it’s the kind of place everyone lives in, in this big city. The block is completely safe, at least so far it has been! Not exactly South East London or nothing! By this time we’d been traveling for almost 24 hours with not much food, other than the plastic meals on the flight, so the guys kindly took us to a local restaurant to get some native Nanjing delicacies. Why was the first thing I ate in China a Thousand Year Old Egg? A very popular egg that is cooked in a certain way that makes the white kind of blue/transparent and the yolk blue and creamy. Tastes like egg but with a really unsettling texture! Been avoiding it ever since. Using chopsticks has been a challenge. Within the first week when I was getting accustomed to the different food and being hungry most of the time I was getting majorly stressed trying to use them. Being SO hungry and not being able to lift the food to my mouth. But now I am the chopstick master. Only thing I can’t do really is the slippery tofu in the canteen. By the end of 6 months I want to be the best, go back to the UK and be eating cereal and pizza with chopsticks! They actually make eating penne pasta way easier, you can just slide the chop stick through the middle!

Our Studio. The only warm place in Nanjing.

The studio we work in, is in one of the 3 major centers of Nanjing (how many ‘centers’ can an object have?) on the top floor of a school. 99 stairs up every morning and then again after lunch and if you want to go to the shop, you gotta do the 99 stairs again! So that 397 stairs in one day! We’ll all have thighs of steel when we come back. Our team is a small one, made up of about…let’s see…Me, Matt, Nicola, Alex, Thom, Warren, Calvin, Aaron, Ono, Jenny, Moon, Phoenix, Colour, Sin, Macy, Dumpling, Jack, Animo (Hiro Nakamura) , a guy whose name I cant remember…how many is that? Quite a small team for the pre-production of a feature film. Some of us are designing the look of the film while others are designing the animation style. I am layout designer. Right now, I am designing the Tank environment for a bunch of fish, which is fun but getting more difficult everyday. It’s hard working on one thing for such a long time, but it’s my job. Pft. If there is time, I will also be getting the chance to do character design work on Jack and Western background characters.

Got to decorate the work desk!

A sneaky glimpse at the production...shhh!

We work 6 days a week, Monday-Saturday, 9am-5pm and have one day off, which we like to use to visit ‘The DVD Shop’, where we can spend all our earnings on high quality DVD copies that will then sit in the apartment and never be watched! It’s my source of keeping up to date with cinema releases in the UK as China gets them on DVD shortly after they are released in the cinema. STILL waiting for Changling and Yes Man though! Grrr.

I think it’s about time to talk about the toilets here. Or as I have affectionately named them, Squatters. Small holes in the ground, still surrounded by a toilet seat but I don’t know why, it’s not for sitting on, which you must straddle and lower yourself over and leave your deposits. You also need to have your own tissue with you but it can’t be flushed, it’s placed into a waste bin, like one yo’d have in your home, simple plastic thing, no lid or cover of any kind. That means that when you squat down your face is so near a basket full of tissue soiled with urine, poop and other bloodily elements. The toilets we have in our workplace are even worse though, They aren’t cubicles, they are waist high brick walls with no doors and no circular hole for you to go in, but a long trough-like canal that runs along the length of the bathroom. And remember, we work in a school building, so when you go to the bathroom you are at risk of being in the middle of a squat, your head poking over the top of the brick block thing and then a Chinese student walking in, who will then catch your eye and stare because you’re from the west. Hasn’t happened to me yet, but if it does it with be AWKWARD!!! And I’m scared of panicking and then losing my footing, falling in the trough to be washed away with the current. I refused to become a squatter, but after one and half weeks, stuck in work, with no where else to go, I had to fold! But now I’m a pro! However, I still avoid it when I can.

Good excuse to go to Starbucks, is to use the proper toilet, the best toilet in Nanjing.

