tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40342701592581381682024-03-13T22:10:29.040+01:00The Casserole of LifeTales of a little fishBecca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-36612267563964404302011-07-14T23:12:00.006+02:002011-07-15T14:19:04.327+02:00Le chinois, je t'aimeI have just watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Paris, Je T'aime</span> in the hope that it might rekindle my lost love for the French language, the missing third of my degree which has not really crossed my mind in the past year. However what I hoped to be an exciting reintroduction to a lost passion turned out to be quite disappointing- I was depressingly reliant on the subtitles and, perhaps even more saddening, I found I didn't really care that much for the language anyway. Maybe my love for French will finally be revived after my month-long course in Dijon at the end of August but, for the moment, I think the spark has disappeared out of our once passionate relationship.<br /><br />On the other hand I think I am increasingly finding my niche in studying Chinese. Even though I have forgotten a fair amount of vocabulary and grammatical constructions since leaving Beijing, I am thouroughly enjoying my Chinese lessons here in Erlangen and in some ways, I think it has been benificial for me to have a short break in my learning of the language. More and more I am finding I get a 'kick' out of learning it and it is one of the few work-related things which I really look forward to doing. I am already planning to include Chinese in my PGCE (teaching qualification which hopefully I should be starting in 2012) but I am also strongly considering the idea of doing a Masters in Chinese Studies at some point in my life. To do it straight after my degree wouldn't be a great idea- I'd have to take out another large loan on top of my student loan and even so, I <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> want to become a teacher so why spend an extra year and a lot of money overqualifying myself? However I don't know whether I want to spend my whole life as a teacher so if I manage to get a certain amount of money together, an MA should still be an option for me if I want to pursue it.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC9491-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />On a somewhat lighter note: I think I may have discovered one of the tastiest foodstuffs ever. Milka-flavoured Philadelphia might sound a bit strange on paper but in reality is dangerously addictive and impossible not to eat large quantities of straight out of the tub. Sample at your peril! Except you can't sample any of mine because I've eaten it all.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Tschüss!</span>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-15340777526621244082011-05-27T13:37:00.004+02:002011-05-27T21:40:37.531+02:00Ohh, moppie moppie moppieLast weekend we travelled for 18+ hours each way and spent a ridiculous amount on train tickets in order to spend just over a day in Amsterdam. A waste of time and money? Definitely not!<br /><br />Amsterdam, we were told, is not particularly famous for any stunning architecture or historical sights; instead it is famous, or maybe that should be <span style="font-style:italic;">in</span>famous, for its liberal take on things, especially the legality of cannabis and prostitution. The city centre is built in the shape of an octagon (with a bit sliced off the top where it meets the water) and has canals running all around it. We spent the morning on a canal ride which was very much like all other touristy boat rides- not much to say there other than that it was very pleasant and watery. The afternoon became very hot and after posing in large letters saying '<span style="font-style:italic;">I am</span>sterdam' in the Museumplein everyone went for a paddle in a deliciously refreshing-looking fountain.. everyone except yours truly who stupidly decided to wear tights and had to sit out looking sad. We then paid 4€ to go round the Sex Museum and had a good giggle at all of the weird and wonderful phallic-shaped objects it contained.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/SAM_0160-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />In the evening we had a wander down to city's the red light district which was massively disorientating and a little bit scary (although I'm not sure how much of this was to do with the muffin I had eaten in a 'coffeeshop' a few hours beforehand) and consisted of narrow streets with prostitutes sitting in glass windows and large groups of men, presumably on stag dos, wandering round gawping at them. My lasting impression of the place was of the scary rubbery appearance of the prostitutes and the horrible leery eyes of the men, and I was glad to escape that area of the city and go and get a chocolate waffle.<br /><br />As soon as we arrived in Amsterdam I was tinged with sadness that our stay in the city would be so brief, however I think we managed to pack such a great deal into our day that I don't regret it one bit.<br /><br />By the way, the title is taken from a wonderful piece of Dutch hip-hop (call me naïve, but I didn't even know the genre existed) called 'Moppie', which we heard in the foyer of a hostel. Those interested can listen to it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq928LT6cuU">here</a>. Moppie apparantly means 'babe' in Dutch.<br /><br />Okay, I must dash as we're baking cakes this afternoon! My life has been devoid of banana bread for too long.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Tschüss!</span>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-28244695626399820412011-05-16T18:52:00.000+02:002011-05-16T21:52:15.461+02:00An effing good tripThis is an entry I have wanted to write for quite a while now; unfortunately, due to a nasty 3000-word German literature essay inconveniently getting in the way, I haven't been allowing myself to write anything non-academic. However this meant that instead of concentrating on my work, most of the time I just ended up writing nothing at all.<br /><br />But anyway, this entry is about my recent trips to Prague and then to a small village in Austria called Fucking, stopping off in Salzburg on the way.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Prague</span><br /><br />We went to Prague as a group of five: three Americans and two Brits. The whole trip was quite spontaneous- three days beforehand it just looked like it was going to remain a pipe dream until someone miraculously stumbled across a hostel with vacancies and so brought it to fruition.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC8716-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />Our first stop across the Czech border was in the town of Plzeň, the homeland of Pilsner beer. We thought that a place so close to the German border would be almost identical to Germany aside from the language.. how wrong we were. Admittedly we saw little of the town outside of the Eastern Bloc-era train station, but unfortunately what we did see lived up to all the wrong stereotypes: grey, grotty and run-down. We did however spot a large Tesco upon arrival, which caused much excitement for Kim and I and much confusion for the Americans. After an interesting 'conversation' with a lady selling tickets who spoke nothing but Czech, neither party understanding what the other was saying, we made it onto our connecting train into the capital.<br /><br />I do think that you get a much better taste of a country if travelling by train; whilst coursing through the Czech countryside we saw beautiful fields and forests which we would have missed entirely had we gone by plane.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC8631-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />Prague station was a world away from the one at Plzeň and it set the stage for Prague as a whole: a historic yet modern city full to the brim with tourists. The shopkeepers and waiters in the city spoke near-perfect English, and although I don't like to rely on others speaking my language when abroad, the handful of Czech phrases I had learnt for the trip wouldn't nearly have been enough to get me by.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC8657-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />As we were in the city over the Easter weekend, there were a large number of market stalls and food stands in the Old Town Square including a lot of places selling a Slovakian speciality called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trdeln%C3%ADk">trdelník</a>, a tasty sweet pastry grilled on a stick and covered in sugar and cinnamon. Another Easter tradition in the Czech Republic is for the boys to whip girls on the legs with wicker sticks called 'pomlazka', the tradition being that they bring youth and good health to those they are used on. Kim, Jenny and I (although we didn't know this background information at the time) saw some pomlazka in a shop, were drawn in by their charms and so bought one each. Needless to say a lot of whipping ensued.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSCN1050-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />We were all sad when our three days in Prague drew to a close, but less than twelve hours after arriving back home we set off again for our next adventure:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Salzburg and Fucking</span><br /><br />This trip was possibly the longest and furthest journey I would ever make to have my photo taken with a rude-sounding road sign. Before reaching the unfortunately named village of Fucking in the Austrian countryside, we had a six hour journey ahead of us to Salzburg, near the German-Austrian border. This, however, brings me to another reason why I love train travel- party time! Our large group of international students occupied the whole rear carriage of the train and, thanks to a swift trip to Lidl during our changeover in Landshut, we had with us copious amounts of alcohol to help pass the time.