Thursday...Friday

Thursday…

Today we worked on our theme prints and designs. I continued to develop my Russian dolls into an all over print. Just after lunch the company’s agent from Paris came round and looked at our work. He said he really like the Russian Dolls and said that he would want to sell this print on clothing in Paris.

As much as this is good news, I am a bit confused because he wanted to put it on some clothing that has already been designed and if they use my print I will need a new theme for my collection that I have to design. I’m hoping that when I have finished my designs they will want to use it on mine.

In the afternoon I decided that it would be best to make my print so I can repeat it, so with the help of a tutorial on YouTube I did just this. I’m very happy with my print and think it looks very cute. Now I’ve learnt how to do this next time it should be a lot quicker but this pretty much took me the majority of the afternoon. I’ve also made it so that if the colour scheme changes or I want to change the appearance of a repeating image, it will change this throughout the print by creating it using Smart Object.

Thursday night dinner time was yet again Pizza Hut, getting slightly worried that I’m actually going to come home fatter and have a beer belly. I wish I could be more adventurous with the food but when you’re so hungry you just want something you enjoy, I’m always to hungry to risk something new.

Friday…

Another good sleep in Miss Guo’s home thanks to the slightly comfier beds. Although two nights of having Cheese & Tomato Pizza’s has definitely been giving me very vivid dreams at night. The worst being that there was a really big flood in Ningbo and we were stuck clinging to the crazy bridge roads that are like spaghetti junctions. It was a fight for our lives and was very scary. I only remember bits but in my dream I was shouting at Kate because in real life she had said wouldn’t it be interesting to witness a natural disaster. Obviously she doesn’t want something to happen but she meant in the context that nothing ever like that happens in England.  Also to point out on both nights I woke up bang on 2.30am, very strange. Going to stay away from pizza for at least a week.

We got ready and packed for travelling home. I actually find it quite sad leaving poor David (the dog). We are pretty sure he is only let out at night, and even then it’s literally for a minute, as we found out when we had to go on a stroll round the courtyard. It’s so cruel a dog of his size should be walked properly. My dog is literally 10 times smaller than David and goes out for 3 walks a day. If only there was an RSPCA over here, or even plan an escape for him but he’d probably just end up in someone’s dinner. I find it strange that they bought the dog from England and don’t want to show him any love or attention. He doesn’t even have a cushion to lie on in his horrific cage. Is their way of thinking regarding hard beds the same for dogs? Strange!!!!

Today I continued to work on my print and designs. In the afternoon our boss Mr Chen came round and said my print was  “very good, very nice” but then asked how many colour had I used. I said in total 9 colours. He said this was too many, as it would be too expensive to print so I had to reduce the colours down to 6, this was such a huge task as I had various dolls to change and flower motifs as well. This annoyed me quite a bit as he’d been looking at my print the day before and could have told me then it was too many colours. By now it was too late to change it completely so I knew this had to wait till next week.

5.30pm and we were told there was no driver to take us to the station and that we had to get a taxi. NOT HAPPY. Despite the fiasco of arriving in Hangzhou leaving equally caused as many problems. Jasmine who speaks a bit of English in the company luckily got us a lift from the boss Mr. Chen. Reading between the lines I think Jasmine asks her boss who is Miss Guo, and having been refused KFC for lunch by her, we believe Miss Guo had also refused us the company driver to take us to the station. Unable to speak Chinese and working in  a company  on the outskirts of the centre means it is very difficult to order a taxi. Not only that I think it is very rude, we already travel 3 hours to get to Hangzhou and they expect us to make our own way back for literally a 10-minute drive to the station. Not good. Luckily Mr Chen heard that we couldn’t get a lift and he said he would drive us.  I find the situation strange; literally everything is bonkers in China. You would think they would help us so much with small things like that, but they don’t, certainly not in our company. I feel they somewhat take for granted that we can understand and speak Chinese but we can’t. I also find it strange that Mr Chen offers to take us instead of Miss Guo getting his personal driver too take us to the station. Very, very, very strange!

After arriving back in Ningbo Kate and I went for a very much-needed Mexican with our friend Jeremy. Only to find out that on the last Friday of every month they have a Latin American Dance night. Not pleasant when someone’s shaking their bum in your face when you try to eat. Home time meant shower, and wash hair.