During the week the canteen in the school is open, that’s where we eat our lunch everday. The COLDEST place in Nanjing is our canteen! The tables and chairs are made of steel, I’ll be surprised if one of us doesn’t get piles by the end of winter! The food however is pretty good. It’s a lot simpler than the nice places Calvin likes to take us, our palettes aren’t used to such fancy food. Me and Nicola are common folk who like basic veg and plain rice! The meats the other guys get there are suspicious!

Favourite of the boys’ is beef on a stick! Nice.

On Saturdays, the canteen is closed because the school kids aren’t there so that’s the day we get to go somewhere else. We’ve been to the same little place every Saturday so far, but I love it! I get fried noodle with egg. It is the greasiest thing I’ve had here and it’s amazing! I like to stock up on my grease on Saturdays! They also do massive noodle soup dishes and rice, but I’m sticking to my greasy noodles for a while! The eatery has 2 floors but Matt doesn’t really fit in the upstairs.

Most of the food places here are obviously family run and so basic but I really like it, you can see the people making the food in their run-down kitchens with old pots and random pieces of wood everywhere! We’ve also been taken to a dumpling place, only once though, but I’d like to go back there. They were the first dumplings I had in China, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat too many of them cause I had them in Chinatown, London a few weeks before and although they are tasty the texture is old and they don’t sit too well in my stomach, so I only ordered a modest 6 dumplings, Nicola had 12, Alex 18 and Matt had 24! Which he ate all of plus one of Nicolas! That’s 25 dumplings and those things aren’t small!

Matt's Triumph over dumplings everywhere.

All the pre-production for the film is being done in Nanjing and the actual production is being made in Shanghai and the post-production in Beijing. We were invited to join Thom, Calvin and Warren on their business trip to Shanghai to meet the production team and brief them on the film and the style etc.

The team at Nanjing Train Station.

On the business side, it was a bit boring cause we don’t speak Chinese obviously but being invited was lovely and meeting the other people and going for dinner was great. One thing about Chinese people is that they are very hospitable; they all look out for us all the time. Alex couldn’t join us on the Shanghai trip because he fell ill a couple of days before. Thom helped him home from the studio when he wasn’t able to walk properly and Calvin brought him extra sheets and oranges to make him better. Our first day in Shanghai was spent at the studio, followed by dinner and then sleep at the hotel. The second day was also spent at the studio but afterwards on the way to the train station they took us into Shanghai city centre to see the sights. The place was massive and it seemed there were lots of shopping to be done! Hopefully we’ll get to return for a shopping spree before June. It’s quite funny walking through the streets and random people are trying to sell you anything! Mostly I heard a compliment followed by “You buy, watch? Bags? Shoes? Dvd?” and the same for Matt but ending with “Massage?”

Digiman Animation Studio, Shanghai.

Finally, something smothered in sugar!!! Oh wait...it's sweet potato. Still... sugar is sugar.

Looking dorky at Shanghai metro.

Sugar man, enjoying the sun.

Freezing in Shanghai

Glory N Dream team in Shanghai.

Dumpling, Aaron, Calvin, Warren, Macy, Me, Nicola, Matt, Thom.

Our Christmas day was spent at work! It was really surreal. They whole day I was thinking, “everyone back home will be waking up now or opening presents now or having their Christmas dinner now”. We had Christmas dinner too…in the form of Chinese Pizza Hut! Garden Veggie Pizza, tiny garlic bread and a cheesecake! Not quite the spread my Nanny puts on every year, but still nice. And as a Christmas gift we got to use knives and forks! After dinner, we went out with the people from the studio to a pool hall, which was nice of them.

A Merry Christmas in China. Our tree is about 10cm tall. Festive.

Preparation

2008-12-03T12:58:00.000-08:00

Cool. Everything is prepared, almost. We got our Visas, we got our medicines and new toothbrushes, we got our flights booked. Now all we have to do is get some travel insurance!!! Then on Tuesday...Nanjing, here we come! Skadoush.