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC8731-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />I am ashamed to say that I managed to polish off quite a lot of beer during those few hours and by the time we arrived into Salzburg I wasn't sure I wanted to get off and would quite happily have stayed on the train for another round of YMCA. As a direct result of my beer consumption, my memories of us all venturing up to the castle and enjoying the beautiful panoramic views from the top are hazy at best.<br /><br />Our hostel was huge, painted orange inside and out and played The Sound of Music every night in the foyer, although we didn't stay there very long at all due to having to get up at 5:30 the next morning to set off for Fucking. The journey from Salzburg to Fucking was a complicated one: first we took a bus, then a train, then a coach, then the last part we did on foot. The weather was beautiful, as was the countryside we passed through, and as I had managed to escape a hangover I quite enjoyed the walk.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSCN1137-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />The village of Fucking bears no relation to its vulgar title: it is just a very unassuming settlement of pretty houses and farm buildings with the odd car passing through every so often. Nonetheless we had great fun posing in front of the signs and also managed to befriend a local cat who we tried to get into a photo of us but ended up vomiting just as the camera's shutter clicked.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC8873-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />I shall treasure my photos of the day we went to Fucking- definitely one to bring out in fifty years' time to prove that I was once young and interesting! This weekend a group of us are going to Amsterdam and I cannot wait for our next adventure.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Tchüss!<br /></span><em></em>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-81184071876538023332011-04-20T23:47:00.006+02:002011-04-22T14:49:40.589+02:00Ice creams and elderly bicyclesAside from my previous blog entry which largely consisted of me whinging because I couldn't afford to buy beer and bratwurst, I haven't updated you on my new life in Erlangen, a small town in northern Bavaria. Possibly one of the reasons why I haven't yet written anything about my German exploits is that this country doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">feel</span> terribly foreign: apart from the obvious language differences and presence of dirndls on the hangers in C&A, it feels very much like home, especially when compared to Beijing.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC7987-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />However, that doesn't mean that life here has been boring- there are (contrary to my fears before arriving) a large number of Erasmus students from around the world and the social life here is incredibly active. Unfortunately mine and my friend Kim's halls seem to be a long way from anywhere, especially where parties and the like are concerned, and so the best option to counter this was to somehow acquire a bike. I didn't really fancy spending too much on a bike and so when I saw a notice in the corridor advertising one for 60€ I enquired straight away. An hour later I was the proud owner of a pink and purple ladies' bike, complete with wonky saddle, one brake and a dodgy chain. Whilst riding it into town for the first time the other day I grappled with mixed feelings of regret at having bought such a death trap and the whimsical notion of 'oh well, at least it's got character'. Updates regarding my hospitalisation post-bicycle collapse are possibly to follow.<br /><br />Our term doesn't start for another couple of weeks and so far our only contact with the university (the snappily-titled Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) has been a three-day orientation course which included a session entitled 'cultural training'. We were told of the exacting nature of German people, warned never to annoy them by being late and, strangely, advised of the optimum distance to stand away from someone you don't know well (1.2 to 3.6 metres if anyone's interested).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSCN0989.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />Luckily the weather has for the most part been absolutely beautiful in Erlangen and, aside from trips to the zoo and various nearby towns, we have spent many an afternoon sunbathing in the town's gardens armed with ice creams and sunglasses. I'm sure the holiday feeling will be dissipated fairly swiftly with the arrival of lectures and studying, but for the meantime life in Germany is beautiful.Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-78808456769241923962011-04-09T19:34:00.005+02:002011-04-09T23:34:28.605+02:00Niedrige GefühleI have spent two weeks in Germany and right now I am finding myself nearing my lowest ebb. A week ago my purse went missing (I have a suspicion it was stolen) in Ikea, complete with 100€ and my bank cards. One of my friends has kindly lent me over 100€ in order for me to pay for essentials but I hate having to depend on people in such a way and I am sorely missing any financial independence I had prior to the disappearance of my purse. Today I have so far eaten three 15 cent rolls and as such used up the last pieces of shrapnel in the bottom of my bag, and if I don't receive any money in the next few days I don't really know what I will do. My parents have tried to send me £200 to get me by before I get my replacement bank cards through but as yet there has been no sign of it and now the situation seems to be getting ever more hopeless.<br /><br />Just over two weeks ago I was back in England with my boyfriend, my fantastic housemates and my money. My mantra to get me through these times so far on my year abroad has been 'it will get better' but at the moment all I want to do is to get on a plane (or train, or boat.. I'm not fussy) and escape back home.Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-51955805398583013722011-03-14T22:35:00.008+01:002011-03-15T00:17:13.841+01:00Another countdownAfter having faced another three-hour trip back to Aylesbury this evening, I have found myself in a rather industrious mood. However, rather than cracking on with the Chinese essay (in Chinese) that I really <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> be doing, I have strayed back into writing my blog and somehow deemed it necessary to give you a round-up of my life as of late.<br /><br />Some of you may not know that my return from China has not signalled the end of my travels- in just under two weeks I will leave the safety of the UK for the perils of, erm, Germany. Okay, so it doesn't rank quite as highly on the adventurousness scale as China did, but still the nerves are starting to make themselves felt and I have subconsciously begun to count down the days until my departure.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC6651copy.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />For me, the past week has contained two rather exciting happenings: the first being my four days at Crufts, the world's largest dog show, and the second being my first gig as a hired photographer. I have been to Crufts every year since I was eight and it was, as always, great fun. The photography job was brought about by the fact that my housemate Dave was directing a play and knew that I was keen on taking photos, and so asked me whether I would fancy being the photographer in return for a free ticket. I accepted with much enthusiasm and so on Wednesday night I came down to their dress reharsal armed with camera and lenses in order to get a set of decent images. I was a little worried as the last thing I wanted was to disappoint Dave and the cast, but I have been told that they were all very impressed with the results which gives me a great sense of accomplishment. I am now hoping to get a few similar jobs when I am back in Birmingham next year which is an incredibly exciting prospect and another step in the journey to possibly becoming a semi-professional at some point in the future.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC6535-1_filtered.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">For the next three days I shall be observing language teaching in a local school as required by the teaching course I am hoping to apply for- details of which I'm sure will follow shortly. Until then.. <span style="font-style: italic;">zaijian!</span><br /></div></div>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-79078508393109653012011-03-02T13:32:00.003+01:002011-03-02T17:39:48.309+01:00Danny's HolidayNow for my first entry based on the little white silhouette in the corner of this page- my dog Danny. Dan is a nearly-ten-year-old Shetland Sheepdog and has been my pride and joy since I was eleven. He has qualified for Crufts many times and has even taken me to the Young Kennel Club's agility finals in the NEC Arena.<br /><br />Sadly in recent years he has suffered quite a few health problems such as arthritis, diabetes and a nasty malignant tumour, but still he has a very sweet nature (albeit slightly timid) and is, in my eyes, a very special boy.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC6020-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />During my first two years of university and most of this year (unsurprisingly he couldn't join me in China) I have had to leave Dan in the care of my parents and although he is happy at home, I do miss him a lot. Fortunately the house in which I am currently staying with my friends doesn't seem to have a clause in the contract forbidding pets so when my parents went on holiday last week we decided to see how Dan would cope at being a student dog.<br /><br />I was slightly worried about having Danny come to stay, especially as a male dog with a previous for cocking his leg against people's sofas, but I am pleased to say he has coped admirably, so much so that even after my parents' return he has stayed in Birmingham to keep me company. My housemates seem to enjoy having him around the house and, after a lot of bribery involving prawns and cheese, Danny is slowly making friends with them too.