Closed, closed closed

It has been a quiet couple of days. As some of you might know, it is Chinese New Year and I have to admit that they have a much bigger party than the Westerners. It is to such an extend that you need to stock your house with food as you won't find any shops open. I mainly spent my New Years lazying at home, preparing for my studies for this term, watched Chinese television and drank beer. I am thinking of changing my diet from a coffee one to beer diet as this is much cheaper. Before i drink a cooldrink in this country I always go for a beer first. It is amazing to see the difference in price!! Just to give you an idea... one decent coffee goes for the price of 6-7 beers.

I don't really have too much to talk about as I was locked in my room for most of the time apart from getting lunch. To my surprise I found a couple of street vendors that were selling food. Most foreigners would not necessarily buy food from street vendors as this might not be seen as the cleanest. But like I said, I am no longer a foreigner in this country. So I went for it!! Up until now I haven't had any food poisoning or anything yet, "touch wood". And, I am planning to keep it like this for as long as possible.

Yesterday one of the shops which is a muslim food shop opened its doors for service again. I got my Mandarin together and decided to go eat something there. To my surprise they understood everything that I said. First I asked if they had a certain dish, and the chef confirmed that they had it. Then I said to him that I would like 1 dish. He then looked at me and said in Mandarin that there are two, one goes for 3Yuan and the other for 5Yuan. How I knew that he said this I don't know, but I ordered the 5Yuan bowl. I have been spending many hours listening to a Mandarin podcast and I am also spending quite a couple of hours in front of the television listening if I can hear what people are saying in Mandarin. There is one tv series that I am watching and sort of getting into. Catching a word every now and again I build the rest of the story with my own ideas and words.

I will probably be spending the rest of the month planning my studies, learning Mandarin and visiting shops practising my non-existing Mandarin.

(Linyi City, Shandong Province, China)

Tickets, tickets...tickets

You might think that it has been a while since I wrote something?? Well, that is correct. The last couple of days that I was in Linfen, I spend hanging with my friends and going for many meals as I was going to leave. As to when I was going to leave was not yet confirmed. To travel during and before Spring festival (this is the biggest holiday in China, their Lunar New Year, Christmas and a time when no-one does anything) you need to purchase your tickets long before you even decide to travel. This is the time of year when the whole country set off to visit family and friends. Me on the other hand didn’t have all this information beforehand, until we started making arrangements for me to leave for Linyi.

Just to let you in on everything else that happened… I managed to get my visa and am therefore still legal in the country for another month. And the next visa that I will need to apply for will allow me to stay in the country for another year or so. That being something to look into later, first is first. The next step is to get me to Linyi with enough time left that I can apply for my next visa. You might think that there is a lot of time left? Well, I thought so as well until I got told everything closes for Spring festival. The date for this festival is from 20-26 January. This is exactly the dates that I need to apply for my new visa. Some more info that I didn’t have is that even the police stations are closed during this festival and it is with them I need to extend my visa. So I pretty much needed to be in Linyi on the 12th January to get all the paperwork done and hand them in for processing.

My good friend, assistant and slave, Lifei, had all the travel arrangements on his plate. After spending three days brainstorming with me and the guy that would be my new travel partner, Freddy (who is Chinese and need to travel to Shandong Province for the festival) Lifei realized he will need to call in the higher authorities. Something to do with the president of the University, don’t ask? I bargained to travel on the weekend of the 10th, 11th of January. It was already the Wednesday before I wanted to travel and we still didn’t have any good news. On the Thursday before the weekend I wanted to travel, I spoke to Lifei again. He told me that we will know on Saturday. “Mmmm…. maybe he doesn’t understand?” I thought by myself. I want to be there around Saturday or Sunday. But I had to wait.

So Saturday came along and I was up early to find out what was happening. I sat in my flat in anticipation to hear the news. 10:00 there was a knock on my door. Lifei assisted by Freddy standing in my door with smiles on their faces. They did it!!! I had two hours to get all my things packed and get ready for the long journey to Linyi. I arranged for the last coffee with Jess at a place we found along the road that made lovely coffee with rum syrup. Good thing that I was leaving Linfen or I would have spent all my money on coffee.

(Linyi City, Shandong Province, China)