Journal Entry 2 April 2023

We spoke to Amy who was at our School previously and had decided to leave and branch out independently. 

I was curious about this because my enthusiasm and interest in working in an international school had totally died and I want to take a chance again on doing a whole new thing in my life. She seems to be doing really great, selling Crystals online. 

 

So we met up at Wade's Wensen, which is quite far from the Shencheng district where we live. Amy demonstrated the crystal can move in various ways - or at least appears to. 

 

We met up with Tane Mcleay who I met 5 years ago when I first arrived in China and started working at Hangzhou Entel School. And had a pretty fun evening meeting all kinds of ex-pats from everywhere on earth who congregate at various watering holes on a Friday evening for drinks and chat and fun. 



Simba from Zimbabwe and a girl from Scotland debating some aspect of philosophy or politics. We met a fascinating Chinese guy who was handing out cigars and I smoked on one and had a glass of wine with it and it was very good. I just love the idea that I am sitting in a room with people from literally all over the world. 

Saturday 22 April 

 A beautiful day at Liangzhu




Daria invited us to visit her Mom's apartment and have lunch and then we went out to a new shopping development and visited a museum that has unearthed an ancient Chinese city from pre-Dynastic times.

 


The tastiest food and the most delicious bottle of wine I have drunk in a very long time. 

    

This is a life-sized model of the ancient city of Liangzhu in the museum that showed us ancient artefacts and pottery and a reconstruction of an ancient time in History. 
 
  
 


Girls Chilling on the Law at the Center we ended our fabulous day with. I look a bit gay in this pic - but it felt quite comfortable. 

                  


These girls are quite scary and here they are intimidating me 

  

Sunday, April 23

At Eric's place

I met with Eric from our English club and we fetched his son from the University and went for a delicious lunch at a Thai food restaurant. 

We then went to Eric's apartment and met Phoebe his girlfriend who then made us a most delicious dinner. I was taught how to make dumplings and these were particularly tasty.
Eric had a bottle of wine which he had been given but was totally uninformed about it, of course coming from a wine country I was keen to educate him, but we couldn't open it! So he ordered an opener online and it took half an hour for it to arrive. 
Chinese culture is not really wine culture and in fact, Eric does not drink any kind of alcohol. In fact, in Chinese celebrations and such many of the Chinese don't really have the concept of a drinking culture and often drink copious amounts of Baijiu merely to get plastered. This is not always a desirable concept and has a negative connotation, so I need to explain the beauty of wine tasting and the subtlety of the process of the correct glass and the accompanying process. I liken it to tea culture in China which has a very specific method and ritual which accompanies the making and drinking of tea.


  
 
   

Tuesday, April 25

Good Morning 

Last night I went to Wades Wensen to celebrate the 500 anniversary of the English Club speeches hamburgers and beer. 

 

Wednesday, April 27 

So on Wednesdays, we started a mid-week idea, which we call "mid-week motivation" just to go out and have dinner at a local restaurant and chat and have a bit of a break. This restaurant is one we tried a few weeks ago and we wanted to give it another go as the food has recently been highly rated in somebodies blog or so I am told. It's always crammed with people and we had to wait to go in. It has some totally delicious dishes with lots of hot spicy flavours.  

 

    



Thursday I went to gym - don't feel like but gotta try.

  
Friday 28 April 

We usually go out to a bar or restaurant on a Friday that is some distance away, instead, we just had a meal at one of our favourite restaurants nearby School. The reason is, we have to go to work tomorrow to have a make-up day for a previous time when we had a brief period of lockdown at the end of the Covid crisis last year. But thankfully, next week we have the week off! 
This one is a Japanese restaurant and we had a variety of dishes including delicious fish and sushi as well as a couple of other delicious tasty dishes we all shared together. 

    











 


































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