<br /><br />The biggest test came on Wednesday night when we had a large number of people round in the evening and I was slightly anxious that Danny would be reduced to a nervous wreck. However I needn't have worried- I left him up in my bedroom with a bowl of water and after a short while came to check on him to find him asleep on the floor, cool as a cucumber.<br /><br />The best thing about having Dan here in Birmingham is that having a more active lifestyle seems to have taken years off him. He appears to really enjoy being in a more busy environment and has been much brighter here than he does at home, where he tends to become a bit lethargic after a while. He even came with us to the letting agents when we had to sign the contract for our new house- not something that many dogs can claim to have done.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC6029-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Now that I know Danny can handle the student lifestyle I have my fingers crossed that our landlord next year will allow him- here's hoping! I am so proud of my little boy.<br /></div></div>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-85679826183064017862011-02-14T15:07:00.005+01:002011-02-14T16:19:50.005+01:00Stray memories #1- the jianbingOne of my housemates asked me yesterday, 'so Becca, what exactly do you <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> with your days at the moment?' Unfortunately my answer would have to be 'embarrassingly little'. A proper update will come when I have enough material to amuse you with, but until then I shall write some more about my favourite topic: life in Beijing.<br /><br />I have decided to do a series of entries about the little things that filled in the gaps between the more impressive-sounding stuff whilst I was in China; the features of everyday life that, for me, have become much fonder memories than visiting a famous historical site ever could be.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSCN0726.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />The first of these is the jianbing. A favourite amongst Beijingers as an on-the-go breakfast food (although I don't think I could bring myself to eat quite so much stodge before noon), jianbings are usually sold by street vendors manning little carts at the very reasonable price of 3 kuai or about 30p. The name literally translates as 'shallow fried round foodstuff' which doesn't give many clues as to its contents: essentially the jianbing is a large pancake with an egg spread over it onto which are sprinkled some coriander and spring onions; a dash of spicy sauce is added and lastly a square of fried crispy pastry is put on top before the whole thing is folded up and popped into a plastic sandwich bag.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/Jian-Bing.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />My first experience of the snack came about rather by accident- I went out one evening in search of some chocolate fish (another tasty street food) but found that the man selling them wasn't in his usual place. Instead was a lady selling from a little cart with a gaggle of Chinese students standing around it. Without any idea of what she was selling, I tentatively went up to her and asked for one. She asked me whether I wanted every ingredient put into my mystery dish, to which I nervously smiled and nodded, and a few seconds later I was handed a steaming bag of unknown food. Unfortunately upon further inspection I realised that my purchase had a large amount of coriander in it, one of those things which I'm just really not keen on, but my enthusiasm for jianbings (I later found the name of it on someone else's blog) remained.<br /><br />After telling my Chinese friend Christina about my new discovery, she instructed me on how to ask for no coriander and so a few days later I made jianbing attempt number two. This time I snaffled the whole thing up in record time and it was so tasty that I did for a while consider going back and getting another. From then on I became an avid (some would say unhealthily so) fan of the food and since my arrival back in England have been craving it immensely.<br /><br />Jianbings are best eaten when cold, hungry or short on cash- if you ever find yourself a little peckish whilst wandering the streets of Beijing then I can think of no better thing to buy! <span style="font-style: italic;">Zaijian!</span>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-4536161274956666852011-01-31T17:11:00.000+01:002011-01-31T18:34:08.450+01:00One week in the Midlands (of China)Not long after our friendship group (nicknamed 'The Lads'- I was the only female member) had started to take shape, we decided that it would be fun to venture out on a bit of travelling before we all left for our respective home countries. We initially looked into going down to the southern provinces of Yunnan and Hainan but after chasing round a number of Beijing hospitals trying to find malaria tablets with very little success, it was decided that we should visit somewhere we would find interesting yet which didn't face us with the possibility of catching a deadly disease. Eventually we decided to take the following route:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/map.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chengdu</span><br /><br />After a three-hour flight, during which we were presented with some of what I imagine would be a strong contender for the title of Worst Airline Food Ever, we touched down in the green, leafy city of Chengdu, the largest settlement in Sichuan province. I was immediately struck by how much more habitable it seemed than Beijing: the skyline was lower, the roads weren't quite as tightly rammed with cars and the air felt far more humid than the biting winds of the capital. Sim's Cozy Garden Hostel, which was to be our home for the next four nights, was nicely done out and had a great cheap-and-cheerful atmosphere. Luckily the seven of us had a room to ourselves and the first night consisted of staying up chatting and giggling like ten-year-olds at a sleepover until we finally succumbed to our tiredness at 4 in the morning.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zASjv2z6dEg/TUbWCtC9d2I/AAAAAAAAACs/KPn1A8z-BTE/s1600/DSC05271-2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zASjv2z6dEg/TUbWCtC9d2I/AAAAAAAAACs/KPn1A8z-BTE/s320/DSC05271-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568373331230291810" border="0" /></a><br />On our first morning in Chengdu we took a bus to the Tibetan quarter of town and, although fascinated by the glimpse it provided of a different way of life, we were saddended to be presented with the terrible poverty that surrounded us on the streets. The mood was lifted as we had lunch in a traditional Tibetan restaurant and stuffed ourselves with delicious meaty baozi and a new favourite of mine, yak pie.<br /><br />Chengdu is home to a large panda breeding centre and so on the second morning we went and had a look. Pandas generally wake early, stuff themselves with bamboo and then sleep for the rest of the day, saving their energy for the rare occasion when they decide to mate (or 'copulate' as the centre eloquently put it) and so at 8am we were already standing poised beside their enclosures with our cameras at the ready . They didn't disappoint- we stood there for hours, mesmerised by these adorable vegetarian bears which lay on their backs crunching through sticks of bamboo. We were then shown a video which told us in detail of the complicated process which goes into getting pandas to procreate and of how, at six weeks old, the panda cubs leave their mother to go and socialise with their 'contemporaries'. We also stumbled across a photo of John Prescott cuddling a baby panda on a visit to the centre which tickled the Brits among us.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC5476copy.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />Whilst staying in Chengdu we also went for Sichuan <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotpot#Regional_variations">hotpot</a> (sounds fun in theory, in reality it was a bit of a faff), drove a long way out of the city to visit a giant Buddha carved into a cliff at Leshan and taught the young son of a restaurant owner how to high-five and give a thumbs-up.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/RSCN0652-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />All in all, Chengdu was a lovely place to stay and a refreshing change from dry, mucky Beijing. Perhaps we were all a little too optimistic when we boarded the two-hour train to..<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chongqing</span><br /><br />I do not wish to give Chongqing a bad name, but my experience of the place was not pleasant. Even though the grey skies and temperatures on the wrong side of zero didn't do the city much justice, I think that even on a good day it wouldn't be the most aesthetically pleasing of places. We took a hilly bus ride from the station to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciqikou,_Chongqing">Ciqikou</a>, the traditional market area in which the hostel was located, and wandered around for what felt like ages trying to find our home for the night. Perfect Time Hostel unfortunately didn't quite live up to its name- it wasn't expensive at £2.90 a night but for that much I still would have appreciated the back door to have been closed instead of allowing a freezing draught to work its way into our unheated bedrooms. We whiled away the evening in the (also chilly) bar, drinking Tsingtao beer, playing pool and murdering various pop hits on the hostel's karaoke machine. I then spent an incredibly uncomfortable night curled up tightly underneath a thin duvet and waking up periodically to nurse my icy feet, and when the morning finally came I wasn't sad at all to be able to wave goodbye to the place as we left for the airport.