Our first day in Ningbo has been an experience and a half. The morning started off in Shanghai where we waited to get picked by a driver from the uni. We had been told to be ready early but as 10am approached we started to worry but luckily our new friend Ton Ton (not sure on how to spell her name) came and found us and escorted us to our very own little coach.
As you can imagine we were all very jet-lagged but were enjoying speaking to our new Chinese friend and despite the language barrier we were able to communicate very well. We've even taught her how to say "fancy a cuppa" and "gonna make a brew", as the Chinese drink a lot of tea she found this hilarious.
Our first taster into real Chinese culture came on a stop at a service station. Ton Ton guided us to the toilets to find that they were merely a hole in the floor, you could image our astonished faces however the thought of having to wait until we arrived in Ningbo was not an option so we plucked up the courage and ventured in, lets just say there were a few shrieks and squeels echoing around the toilets to the amusement of Ton Ton.
Food was next on our to do list at the service station. I suddenly went from being practically crippled with hunger to having zero appetite after seeing dozens of whole fish on plates...aka my worst nightmare. So i settled for a remarkably bland bowl of boiled rice and added a few chillies to spice things up. Whilst in the canteen it's safe to say we were the centre of attention from every angle. Ladies came up to Ton Ton saying how beautiful we are and how they have never seen girls like us apart from on TV. This for me was really touching and find this such a stark contrast to life in England, we really should appreciate more of what we have but that's a different story!
3 hours after our departure from Shanghai we arrived in the lovely Ningbo. Happy to say our accommodation is really nice, and extremely happy the wifi works as I would not be writing this now. After a short bag drop we headed off to the college where we were introduced to several tutors who explained what will be happening over the coarse of the next 5 weeks.
Myself and Kate will be on work placement in Hangzhou, 2 hours out of Ningbo, this was rather a surprise and even more so when we found out we will actually be staying there 3 nights a week and in the family home of the manager of the company. Despite being a little startled to what I believed would be happening, I'm actually really excited about having the opportunity of visiting another city, which we've been told is really beautiful and for also staying in a true Chinese home. I hope this will give us more of an insight into their culture and their day to day lives.
For the rest of the week I'll be teaching English to students and will also be teaching pattern cutting, rather nervous about this but think the experience will be really helpful and interesting. I'm hoping I will pick up some new skills from the other students.
After our long day, Jasmine, the head of the fashion school took us out for a meal at a local restaurant with the fellow tutors. Having already encountered quite a bad aspect of chinese food earlier on the prospect of more was quite worrying, butterflies were swarming in my stomach. Jet lag was kicking in and all I wanted to do was sleep. The restaurant was really nice and we had our own room and were introduced to Chinese beer by a tutor named David. For me never having a full bottle of beer before in my life this was quite enlightening. Think I'm hooked, got a bottle in my hand as we speak. The food however was just fish, fish, fish and more fish, anxious looks were glanced across the room at each other, knowing it was rude to turn down food we felt obliged to eat. I don't think we did too badly and they found it rather amusing that the majority of us were scared of fish.
You know it's Good Friday tomorrow and you really should be eating fish!!!
ReplyDeleteGlad you've settled in well.Daddy B X