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Published: September 1st 2013
We wake up at 6am to rapid lightning- at first I think I’m dreaming as all we can see is these little flashes of light every few seconds coming from behind the curtains. When we look outside it’s like a magical light show as several forks of lightning illuminate the clouds every few seconds making them seem translucent. The rain is like nothing we’ve ever seen before, it’s so loud and the droplets are huge! We eventually manage to get back to sleep and then wake up at 12 before snoozing until 2pm. I think we needed the extra few hours seeing as we hadn’t slept for the last few days. I don’t feel jetlagged as such, but have a bit of a fuzzy head and not feeling the sharpest. Hopefully once we’ve had something to eat I’ll feel a bit better.
We walk out of our complex and across the road to the nearest shopping centre, which is directly opposite to us. At the side there is a café with a sign in English saying welcome, so we decide to check it out, as surely this means they have English speaking staff and menus. As we enter, we realise
that absolutely no one speaks English and the menu is all in Cantonese with no pictures that we can even just point at. As the waiter approaches we are really stuck as what to say, and he is equally stuck not knowing what to say to us back. What endures is a 2 minute stare off with neither of us willing to make the first move. We try a bit of sign language and just pointing at stuff and saying ‘you choose’ but the guy doesn’t really get what we’re trying to say. More and more waiters approach until we have about 6 members of staff all crowded round our table fascinated and giggling at our desperate plight. In the end, I pull out my iphone and ask him to put the wifi code in so I can go on google translate. I type in meat, vegetables and rice, and he finally nods in recognition. Finally where getting somewhere! However, it’s not over yet, as he starts asking us if we want beef balls or braised beef, noodles or pasta or rice. We choose and then he asks how many portions we want, to which we signal with our hands
two. This causes severe confusion for several minutes as he keeps repeating ‘one’ back to us. We think we’ve finally ordered when he then asks us if we want beef balls again. We’re a bit confused as we thought that was what we had just ordered. We nod yes and he says how many portions to which we play the numbers game again. He then asks us through google translate whether we want ‘to fly or to face’. This makes us giggle as we try and work out what he’s actually asking us- we ask ‘to fry’? No.’ To take away’? No. in the end we give up and just nod at him which he seems satisfied enough with. All in all it’s taking us about half an hour to order something to eat and we’ve caused a lot of drama in the restaurant. After a few minutes, a delicious looking beef dish arrives in noodles and a spicy gravy. It tastes as good as it looks and we’re happy at our selection. But just as we’re tucking in, the waiter brings over another two bowls filled with meat balls in a broth with beansprouts. The nearby waitress looks at
us with astonishment that we’ve ordered so much. We didn’t realise we had ordered twice! We try our best to eat as much as possible, but I’m not overly keen on the meat balls which are quite tough and have a weird taste I’m not too fond of. I joke to Greg that maybe its cows testicles we’re eating and that’s why the waiter said beef ‘balls’. Suddenly we have a moment of panic as we figure there is probably a fair chance it was! Greg then believes he sees veins on the side of one of the ‘meat balls’ and is convinced it is. I look up the google translation for testicles and it does resemble the symbol on our food receipt but I’m not sure…. Let’s just say they weren’t and leave it at that. Sometimes it’s better not knowing.
As we leave the restaurant, all the staff wave and say bye to us which makes us feel really welcome. We head down to our new school and are introduced to another member of staff called coco. Rose shows us around and then we head over to the police station to register our visas. On the way back we spot an old woman driving a moped with oven gloves on her hands instead of normal gloves. Then we pass another guy on a motorbike with about 5 gas cannisters all strapped to the sides of the bike. I’m sure that’s probably not that safe!
Rose drops us off at walmart (yes, walmart!) which is huge and has loads of stuff just like any other Walmart, although it’s not exactly steak pies and baked beans! However, a lot of the food packaging has English translation on them which helps immensely – we were expecting to have to guess a lot more than this. As we walk through the store, we see the weirdest looking fruit, one which looks like a melon but with spikes all over it. And then we arrive at the fish section… basically theres a load of fish tanks with live fish in them so you can choose exactly which one you want. There’s even a turtle and frog section! We swiftly move on and are checking out the aisle solely dedicated to soy sauce (seriously I’ve never seen so many bottles of the stuff) when we see a woman spitting on the floor. In the supermarket! And it’s a proper back of the throat and nose hack. It’s something we’ll need to get used to I think. Next, a teenage girl siddles up to us as we are trying to decide what cleaning products to buy and, in clear English, asks us if we need help. Those that do speak English (which is not many) seem to want to practise out on us.
When we’re finished, we walk back through the most amazing mall with loads and loads of clothes shops, shoe shops and handbag shops, and all really reasonably priced! They even had a puma and an addidas shop which lights up Greg’s little face.
The walk back to our apartment block is interesting, as most of the people we pass do a double take or blatantly look us up and down gawping. We had heard to expect this to some degree but now we’re here it’s quite a weird feeling. To be fair, we haven’t passed a single other white person, or any other race for that matter. Back at the complex, we get totally lost as every building looks the same. We’ve came in a different entrance and it’s really thrown us. I end up walking around in a circle trying to figure out which one it is until we eventually we manage to find it. Thank goodness otherwise we’d have been sleeping on the grass. Greg cooks another stir fry for dinner but I’m all noodled out so settle for some toast and peanut butter (well, I miss it!) and then after we’ve exhausted the English channel on our telly (a highlight being mr bean) we settle down with some films on our laptop.
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Leigh
non-member comment
Lol....balls!
Hey guys, So yeah it sounds like exactly as I expected of early experiences of China lol! You do get beef meatball dishes here but those ones you had do look a bit suss to me ;) Pished myself at the veins comment! As for the spitting thing.....not surprising and you will need to get used to poor manners I'm afraid. Bad enough here at times but any of our colleagues who have been to China say that it is definitely worse there! Man, you guys are going to have some belting stories and can't wait to read more.... Love you both, L x