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC5609-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />Our main reason for staying in Chongqing was that the flights out of there were a lot cheaper than from Chengdu, but there must have been some kind of error with the travel agent we booked with because after rushing to get to the airport for what we thought was an early morning flight, checking in our baggage and passing through security, we looked at our tickets and realised that we had turned up nine hours early for boarding. However what could have been an incredibly boring day with us getting on each other's nerves actually turned out to be quite good fun, with the help of a pack of playing cards and comfy sofas provided by Starbucks.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nanjing<br /></span><span><br />Our arrival in Nanjing was, for me, somewhat tinged with sadness, as for Dan and I it would be the final leg of our journey and the place where we would have to say goodbye to our friends, not knowing when we would see many of them again. Our base for the three nights we would spend there, the Jasmine Hostel, wasn't too bad, even though Clare and I discovered with horror that we had a heavily snoring roommate who had a habit of leaving orange peel all over the floor.<br /><br />On the first day we made the unanimous decision to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, a large area devoted to the large number of Nanjingers who lost their lives to the Japanese in 1937. We ended up staying there for nearly five hours which, although interesting, was incredibly intense and by the end we all felt a bit overwhelmed by the melancholy atmosphere and the vast amounts of historical information which were presented to us.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC5629-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /></span><br /></div><span><br />On our second day in Nanjing and our last full day together we took a bus out of town and climbed a mountain that would have been quite pleasant had there been less litter lying about, then took a little road train to Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum (I don't quite know the details of why he was so important but I was told he was the founder of modern China). Despite the cold winds there were Chinese tourists in abundance and Clare and I were hounded for quite a while by a group of women seemingly desperate to have their photo taken with two white girls.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC5672-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /></span><br /></div><span><br />That night we went out to a nice duck restaurant near the hostel and sat around making toasts and laughing about the fun times we'd had together. We ambled back to the hostel's bar where the chatting and joking continued, with Dan and I drinking celebratory shots of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baijiu">baijiu</a> forced upon us by the others. We then had a surprise as Jack and Alex had made up songs for each of us which, although hilarious in parts, left me with tears streaming down my face by the end. Thinking back to that night still leaves me feeling sad as I remember how none of us really wanted to go to bed because that would signal the end of our journey together.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC5662-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /></span><br /></div><span><br />Unfortunately this story doesn't have a very pleasant ending- Dan and I were rudely awoken at 4am in order to catch our flight back to Beijing and we parted with sleepy, tearful goodbyes in the freezing cold. We arrived back to a very empty-feeling Building 17 but made the best of the next couple of days with trips to the Forbidden City and down to our local on the last night.<br /><br />And that brings me up to the start of my previous blog entry.. if you've read through all of this then congratulations! <span style="font-style: italic;">Zaijian!</span><br /></span>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-25811146640627388252011-01-24T10:26:00.008+01:002011-02-14T16:30:30.377+01:00Rounding off a square peg<div style="text-align: left;">At 7:25 am last Tuesday morning, after an unsuccessful attempt at a night's sleep inside Beijing Capital Airport, I boarded the plane that would take me away from the new life I had been living in China and plant me back into the my old one in the UK (via Dubai). As I watched the city disappear beneath me I struggled to balance feelings of regret and sadness at leaving behind my friends and my Beijing life but also immense excitement at what awaited me in Birmingham- I had told my boyfriend that I would be back in February but planned to come back three weeks early as a birthday surprise for him. Despite a couple of instances which could have proved disastrous and ruined my plans, including my entry on the guestlist of a ball I wasn't supposed to be able to come to and drunken Skype calls which I later analysed scrupulously to make sure I hadn't slipped up and told him, the surprise went perfectly and his reaction as I nonchalantly strolled through the door of the kitchen was absolutely fantastic.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/_DSC5703-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />I hadn't envisaged that I would experience reverse culture shock and rather expected my first trip back into the centre of Birmingham to be accompanied by a rush of excitement and a wave of immense happiness similar to greeting an old friend; instead it was grey, drab and a bit of a disappointment. I wandered around aimlessly whilst reeling at the extortionate prices of things in comparison to those in China and, deciding to try and bring back a bit of my Beijing life, bought two large packs of frozen dumplings from a Chinese supermarket. I realised that I was in a similar position to when I was away and trying to seek out things that reminded me of my life back home- now I was doing the opposite and looking for things which I had back in China in order to cling on to the memories of the good times I had out there.<br /><br />That said, being reunited with my family and friends has been nothing short of amazing and my slight feeling of being a bit disconnected doesn't at all mean that I was disappointed to see <span style="font-style: italic;">them</span>. On Friday night I was treated to a second Christmas dinner with my family, complete with crackers, a tree and Shakin' Stevens- a little more traditional than my Beijing Christmas but highly enjoyable nonetheless.<br /><br />One amusing result of having spent nearly five months in another country where few people speak English has been the loss of my inhibitions about saying anything I want due to people not being able to understand me. I think I embarrassed my brother the other day when we were standing in a queue at the Co-op whilst waiting for a train and I was loudly whispering 'come on, come on, stop faffing about!' before realising that everyone was probably thinking to themselves what an impatient so-and-so I was.<br /><br />I have yet to update this blog on the adventures we had during our week of travelling before I left China but I think that belongs in another post to stop this one from becoming too long. Zaijian everyone!Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-86651460826532111172011-01-06T16:37:00.010+01:002011-01-06T18:42:02.900+01:00ConflictionI have never felt so torn in my life. In the same way that it felt surreal to think that I was going to Beijing in the weeks leading up to my departure date, it is now hard to properly take in the fact that the time I have left here is so limited. I had to drop everything and completely put my life on hold to come here and in doing so I feel as if I have entered a bubble on the other side of the world- a microcosm of the real world where I had to start afresh and create a new life out of nothing. But what a fantastic life mine has been here: I have seen amazing sights, eaten a wide range of weird foodstuffs and have had experiences which I could never have dreamt of before coming to China. However the memories which I think I will treasure the most are those of the times I have shared with the people I have met here- whether good or bad, drunken or studious. I have had the privilege of getting to know such a vast range of characters from all around the world, people who have managed to put a smile on my face every day, that I now feel as if my heart is caught between here and home and I imagine it will take a fair amount of time before this feeling goes away.Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-78048436989145554442010-12-28T05:48:00.012+01:002011-01-07T21:49:18.404+01:00Hao hao hao!If I'm perfectly honest, I was a bit worried that Christmas in Beijing would be something of a non-event: a day spent trying my best to put on a brave face and to not become too wistful about family gatherings going on back at home. Not so! Celebrating the festive period here has been a brilliant experience and whilst spending it half the world away from my family is not something I'd like to make a regular thing of, this has without doubt been one of the best Christmases I have ever had.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC05139copy.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />It was a lucky coincidence that Christmas day fell on a Saturday this year- had it been on a weekday, we would've been in lessons doing revision for our fast approaching end-of-term exams. Christmas eve's lessons were spent playing games and exchanging white elephant presents with our classmates, which ranged from the attractively decorated bottle opener I received (my teacher let out a squeal of amusement when I opened it, exclaiming that it was a really fitting present for me) to a packet of chicken's feet which luckily no-one had the misfortune of having to open. The day was made even more amusing by the fact that three of my best friends had decided to dress up as Father Christmas (or 'the Christmas old man' in Chinese') for the day, which garnered them a huge amount of attention, particularly from gaggles of female Chinese students who seemed to delight in the opportunity to have their photo taken with three Western Santas.