No. 8: 3 Greatest Disappointments To Date.

1. My Elective Chinese Painting Class.

2. My Elective Chinese Calligraphy Class.

3. Beef.

I could really whine a lot more about the other two but I'll refrain online. But seriously if you order beef here, it comes in a dried jerky form, or you get really tiny slices of it, and it's the sinewy chewy part. 
The best beef I've found so far is in a Maccas burger.
And even then I can't be certain that's really beef.

Sketch 2: Spring.

Inspired by the cherry blossoms and flowers blooming all over Hangzhou at the moment.

My First Martial Arts Class.

Monday 17 March, 2014 

¥3.00           Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥7.00           Lunch (Uni Restaurant)
¥2250.00    Entry fee for Great Wall Half Marathon
¥5700.00    Rent (Four months, with 5% Discount)
¥15.00        Dinner (Shotty black pepper beef jerky-like rice)
¥20.00        Cake (Split for K-L's birthday)

Tuesday 18 March, 2014 

¥3.00           Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥10.00         Laundry
¥7.00           Lunch (Pancake)
¥200.00      Tutor
¥12.00        Dinner (Fried Noodles)
¥2.00          Pineapple

Total: ¥8229.00 ($1567.40)

Weekly Total: ¥279.00 ($53.14) <Not including rent/GWM into this, I need an idea of my general weekly expenses>

Total Spend: ¥15256.20 ($2909.95 AUD)

- - -

Ahhh rent!!!!

This week was the first week of elective classes, and I had my first Wushu (Martial Arts) class yesterday.

Ideally I would have imagined I'd be amazing and doing all those moves from Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer already, but realistically I knew it was going to be none of that. I was very excited to start, but also a bit wary of mǎbù (馬步), as my friend J was scaring us and telling us that our first lesson would be an hour of holding this stance:

The infamous Mabu stance.

Class started at 3:30pm and 60+ people showed up for the first class. Class is held outside right in front of the International College. Our teacher had us arranged in a circle at first to learn the basic moves, "Gong Bu" (bow stance), "Ma Bu" (horse stance), "Pu Bu" (flat stance), and "Xu Bu" (false stance).

My favourite stance, because it reminds me the most of wushu masters!

The false leg stance. You are supposed to put all your weight on your back leg, so you can kick freely with your front leg.

He also taught us the way to hold a fist, a flat palm and the hook. 

Actually our palm move was a bit different as we bend our thumb into the palm.

The teacher making us hold the Pubu stance for ages while he inspected all of us to make sure we had the right technique. Most people just gave up after a while (it's painful to hold!)

Afterwards, he introduced some basic sequences and transitions from the different stances, as well as adding on punches and arm positions. 

What we have been learning is more about conditioning and strength, since we hold the mabu and pubu stances for at least a minute each time. I think it's good for me as I'm not doing very much to strengthen my leg muscles, and it'll be good training for the half marathon run I just signed up for.

Class only ran for 1 hour this week, but it was definitely better than what I expected. My thigh muscles at the moment are crying.

How to Celebrate a Birthday.

Sunday 16 March, 2014 

¥3.00      Breakfast (3 Buns)
¥12.50    Coffee (Peet's 50% Off Coffee 8-10am)
¥12.00    Fruits
¥31.00    KFC for picnic

Total: ¥58.50 ($11.15)

Weekly Total: ¥839.70 ($159.95)

Total Spend: ¥7027.20 ($1338.51 AUD)

- - -

So today was my friend K-L's birthday! I didn't know what to get her, so I decided to make her a present. I painted 21 cherry blossom petals (because she's turning 21, and because her birthday is during the cherry blossom season in China). I strung them together to make something she could hang in her room. I also got everyone to write some nice quotes/words of wisdom since it's her big 2-1.

I was a bit worried they'd look chat but they turned out alright!

My other friend S drew the card, and I helped her cut it out and stick it on.

  First, a few of us started the day off at the cafe to do some homework. For lunch we decided to go out and enjoy the beautiful weather with a nice picnic. 

 I introduced the ABCD Slapping game to my friends. 

KFC! 6 pieces of original, 10+ wicked wings, 4 burgers, 1 grilled chicken burger, potato and gravy, and two corn cobs. 180RMB ($35.00). I thought it was expensive but looking back there was a lot of food..

We had dinner at a nice place, and then surprised her at the ''Fruit Party" with a cake.

Balloons and people frantically signing the card/petals before she arrived.

Happy Birthday K-L!

Why it Helps to Know Locals.

Saturday 15 March, 2014 

¥3.00      Breakfast (3 Buns)
¥12.50    Coffee (Peet's 50% Off Coffee 8-10am)
¥14.60    Stationery

Total: ¥30.10 ($5.75)

Weekly Total: ¥781.20 ($148.80)

Total Spend: ¥6968.70 ($1327.35 AUD)

- - -

So my mum found a friend of a friend who lives in Hangzhou. 

I communicated with this auntie through broken Chinese earlier this week, and we managed to organise to meet up on Saturday so she could take me around. I met her, her husband and her daughter (who is two years older than me) at uni and they took me in their car to go to He Fang Jie, a famous ''old Hangzhou style"  street for tourists. 

I told them I wanted to try stinky tofu, so we shared this 'fried' version of stinky tofu. It wasn't really well made (it didn't even smell!), and it's not the authentic one, so I'm still game to try it.

Traditional sweets - they are pounding a peanut candy. 

