#crossingtheroad

Pino will make sure you can cross the street safely.

TheOldDirtRoad™

Abbey Road?🐓

Ok so here i go. I want to keep a blog for myself to record some of the mind bending things i’m seeing here and also for you guys! So hope you enjoy peeking through this little window into life in China and feel free to leave any comments it would be great to see you’ve stopped by :)

So the first two blogs i have posted were written on the flight on the way over and on my first full day in China but since then it’s been a bit of a whirlwind so a lot of time has passed where i haven’t written but it certainly hasn’t been event-free!

We all know the importance of bullet points when it comes to maintaining interest and i have a thing for lists so firstly and most importantly ...

Food and drink

Frog - it really does just taste like chicken although a few more bones ...

Lotus - i thought the consistency was very apple like but not sweet

Squirrel fish - i showed some of you pictures of this Suzhou delicacy before i came out and can now proudly say i have eaten it and very nice it was too!

Duck throat - yes well this was actually completely by mistake. I probably shouldn’t have used google translate on the packet while i was eating it ... or maybe it was a good thing i did because i kind of lost the taste for it after that ...

Crisps - they have the wackiest flavours out here such as cucumber, yoghurt, lime, spicy and numb and seaweed. Ooh that reminds me i have a packet of the cucumber ones in the cupboard!

I have eaten a whole host of things for the first time here but to be perfectly honest i couldn’t name them all because i don’t actually know what they were. I’ve had a few shared dinners with school where it’s been a Chinese buffet style meal where everyone sits at a round table and the food goes in the middle on a rotating glass plate so people can try different things and there have simply been so many meals and new foods i wouldn’t be able to name them all!

Pork, aubergine (egg plant), coriander and mango - i’m giving these a mention because they are all foods i love and thankfully they are in abundance here so i’m lapping them up!

China-esque

So how is China different to England? Wow. Well where do I start?

Crossing the road

Hahahahaha i am still NO good at this. E-bikes, bicycles and general wheeled things that aren’t buses or cars mount the path and other pedestrian areas without warning so you have to constantly be on the look out. So imagine you’re stood waiting at a crossing and the green man comes on. Excellent! International sign for you can cross the road. WRONG. Even on a green light for pedestrians, cars can make a right hand turn so you can very easily nearly get mowed down! I tend to use the technique of looking in all directions when crossing the road :)

Spitting

Eugh. I refuse to go into too much detail about this but some Chinese people spit in the street. You can’t miss the sound. So again ... eugh. I was on the bus the other day and thought i was free from the sound when i heard it. That unmistakable yacky sound and the guy did it over and over again and was ‘spitting’ into a plastic bag. I was less than pleased.

Humidity

Dear god. I have never been so hot in my whole life. I think my poor body is wondering why i have not yet returned to the less balmy British weather after my two week holiday. Poor thing. Think it will certainly take some getting used to. 37 degrees today and I hear we’re due a heat wave soon ... pretty sure we’re already experiencing the heat wave?!?!?

Giving money to the cashier

Two hands people! Do not simply give the money to the cashier in a store, hand it over preferably with two hands. I have experience problems with this especially when you have your purse in your hand and then you have to use said hand in the double hand over process but it’s a working progress.

Subway security

Each subway station has it’s own security and all bags and belongings must be scanned before entering the station. Oh and also if you’re taking an open bottle of drink through you need to drink some in view of security so they know it’s nothing suspicious. This can be rather amusing when you proceed to catch their attention by doing a little dance to drink from your bottle in front of them :)

We chat

This app is going to take over the world and so it should. Here they have set it up so that you can pay almost anything electronically by scanning a QR code on your phone. This includes paying for ice cream at the ice cream van and other mobile food vendors - i (sigh) do not yet have my chinese bank account so am still without this perk but cannot wait for it to be set up and be a prolific we chat purse user!

Cheap, cheap, cheap

Compared to England cost of living is cheaper! As the days go on i almost feel more and more sorry for our Chinese visitors to the UK who either must be millionaires or save up their whole lives to send all of their cash on our transport, food and daily living which in comparison is so reasonably priced here. Definitely a smiley face on that front from me :)

Don’t drink the water

A simple one that applies to lots of other countries but when you’re actually living somewhere it does become a little tedious to not be able to drink the water. However bottled water is DEFINITELY cheaper than in the UK so it doesn’t put you out of pocket (see cheap, cheap, cheap above for more details)

Funniest signage

I have decided i need to start documenting some of these but in the mean time check this out.