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSCN0521-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />We also had a get-together in our halls the night before to do a bit of carol singing which was fantastic and got us all into the rowdy Christmas spirit, but unfortunately the maintenance staff didn't quite have the same appreciation for our singing and on more than one occasion we were shushed and told to move on. Looking back I can't really blame them though as I don't think any of us exactly has the voice of an angel and we were being <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> loud.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Just before Christmas, my friends Dan and Tom told me they were going to seek out the only microbrewery in Beijing and, being an avid beer drinker in the mood for a bit of adventure, I tagged along with them. As the brewery was situated a fair walk from the nearest subway station and with temperatures of around -8<b>°</b>c outside we decided that we would be daring and take a ride in a slightly dodgy-looking motorised rickshaw. These tiny vehicles are basically a motor-trike with an aluminium cover over the back and I very much doubted their stability over the bumpy hutong roadways with three people squashed into the back seat, but our driver seemed dead set on proving me wrong, turning corners at break-neck speed and zooming across potholes in the road with seemingly no regard in the slightest for the safety limits of his little cab. By the end of the ride my nerves were thoroughly in tatters and I had a newfound appreciation for the steadiness of the ground beneath my feet.<br /><br />Unfortunately the brewery was not the easiest of places to find and we ended up wandering around in the dimly lit hutongs long enough for our toes to become quite numb from the cold. At last we came across a small sign reading 'Great Leap Brewing' and stumbled into the semi-warmth of a sparsely furnished bar. We were greeted by a young Chinese man who told apologetically told us that the place was closed as the owners were away, but he must have noticed our crestfallen faces and told us that we could come in for a drink if we wanted. We gratefully sat down at the bar and ordered our drinks- I had a delicious chocolate stout whilst the boys went for pints of pumpkin ale. The man (apparantly the IT guy although at the time he seemed to be tending to the large fridges chilling the alcohol) served us a bowl of spicy nuts and as we chatted for a while about the owners it transpired that they hailed from Cleveland, Ohio, which also happened to be Dan's hometown. Eventually we said our goodbyes and vowed that if we had enough time, we would pay the place another visit before we went home.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC05136-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />On Christmas day our group of friends decided to go to one of our favourite restaurants in the area, a Japanese place where you can pay 58 kuai (about £5.80) for all-you-can-eat-and-drink for two hours in a little private room with a low table. The atmosphere was fantastic and I needn't have worried about not feeling festive as the Christmassy feeling seemed to be shared by everyone. After having stuffed ourselves with sushi, tempura and fried tofu, we sat round giving out secret Santa presents and taking part in a quiz set by my friend Alex which, incidentally, our team managed to win. That night we went out to a Korean bar and drank huge shots of a spirit called soju whilst each of us gave short speeches (most of which left me with tears in my eyes) about how much we would miss everyone and how thankful we were to have found such great friends whilst stranded over here. The evening was rounded off by hiring a room in a KTV karaoke bar, highlights of which included tuneless renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody and a bold attempt from Alex to rap a section of Justin Bieber's 'Baby'.<br /><br />What can I say- Christmas in Beijing has been an unexpected yet unequivocal success! Now to get our heads down for the exams looming in the near future.. but it's not all doom and gloom as we're currently finalising plans and booking flights to go travelling around China in a couple of weeks. Until next time- zaijian!<br /></div>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-54898487074649062362010-11-14T22:40:00.001+01:002010-11-14T15:19:39.000+01:00An orange-tinted incident and other musingsI think with each new day I spend in Beijing I love this place a little bit more. I am now nearly halfway through my time spent here and already I am starting to get the odd pang of regret that the good times here won't last forever and that staying here is an experience that I'll probably never get to repeat again, or at least under the same circumstances.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04713-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />My affections for this city are probably due in no small part to the friendliness and warmth of the locals here; whether chatting to the lady at our favourite little café serving <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi">baozi</a> or asking a passer-by the directions to the subway station, all the while trying hard to decipher the gruff Beijing accent, we have always been made to feel incredibly welcome here despite our lack of any great competence in Chinese. It didn't take long for me to go from feeling a sense of fear and bewilderment upon arrival to realising that Beijing isn't really anything to be scared of and feeling that I could go wherever I wanted alone without being scared.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04764-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />One evening a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in my room feeling at a bit of a loose end and mindlessly playing with my hair when I realised it could do with another splash of colour. I ambled down to Watson's (the Chinese equivalent of Boots) and came back with a packet of L'Oréal hair dye named something like Creamy Mocha, not having taken heed of the fact that the lady on the packet seemed to be of Chinese origin. After having put all of the strong-smelling dye into my hair it crossed my mind that maybe this product wasn't designed for fine, light-coloured caucasian hair but I decided to wait and see what the end result would be. Unfortunately upon washing the dye out my fears were reaffirmed as my hair seemed to be peculiarly lighter than before, and when drying it off I looked on aghast as my hair went from a dark auburn when wet to a fierce shade of amber when dry. It had also become dry as a bone and hideously static, which now means that stepping out of a car or taking off my coat and subsequently touching something results in myself or anyone involved getting a mini electric shock.<br /><br />A few days later, after having tried and failed to learn to like my brassy mop, I plucked up the courage to make a trip to the hairdressers' on campus, thinking that my hair had probably suffered the worst already. I explained as best I could to a delicate-looking assistant what had happened, to which he smiled knowingly and asked 'do you know why the dye didn't work?' I nodded gravely and said that I'd realised it was designed for Chinese hair and he looked at me sympathetically, told me that he could help me and tried to talk me into paying for the most expensive hair colourant they had on offer. After telling him I was short on money, I settled for a more reasonably-priced colour and shortly after was whisked into a chair by a lady who told me a lot of things that I didn't quite understand and, probably before I could change my mind, was having another bottle of pungent dye painted into my hair. Whilst I waited nervously for the colouring process to take effect, a number of other employees of the place came up to me, either telling me more things that I didn't understand (I have become rather adept at the 'smile-and-nod' response in these kinds of situations) or trying to get me to pay for further lotions and potions to be put into my hair. When the time came for the dye to be washed out I was feeling more than a little dazed and my mind was racing as I wondered whether my hair could in fact have become even worse than it was before. Luckily the lady had done a fairly satisfactory job and so with a smile on my face I waved goodbye to Mr Delicate Hard-Sell and breathed a sigh of relief as I stumbled back out into the chilly Beijing twilight.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04605-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />Lastly I thought I'd share with you this little beauty of a cake- for six kuai (about 60p) you can buy a masterpiece in the medium of icing and, although the sweetened cream to cake ratio was probably about three parts cream, one part sponge, I still managed to polish the whole thing off.Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-60321808060912387022010-10-16T16:31:00.011+02:002010-10-17T03:36:05.360+02:00On-on!<div style="text-align: left;">Da jia hao!<br /></div><br />Unfortunately it seems that once again this blog has been left slightly neglected, although I'm pleased to say that unlike previously when I didn't want to update on what a good time I was having when frankly I wasn't, this time my forgetting to do so has been due to my life becoming increasingly busy, exciting and, at times, slightly nerve-wracking.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04500-2.