Balloons, Locksmiths, Hot Pot!

15/08/13 - 17/08/13

A few cool things happened over the past few days but really, they’re not cool enough to merit their own blog. 

1. I learnt how to make balloon animals! This was in preparation for some promotions we’re doing for the school but it was actually quite fun! This is one skill that’s definitely going on my C.V. In other news, Rory can’t tie a balloon to save his life. It’s his genuine disability. 

2. We did promotions for the school. This involved being driven to a mall, wearing our school t-shirts and terrorising children. I was perfectly happy to make balloon animals, smile at the children, say hello and play a few games but the Chinese teachers got pretty pushing and ended up grabbing me and shoving me in front of children. This didn’t put me in the best mood as I was working pretty  hard and making sure that I not only talked to the children but was also nice and smiley with the parents. Rory and the other white boys who were at the promotion were left completely alone which was pretty annoying – if you want to chill out, be a boy in China, nobody will ever bother you!

3. After our long, hot day of promotions we returned to our apartment to find that we couldn’t get the door open. Our neighbour came but couldn’t open it. An apartment worker came but couldn’t open it. We went and spoke to the maintentance men. They laughed and told us to ring the police. We rang a Chinese teacher from school who got the maintence men to try open the door, again. They told us to ring the police, again. Rory ran around trying to organsie stuff while I sat in the little sun house and drank Fanta Apple, which is surprisingly nice.  The Chinese teacher then got a “locksmith” to come to the apartment and let us in. Really he drilled a hole in the door and we gave him £15. This only took 4 hours and was exactly the way I wanted to spend one of the nicest days we’ve had in Beijing – air quality was at like 56 aswell!

4. We ate Chinese Hot Pot. Apparently it’s a big deal here and I’ve been wanting to try it for a while. Basically, your table has a gas hob over which you place a pot of broth. You then cook meat and vegetables in the hot pot, hence the name. We originally ordered two plates of meat and some noodles but the Chinese workers couldn’t get their head around this and eventually managed to convey that it wasn’t enough food. We took their word for it and they ordered us some extra dishes. Turns out the Chinese don’t have a grasp on portion control. We ended up with three plates of meat, a portion of noodles and then a HUGE plate of vegetables. Despite our best efforts we just couldn’t finish it – this picture is pretty much what we left!