Sanya #2

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We will eat anything with legs, except a table, and anything with wings, except a plane - The Chinese

Belle and I managed to order some dinner by ourselves in the cafeteria this week. She held her hands in the air and said "anything, anything" while I looked at the giant menu of Chinese characters and shook my head as if to say, I don't understand a flipping thing. We might not have got what we wanted, but it was 10 to 10 at night and anything would have done, even scrambled eggs and spam on rice.

My first trip to the supermarket was characterised by being followed around by staff members and taking pictures of all the funny foods. I bought some Toss crisps and some coconut bread. All in all, I consider that a successful trip (although, I did fail to mention that I bought yoghurt to go in my tea instead of milk).

The photography students also appeared again this week, to measure us for clothes ready for their sexy themed shoot. I'd already said that I didn't want to do it again, and when I saw the sample costumes, man was I happy. Belle chose a police officer outfit, with hot pants and handcuffs, on the basis that it was the least sexy. Lola has opted for a leather dress with a zip down the front. This shoot will be funny to watch, mark my words.

Wednesday = beach day, and this Wednesday was no exception. When we got to the beach, Dai invited us to go to a "sunset barbeque" in the next bay - he did mention the fact it was a "sunset barbeque" a lot, so it was quite a shame that the sun set in about 30 seconds flat. Belle, Lola, Anna and I got a taxi around to the next bay with Dai and Kai (an American from South Carolina) and met their friends who were organising it. Paulo, another Italian cooked shed loads of meat... steak and kebabs and stuff. Anna got very happy off of quite a few beers and starting talking to three little Chinese girls who lived just off the beach, and started singing and dancing with them - and she claims to not like children... It may have been a mistake befriending these girls, as they didn't leave us alone the rest of the night. The oldest was 8 years old, the middle one 6, but the small one was my favourite - she was too shy to join in at first, so I smiled and went and sat next to her and didn’t say anything - after that she loved me too! When the girls finally went to bed, Belle, Anna & I decided to take a trip up an alleyway to buy some cigarettes, (don't worry mum it's not as scary as it sounds) there were lots of rats and sleeping dogs, and I really wished that I'd put some shoes on. When we got back the musical instruments were out, the bongos, ukulele and a couple of guitars and a gold ol' singsong ensued. The one mistake we made going to this bay, was not thinking about how to get home. In China, there are no taxi numbers to ring, you can only flag them down, and this turns out to be a problem at 1am in a residential area - so we had to walk along some roads for a while, singing merrily and chatting, but really wishing for a shower, and then luck struck and we piled all 5 of us in, and prayed the driver wouldn't say anything. He didn't and earned himself a 30p tip.

After classes on Friday we decided to pack up our troubles in our old kit bag and Lola, Anna, Belle and I headed once again to the beach. Dai and Charlie were there, along with a lot of other internationals - Beers and swimming followed and we had a jolly old time and I may not have had dinner again, and this time is wasn’t through forgetfulness about the meal, but more that I forgot to take any money out with me.

AND THE TYPHOON STRUCK ON SATURDAY.

Alys text me in the morning: "Zinny!!!! Did you go outside this morning? It is said that there is a typhoon, so you'd better not go outside!" Well I was starving, on account of not having had dinner the night before and trotted off to lunch with Belle into the storm. It wasn't bad at all, just normal storm like, showers and wind, and we giggled as we walked back home in the rain. Over the course of the day, the weather went from bad to worse. The water went off. The rain poured down and I really didn’t want to go outside. At 5pm the electricity went off. Dai came round to Teddy's room to see what we were up to and wondered if we wanted to hang out with him, Anna and Kai. They'd just been to the shops in the rain and bought a load of beer. The wind howled along the flooded hallway as Ted, Belle, Lola and I trudged down to Anna's room. After all day inside and several hours in an unlit and non airconditioned room playing the same card game over and over again, I was starting to feel ill and was desperate for a walk. Belle and I set off into the storm, within about 30 seconds I was soaked to the bone and the trees were creaking as we walked by them. We were quite scared about them falling on our heads and we tried to walk wind side up from them. The wind was so strong that it hurt to open your eyes.

The others soon followed us outside in search of some food, the problem being that the university campus had no electricity and couldn't cook anything. We walked down to the entrance, there were dead trees strewn across the flooded main road and not a taxi or bus in sight but a light at the end of the road. We ran through the ankle deep water towards the lit up restaurant and sat down, still dripping from the storm. I was so cold. Dai ordered lots of lovely warm food, and I started to warm up, the beer and Chinese spices were working their magic. About 40 minutes into our meal the electricity went off there as well, so it was lucky we already had our food, eating and singing by candle light, we exchanged melodic tunes with the table of Chinese boys opposite. Delaying the inevitable walk back through the typhoon - that I had been told not to go out in - we were the last to leave the restaurant, after several games of I have never. I ran the whole way home. There was water everywhere; it was some crazy 'end of the world' movie scene. We spent the night in our PJs singing guitar in the dark, well I would have done if I hadn't fallen asleep on Lola's shoulder.

The destruction could not be fully discovered until the morning when we went for coffee, and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I have never seen so many fallen trees... Overall the weekend was pretty boring, as exciting as a typhoon is, no water and no electricity make for quite an uninteresting weekend. It was made beautiful by a barbeque resturant where Lola took Belle and me - see I told you, a lot of meat this week. The water came back on about 4pm on Sunday and the electricity came on about 8am - but the day was still spent watching films and not much else. This week promises to be more exciting, Halloween and other things to be looking forward to.

Since I've got to Sanya I've been given a Chinese name; Tian Yi Lin and a Russian name Zina.... and a new nickname; Zimba....

Well, now it's homework time... but please email me or comment on this blog - I like all human contact....

xoxo Zimba

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