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />So what have I been up to in the few weeks that have passed since my last entry? One thing our little gang has been doing is working our way through the famous sights in an around Beijing. This has ranged from exploring the oasis of calm which was the Back Lakes and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong">hutongs</a> which gave us a fascinating (if slightly mocked-up) glimpse of the Beijing of yesteryear, risking life and limb pedalo-ing on Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace and braving the onslaught of 'hey lady, you want a bags? I have Louis Vuitton for beautiful lady!' at the Silk Market, a Mecca for cheap but unashamedly fake designer labels. Last but not least we went through the apparant rite of passage for all tourists in China and made a trip to that most famous of attractions, the Great Wall. Unfortunately we visited on a particularly hot day so walking along the wall itself wasn't an especially pleasant experience after a while, but what made up for it was the chairlift up the mountain which, although a bit dicey-looking, offered fantastic views, and the descent back down again, which comprised of sliding down hundreds of metres of metal track on a little toboggan which seemed to have the ability to reach scarily high speeds incredibly quickly! However even more scary was the driving of our taxi driver on the way back to the bus stop; I think the British police would have a field day arresting people for dangerous driving if they were operating in China.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/100_0499-2.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br />One recently added facet to my life here has been my acquisition of a job. A few weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and reply to an advert regarding teaching six to seven-year-olds at a small after-school centre near the university. After having psyched myself up for the interview I made my way down to the centre, only to be approached by a young guy asking if I'd like to work tutoring teenagers at a different language centre. A little overwhelmed, I gave him my details and carried on to my interview. Upon arriving I was greeted by a lady named Polaris 'but you can call me Fish' (a slightly strange choice of nickname perhaps, but given that my Chinese name is Xiaoyu or 'little fish' I can hardly talk) and was subsequently told to plan and conduct a short lesson teaching food and drink vocabulary, with the other teachers acting as pupils. Feeling rather as if I'd been thrown in at the deep end, I held up some flashcards and, trying not to let my nerves show, attempted to teach my 'students' the names of various foodstuffs. I must admit a certain part of me died inside when forced to teach them the word 'candy' in place of 'sweets', but I realise that anywhere you go a certain amount of Americanisation (-zation?) is inevitable.<br /><br />Anyway, I also went to an interview for the second job the following day which went in a slightly more straighforward manner, and ended up in the position of having been landed with two jobs in two days. I did for a short while consider taking both of them on but after some thought decided that it would've been too much to do long-term. Instead I plumped for the second job due to the fact that the first interview scared me slightly and that in general I felt more comfortable with the prospect of teaching young adults than small children.<br /><br />Not long after my interview I got a call from my new boss telling me of an art school on the other side of the city that needed a teacher for their supplementary English lessons. Although slightly daunting, especially upon entering the room and receiving a large number of stares from my new students, my first lesson went really well under the circumstances and after the two hours I was left buzzing with the adrenalin of taking myself out of my comfort zone and finding that here was something I could actually be pretty good at. One thing that did help my cause was the combination of the respect that the Chinese have for their teachers and my students' apparant fascination with this young female westerner who had come to teach them the conjugations of 'to have' and 'to be'. After the lesson I was approached by a large female contingent of the class asking for my autograph and to have their photo taken with me; the male students instead decided to give me a classic 'I love you!' upon parting. I give my third lesson in a couple of days' time- hopefully I will manage to maintain their enthusiasm once (if?) the novelty of being taught by me has worn off.<br /><br />Another new experience that I recently underwent here was my first time running with the <a href="http://www.hash.cn/">Beijing Hash House Harriers</a>, an eccentric expat club that describes itself as 'a drinking club with a running problem'. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I had taken to doing a few laps round the uni's running track every few days but this, it seems, was no preparation for the full-on assault on the system that was last Sunday's run. At the pre-run meet we came across Hashers of various nationalities, although mostly American, who introduced themselves not by their birth name (apparantly a taboo in the world of Hashing) but with names such as 'Snot', 'Petting Zoo' and 'Lil Sai W***er'. The run consisted of following a trail through the hutongs laid down by the leaders or 'hares', complete with a beer stop and loud cries of 'on-on!', 'are you?' and 'open check!' to keep us all on the right path. What was most amusing was the looks on the faces of the local inhabitants who seemed incredibly bemused by this large group of foreigners rampaging through their backstreets. The run ended with us standing in a large circle armed with copious amounts of Tsingtao beer and singing various rowdy, sexist and innuendo-loaded songs which all ended with us taking a few large swigs from our bottles. The most amusing (and true) of these songs was the Beijing Hash Song, sung to the tune of 'Daisy, Daisy' and with the following lyrics:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Beijing! Beijing! </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">a wonderful place to hash</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We have great fun</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Dodging the shit and trash</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Our skies are never clear</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">But we have cheaper beer</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We like our drink, our singing stinks.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Welcome to the Beijing hash.</span><br /><br /><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04382-2.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Lastly, it seems that I'm not the only person who, in naming this blog, has likened the multifariousness (I'll admit to having found that word with the help of a thesaurus) of life to a casserole; upon doing a quick Google of the title I discovered that the band Guttermouth has written a song of the same name, with a a chorus which goes '<span style="font-style: italic;">the versatile diversity of </span><em style="font-style: italic;">casserole</em><span style="font-style: italic;"> is similar to living </span><em style="font-style: italic;">life</em><span style="font-style: italic;"> / The ingredients are things that you can't live without</span>' etc. etc. Although not the most lyrically poetic of songs, I was very excited to find out this little gem of information.<br /><br />Righty-ho, I think by now this post is definitely long enough so time to say my goodbyes.. zaijian!<br /></div></div>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-10174258599769334822010-09-20T13:35:00.010+02:002010-12-28T07:53:09.401+01:00AutumnI hadn't anticipated it taking quite so long for me to write my next blog post; unfortunately over the past couple of weeks or so I have been a little bit up-and-down due to a certain amount of homesickness and the realisation of just how long I will be spending in China. I think for the first week or so we were all fairly buoyed up by the novelty of being in Beijing and the inevitable 'holiday' feeling and not until after then did it hit us that we would all have to carve ourselves some kind of temporary life here. However, much as I dislike the term 'culture shock' (to me it sounds unnecessarily dramatic), I think that that was what I was suffering from and feel that now it is a period I have left behind, for the most part.<br /><br />One aspect of China which I found very hard to deal with was the weather; for the first two weeks or so the temperature reached 30+ degrees pretty much every day which made it incredibly tiring to do anything aside from sitting in an air-conditioned room not doing much. Fortunately a few days ago the weather 'turned' very suddenly: Thursday had been sweltering but then that night the heavens opened and Friday turned out to be rather crisp, in Chinese terms at least. Not only has this change made life more bearable here, I think it has made this place a lot less alien to me to have some more British-like weather. One downside of the rain is that it sets off the alarms of all the electric mopeds which seem to be very popular with Beijingers. The other night whilst I was trying to get to sleep I could hear about three alarms all sounding almost constantly; needless to say after a while I was starting to hatch a plan in my mind involving hacking the things apart with a sledgehammer. Even now, with the rain not even coming down too heavily, I am relying on my headphones and the soothing music of <a href="http://www.myspace.com/messagetobears">Message to Bears</a> to stop myself from banging my head against the wall in frustration at hearing the same shrill noise over and over again.<br /><br />But less of that- I'm sure you didn't come here to listen to me whinging. With the novelty of having a temperate climate again we made our second attempt yesterday at seeing some of the sights that Beijing has to offer and took the subway to the Beijing Olympic Park. (Our first attempt, incidentally, did not go well: after going through the assault of an hour and a half on the subway we arrived at Tian'anmen Square to shortly after have to give up due to the unbearable heat and return home again.) Upon exiting the station we were suddenly hit by a feeling we didn't know we'd been missing since being in Beijing: a sense of open space. Even though the place is apparantly visited by 20-30,000 people a day, it still felt liberating and somewhat calming to be in the middle of such a vast expanse of space.