7.30 we were waiting at the bus top to take us to the coach station for our journey to Hangzhou. The journey was very long and chaotic. In China there appears to be no rules on the road. Nothing like the Highway code. They just seem to have their final destination set in their mind and need to get there as quick as they can, meaning a lot of overtaking and undertaking and cutting other drivers up left, right and centre. Very scary. We were so tired from our early wake up we managed to sleep most of the journey. Tong Tong came along for our first day to help us find our way and we arrived in Hangzhou at lunch time.
The company is called Outa and designs kidswear to be sold in Paris. On arrival we had a brief tour of the offices and then had a meeting with the boss. We showed him our portfolios and he explained we will be designing a series of collections for their S/S 13 range. Having chosen our desks in the design studio we were whisked off for lunch.
Vivienne, speaks very good english and suggested KFC for lunch. We thought this would be a safe option as we were starving, having missed breakfast in Ningbo as Miss Lydon had misplaced the key we could only have some dry Frosties. The KFC was weird, we asked for a chicken burger, it came but where was the crispy kentucky fried coating? It appeared to be covered in some chinese sauce, as Kate would say "Grim!"
After lunch we started work and started to think of ideas for our clothing. In China they don't seem to spend much time on the research and concept process they just seem to do whatever is in their head or copy someone else's ideas. This has been apparent from what we have seen from teaching at the college also. I can't work this way so I am coming up with a concept etc to show them our style of work and our way of thinking, I believe it is far more creative.
6pm soon approached and it was time to go home with the manager. She had offered her home for us to stay in for our time in Hangzhou. We were slightly anxious about this but tried our best not to worry. Miss Guo doesn't speak English very well and this made us more concerned.
The apartment was a lovely duplex and the decor was very beautiful and quaint, very traditional chinese style. Miss Guo had told us she had a dog that lived upstairs. To our dismay her dog, called David, lived in a cage in our bathroom. I was horrified the dog is beautiful and reminds me of the dog Lassie from the well known tv programme. Kate and I both own dogs and this brought a tear to our eyes as it seems inhumane.
Miss Guo instructed us to rest in our room whilst we waited for tea. In this time the dog had not stopped barking. We sat on our beds in total shocked into the situation we had found ourselves in. This was not helped by the very hard prison like beds and steel bars across the window. Our initial reaction was I'm A Fashion Student Get Me Out Of Here. A few minutes passed and we were able to collect our thoughts and came up with a plan to "prison break".
Miss Guo and her husband had invited an english speaking friend over for dinner to help translate. Miss Guo had been told we didn't eat fish and we like egg fried rice and so she had made this for our tea. I'd started to calm down, and had asked if we could do some shopping. Our 'prison break' was arranged for after dinner, whilst Mr Guo took David for a walk.
A few minutes stroll took us to a big shopping complex similar to the Trafford Centre with plenty of shops and restaurants. We were delighted to spot McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut. This would be our tea the next night. They took us to a supermarket and we stocked up on drinks and food for placement along with a few of our favourite beers Tsingtao.
The time was now 9.20pm we told Miss Guo were were tired and we went to bed. A few beers calmed our nerves and David had finally stopped barking, and we started to settle in. The room was tidy and apart from the hard beds, which seem to be common in China, our initial shock was starting to wear off.
We didn't sleep particularly well and woke up feeling like we were bruised all over and wondered what on earth we spoke to each other about in our sleep. Miss Guo made porridge and toasted teacake for breakfast which was nice as a change from cereal. We set off for work at 7.30am and Miss Guo appeared to get lost and whilst on the Highway of Hell we witnessed several near collisions.
Having arrived at work things seemed better and I think we will be ok for our two night stay each week. I think we were just thrown in at the deep end and things had just got on top of us, on reflection I we were just shocked at the situation but we feel more settled now. Day 2 at the company so far has been good and we are carrying on with our designs for Spring Summer. Next week the company are taking us to some of the markets where they gain their inspiration from. They asked to take us out for food and beer this Saturday but unfortunately we are back in Ningbo as we have a modelling job with one of the departments within the college.
Tonight after work we are venturing out to the Pizza Hut near Miss Guo's apartment. Fingers crossed the pizza's actually taste like pizza.
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