It has all the old historical Chinese buildings still intact. A lot of the shops sold jade, wood carvings, tea and silk ... essentially your typical Hangzhou tourist items - but my favourite store there was an old, traditional Chinese medicine centre. It was still being used to see patients, so it was quite busy, but it was the interior that blew me away - think dried herbs in giant glass bottles and tiny wooden medicine cabinets stretching up to the roof, stone floors and carved rosewood chairs, and on top of all this, people rushing in and out. I was standing stunned in the middle of it all.

After that, they shouted me to dinner (which was at the local dinner time of 5:00pm). We went to 杭州酒家, a newly refurbished restaurant specialising in Hangzhou style food. My favourite dishes were the baby bamboo stalks (apparently quite cheap and easy to make; a typical home-cooked item), and these fish balls which melted in your mouth like steamed egg. 

Hangzhou Jiu Jia is famous because it's in some old building.. or I think it's one of the earliest restaurants? I can't remember. The food was good though!

It has some pretty hip interiors.

Typical Hangzhou food - Potato strips in chilli oil (top left), deep fried tofu skin (with a mince filling?) (left), and a sweet fried pork (right). 

This is a reinvention of an old Hangzhou delicacy called 'Sole(Foot) Biscuit'.. I think it has something to do with it looking like the road because it's spotty with different seeds. 

We finished dinner around 6:30pm and walked down to XiHu (West Lake) this time from the east side of the lake. It was really busy because the weather had been amazing - think the first days of Spring sunshine - and the skies were clear and the sun was just about to set. 

Behind the scenes!

I was surprised by how much fun I had as a tourist. The family treated me so well and I was taken aback by their generosity; not only did they shout me food and spend a whole day with me, they also taught me a lot more about the local culture and the intricacies of the Chinese language (especially chengyu's).

I found myself struggling to find the right way to say ''thank you'' at the end of the day, so I had to call my mum and tell her to quickly help me write a thank you text which would express my gratitude. 

Spending the day with them definitely made me more confident in speaking Chinese, as I realised that I could communicate and understand a large portion of general conversations. I even learnt a few phrases of the local Hangzhou dialect! 

Why Xihu is Always Beautiful.

Wednesday 12 March, 2014 

¥4.00      Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥25.00    Tea (Peets Coffee)
¥10.00    Dinner

Thursday 13 March, 2014 
¥4.00      Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥120.00  Student Cafeteria Card (¥100 on card)
¥26.00    Dinner
¥262.90  Walmart  (I bought a dangerous amount of snacks)

Friday 14 March, 2014 
¥3.00      Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥20.00    Lunch (Uni Restaurant)
¥22.00    Honey Pomelo Tea (Peets Coffee)
¥5.60      Groceries (2 rolls of toilet paper if you were wondering..)
¥13.00    Dinner (Congee at QuickRice)
¥40.00    Jumper (First clothing purchase at the night markets)

Total: ¥555.50 ($105.80)

Weekly Total: ¥751.10 ($143.05)

Total Spend: ¥6938.60 ($1321.65 AUD)

- - -

I've really been struggling to find time to blog. This week literally has been the same every day - class, lunch, study, exercise, dinner, study. I didn't even have my laptop on my desk for the whole week!

So in efforts to catch up I will just upload photos to explain my week.

- We finally rented some bikes to go around Xihu. This week has been warming up, so we've been lucky enough to get some nice 20 degrees+ weather.

- One of the main attractions in Xihu - Leifeng Pagoda.

- Just your average view in Xihu.

- So in KouYu (Speaking) class, one student has to do a presentation each lesson. A Japanese girl made these cute characters to explain a Japanese folk tale. The 3 Japanese students joined our class for only 3 weeks due to their uni arrangements. 

- New stock. (Not shown: another new container just for food, 50 packets of biscuits...)

- On campus there are food courts (which I only recently discovered). You make a student cafeteria card which costs 20RMB, and then put money on it. We went to the Halal food court (I think there are 4 different food courts). In this photo, the cook is frying beef and putting it into a bun/bread thing. Beef is hard to find here, but luckily the Halal food court has a lot of it!

- My group of friends aren't really your typical party type; we prefer having fruit parties! I've been having a pineapple on a stick almost everyday here.

- The entry to Wushan YeShi (Night markets). Struggling to upload the photos taken on my DSLR because they are too big.. and all the photos of the night markets are on my DSLR. Generally it was just very busy, sold lots of cheapish clothes which were leaning more towards the girly cute stuff so you really had to dig to find good things. Lots of sock sellers (I love socks.. almost as much as cake). Heaps of people too, it was impossible to get through. I'd probably go back to buy some cool coloured socks and maybe some cheap clothes, but the crowds are a bit unbearable.

No. 7: 5 Tuhao Room Upgrades.

1. Shoe rack.

To display your shoe collection outside your door. 

2. Shower rack.

This is probably one of the room upgrades I want to have for convenience...

3. Mini-fridge.

Other option is the disgusting communal fridge.

4. Full length mirror.

5. Extra storage.

Probably more necessary than tuhao. 

N.B.1. Tuhao(土豪) was one of the first new terms I learnt here and it refers to the new age of the uncouth rich kids. These examples are probably more luxurious upgrades instead of "Tuhao"... tuhao would have to be some seriously expensive and pointless stuff.

I'm considering getting a shoe rack (but I don't want to put it outside in the corridor because I really like my shoes and would be heartbroken if anyone stole them...) & maybe a shower rack (one of those suction ones that go on the wall). I really want a full length mirror ..jumping up and down in front of the bathroom mirror gets tiring.