<br /><br /><a href="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04276-2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 199px;" src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04276-2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The stadium itself was very impressive; I'm still unsure about how pleasing to the eye the 'bird's nest' structure really is but it was certainly well worth the £2.50 I paid to look inside. It struck me as strange that the stadium has been relatively unused since the Olympics and the place certainly felt like something of an empty shell whilst walking around.<br /><br /><a href="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04281-2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 199px;" src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04281-2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />One thing that seemed strange at first but which I have since come to enjoy is the apparant novelty of white people in Beijing. Whilst standing outside the Bird's Nest taking photos my friend Emma and I would often turn round to find that there was someone else taking a photo of us! It took a while to get used to but we have come to realise that this fascination with Caucasians isn't anything sinister and is in fact fairly innocent and good-natured. Quite a few couples have come up to us whilst gesturing with their cameras; at first we thought that they wanted us to take a photo of them but then one of them would stand inbetween us whilst the other person takes a picture. Emma and I have also received a fair few comments telling us that we are 'hen piaoliang' (beautiful) which I imagine will do wonders for our self-esteem as time goes by! Despite our current lack of competency at conversing in Chinese, the vast majority of people here seem to be more than happy to serve a group of lost-looking Brits and everything is carried out in good humour.<br /><br />A few days ago I started something which I never envisaged I would do before coming to China: running. My friend Jack is apparantly a keen runner and after hearing him talk about it I was inspired to give it a go myself and so, on Friday, he and I headed down to the BLCU sports track for a bit of a jog. I managed to impress myself by doing seven laps of an 400m track, not a lot relatively but I wasn't expecting much. This evening we went for a second run and, despite still having sore legs from last time, I managed another seven laps and next time I think I will try for eight. The feeling that physical activity gives you is just amazing and anyway, I think I need something to work off the extra calories that all this Chinese food is inevitably supplying me with.<br /><br /><a href="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04301-2copy.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 199px;" src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04301-2copy.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Apologies that this post has been so ridiculously long; I wasn't expecting to be able to write so much! Zaijian folks!Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-51877786448680680062010-09-07T12:35:00.004+02:002010-09-07T17:17:21.842+02:00Define 'erinaceous'.As time goes by, I have found myself more able to overcome my embarrassment at my grasp of the Chinese language, which, despite my fairly good exam results at Birmingham University, has proved to be fragile to say the least. I am now proficient in gesticulating in the direction of what I want and tentatively uttering '这个' ('this one') and after having got whatever I require, smiling and saying '謝謝' along with a slight sigh of relief. Unfortunately, even though the term at BLCU has now started and we now receive four hours' Chinese tuition a day, I cannot see this helping us much for the forseeable future due to the tedium and low standard of the classes we have been set in. It's not that we are far above our peers in terms of ability- some of my classmates have lived in China for a year already- but the tutors just seem to think that the incredibly pedestrian pace they have set is the right one to help us on the way to becoming competent at Chinese. This morning we had to sit through our classmates standing up at the front and introducing themselves numerous times, so much so that if I hear another '你是哪国人?' ('which country are you from?) I think I will cry.<br /><br />That slight disappointment aside, I think Beijing and I are slowly making friends, albeit friends with the kind of relationship where the other person always proves slightly confusing to you but you still like them, all things considered. Until today I had never seen someone riding as a passenger on a push bike whilst standing bolt upright, an example of many things I have seen here which would seem stupid or dangerous to us in the West but which here are just considered handy ways of getting about life. One novelty I have yet to get over is the incredible cheapness of pretty much everything: the most expensive shop I have been to so far is probably IKEA, which I imagine is seen as a rather luxurious, aspirational brand intended for Beijingers who want to give their home that proper 'western' look.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC02208-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /></div><br /><br />Lastly, the four of us had an amusing but completely unexpected early-evening adventure last night: after having escaped the Cernet shop (which provides all the internet across campus) after two and a half hours of queuing, my friend Emma and I were dragging ourselves exhaustedly back to Building 17 when we were approached by an anxious-looking Chinese woman who asked us 'you English?' We nodded and told her we were, which seemed to make her day judging from the broad smile which crossed her face as she handed us a piece of paper each. It read, '<span style="font-style: italic;">iPhone recording part-time job. Just 30-40 minutes' recording and the payment is 100 kua</span>i' (about £10). Thinking this might be a nice little earner, we told her we'd be back in ten minutes after we'd dropped our laptops off. It then crossed our minds that this might not be all that it seemed, and so hoping for a little protection, we enlisted our friends Alex and Jack who also seemed keen to join in on the action. We rejoined our Chinese lady, who seemed very excited that we had doubled in number since she last saw us, and attempted to flag down a taxi. After a few failed attempts, we finally found one to take us to our 'studio', our lady telling the driver where to take us.<br /><br />Upon getting out of the taxi we were pounced upon by a young man who had probably been told to look out for four bemused-looking English students. We were then led into a large office building, shown into the boardroom of an establishment with a name along the lines of 'Kings Data Recording Ltd', and told that we would be split off into twos with two of us doing the recordings whilst the others were taken by a colleague to have a bite to eat. Alex and I, feeling hungry at the time, decided to go for the latter, and were taken by the excitable woman to this fairly respectable-looking fast food restaurant next to the office block. She recommended us a beef dish which looked strange in the picture and even stranger in real life, but it was tasty and she was footing the bill so we couldn't complain. Our hunger now satisfied, we were led back up to the office, told to sit at separate desks and given an iPhone each. We were then given a list of commonly searched phrases to read out into the phone which ranged from the mundane 'weather in the West Midlands' to the mildly amusing 'search Bieber Fever' to the frankly bizarre 'define 'erinaceous''. We both struggled to hold back giggles at various points but the staff seemed satisfied that we'd done an adequate job and after having read out all of our phrases we were all handed our 100元 and, feeling that we'd done well for an evening which would otherwise have probably been spent in the bar, we walked out into the balmy Beijing evening with smiles on our faces.<br /><br />The definition of erinaceous, if you had been wondering, is: 'of, pertaining to, or resembling a hedgehog.'Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-12904680396246158802010-09-03T15:31:00.005+02:002010-09-03T17:03:58.835+02:00And so begins the Chinese part..Beijing is, in short, the most insane place I have ever been. My first impressions of the place were not good; after exiting the huge and rather sterile airport late last night I was greeted by a warm smelly fug and a slightly dangerous-looking taxi rank with impatient drivers rushing up and braking just at the last minute and stewards ushering people across the melée in order to get into a cab. This, I realised was less dicey than what was to come: our taxi driver seemed to have a death wish and took us at break-neck speed along the expressway, weaving in and out of the other cars and hooting repeatedly at drivers to get out of his way. A few nerve-shattering moments later, we arrived at Xijiao Hotel, our temporary home in China whilst we sort out our university accommodation. The hotel, from which I am currently writing to you, is rather pleasant, especially so given that it is only costing us £19 a night. One thing I must share from my room is this slightly Enid Blighton-esque sign, which apart from being amusing shows how easily a language can be slightly mistranslated and how nuances can unwittingly be introduced to make a simple message sound strange or dated.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><align="xxx"></align="xxx"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a280/serpentflame/DSC04130-1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><align="xxx">But anyway, I digress. This morning we decided we may as well bite the bullet, ignore our jet-lag and </align="xxx">go to the university to register. The four of us assembled, bleary-eyed, in the entrance of the hotel and ventured out into a rainy, muggy and very busy Beijing in an attempt to locate Beijing Language and Culture University. After a long detour we realised that it shouldn't have been more than about ten minutes' walk from the hotel but if nothing else it was a good daylight introduction to the city. What followed next was hours and hours of tedious form-filling and waiting in queues, at times to be told that in fact we should've been in a different one. However, we can now say that we are registered students of BLCU complete with accommodation in the university's much sought-after international students' halls, Building 17. Knowing this fills me with a great sense of acheivement as I now feel that I am free to enjoy the experiences China has to offer without having to worry about the red tape any longer. And believe me, red tape is in no short supply round here!<br /><br />Dinner was a rather haphazard affair; we decided to eat in the hotel's restaurant which, although in a very nice setting with even nicer prices, had a food menu purely in Chinese characters which we barely understood past the indications of what kind of meat they contained. (Speaking of meat, I have now broken nearly two years of vegetarianism in order to have manageable eating habits in China: apparantly they don't understand voluntary meat-free diets here and the only way to 'do' vegetarianism is to explain that you have a health condition.) Anyway, we guessed that the easiest way of ordering our food would be to ask the waitress for one pork, one beef, one lamb and one fish dish.. how wrong we were. The entire workforce of the hotel seemed to make an appearance at our table to voice their opinions on which dishes would please us the most and after a lot of bickering between the staff, four dishes arrived complete with two little bowls of rice. The meals were delicious, and even though I couldn't quite remember which meat tasted like what (I was under the impression that I was eating pork until I was told it was lamb), we had rather a tasty dinner. The only issue I currently have with Chinese food is chopsticks; it seems my many trips to Wagamama's in Birmingham have not provided me with enough training to use these ancient implements and I spent a lot of the meal getting rather perturbed that my food would not cooperate on its journey from bowl to mouth.<br /><br />And so we are taken up now, where I am currently sitting at the desk in my room writing this post and sneaking past the Chinese government's blockage to visit Facebook. An update, I'm sure, will follow shortly, but until then: <span style="font-style: italic;">再见!</span><br /><align="xxx"></align="xxx"></div></div>Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-31405644289513193502010-09-02T02:24:00.004+02:002010-09-03T17:39:07.940+02:00Welcome to the Land of SquigglesAhoy there! Doesn't 'The Land of Squiggles' sound an enticing place? It is in fact Dubai Airport, so named by me because of the rather loopy and mystical nature of the Arabic which unsurprisingly is all over the place. Although luckily for me it is also accompanied by English, a luxury I may not have once I arrive in China. I'm writing this post from a stand-up kiosk thing providing free internet so I shan't complain about the lack of chairs! I'm also very impressed with the air con in here, apparantly it's 38 degrees outside (it's half 4 in the morning!) so it's nice not to be roasting.<br /><br />I've just been on my first long-haul flight which for a lot of you is probably something rather dull which is to be endured rather than enjoyed, but I have to say that I quite liked it. The selection of entertainment that Emirates provides in the back of the seats is amazing! It was also rather cathartic to be able to watch Family Guy whilst flying over Baghdad, that in the midst of all this alien stuff I can still have something familiar. Actually I say it's alien but this is probably nothing compared to what I can expect in Beijing!<br /><br />I should probably sign off before I rattle on too much.. plus I think if I don't sit down I'll develop varicose veins sometime in the near future.Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-40424963602560296562010-08-13T22:46:00.005+02:002010-08-13T23:39:34.030+02:00A Very Expensive StickerSo today I made my second venture into London on account of sorting out my visa for China, this time only to pick it up and pay for it, much to my relief due to not wanting to spend too much time being made to feel like an inconvenience by the rather brusque assistants at the application centre. The visa itself cost £65, and when combined with my two train journeys into London came to just over £100. And what to I get for this expenditure of time and money? A small sticker in my passport telling officials that they can deport me if I'm still in their country 180 days after my arrival. I won't lie, I do like the look of my little sticker.. but apart from actually being allowed into China, I don't really get much out of it, and so having to spend so much money on it is rather irksome.<br /><br />As I had no-one to accompany me on this trip into the capital, I found myself with an afternoon free to do what I please. After frantically scouring Oxford Street for an umbrella with which to shield myself from the deluge of rain and subsequently buying a cute little blue one with an owl print on it, I wandered round the streets wondering what to do with myself on this rare opportunity. I decided to visit somewhere that would almost certainly would have been met with instant dismissal by a lot people I can imagine visiting London with: the Tate Modern. Let it be known that I am not one of these pretentious artier-than-thou types; I was simply having a curious moment and fancied a visit to this most infamous of galleries to witness for myself the phenomenon of modern art.<br /><br />I'm not sure whether modern art <span style="font-style: italic;">wants</span> to be accessible or not; by the sight of the large flags bearing the words 'explore, discover, FREE' the place certainly did seem to want to make it clear to the public that all were welcome but I couldn't help but titter slightly upon reading the artist's dramatic and emotional interpretation of what seemed to me like a large red square with a purple line painted down one side. I browsed the galleries for a little longer and I'll admit that some of the exhibits were rather impressive: I enjoyed the stark photography of nude mothers holding their newborn babies and the twisted metal sculptures of headless bodies, but a lot of it did make me wonder why someone with so much artistic potential would choose a particular piece of theirs as their supposed magnum opus. Maybe I'm waiting for my third eye to be opened.<br /><br />Feeling a little bemused by it all, I decided to start making my way home, but not wanting to go back the way I came, I opted to take a wander over the Millennium Bridge and find out what lay over the other side of a rather unhappy-looking Thames. As I ambled along in my own little world and tried to avoid the gaze of a tramp sitting in the middle of the pathway, I was caught by surprise by a foreign-sounding accent asking 'may I walk under your umbrella?' I took a brief glance at the young man, decided he looked harmless enough and held my umbrella out to allow him to walk beside me. As we chatted, I found out his name was Miraj and he was a student from Turkey who was currently learning English at LSE. We bade farewell after about a quarter of an hour when the rain had stopped and I had reached a tube station, but it struck me how interesting strangers can be and what a shame it is that in this country we so often dismiss others' company simply because it is easier to ignore them.<br /><br />They say London is a place of new experiences, something I always found to be a little clichéd, but today has proved me otherwise and I am rather glad that I didn't shirk away from the rain and go home early as I could have done had I ignored my curiosity.Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4034270159258138168.post-6433664591011366022010-08-12T13:56:00.004+02:002010-08-13T00:23:46.604+02:00A happy mediumI leave for my five-month trip to China in just under three weeks. As much as I try to pretend to myself that it doesn't, this thought makes me tremble slightly inside every time I am reminded of it. However this fear is somewhat balanced out by a sense of excitement about the experiences which lie before me. I have no idea what it will be like; saying that, given that my previous attempts to imagine how other things will turn out have been largely inaccurate, I won't bother trying and instead will try and prepare myself for any eventuality. Part of me feels ready to go but another part keeps reminding me of the things here that I will miss: my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my dog.. I think I just need to accept the fact that, as with many things in life, I will never feel entirely ready and in the end I will just have to take a leap of faith and hope that everything will be okay.<br /><br />My primary concerns, however, are not whether I will make friends or the reams and reams of Chinese characters I will inevitably have to memorise- instead I'm currently more worried about the practicalities of it all such as sorting out my visa or my rather dire financial situation. I do feel that universities should publish a warning in their prospectuses telling would-be students of Chinese of the massive amount of organisation which goes into the year of the degree spent abroad- might have made me rethink my application!<br /><br />I set up this blog as much as a diary for myself to read as for others to; hopefully in a few months I will look back on it and think 'what on earth was I worried about?' Although there is the strong possibility that I will also be thinking 'look at her back then, she had no idea what was coming' but if I don't try it, I'll never know!Becca Sparkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04832334664940846165noreply@blogger.com1