Blogs from Wuhan, Hubei, China, Asia - page 28

We had visitors in town for a few days toward the end of October. Augie's Asian Term was in Wuhan from Oct. 24th- Oct. 27th. It was so much fun to meet up with some old friends and make some new ones. Nick and I met all of the theatre folk at their hotel on Wednesday night. They were staying at the Holiday Inn, so we tried to copy down the characters and say the words for hotel across the river. The cab driver took us in and got right on his cell phone. I have picked up enough Chinese to know that he got on and said that he had foreigners trying to get to a hotel. So, he really had no idea where we were trying to go, but he was willing to help ... read more

My turn to share my mad photography skills.... read more

Arrived in Wu Han on the 3rd October at around 5pm. Slept most of the way, the bus was so comfortable.... The driver said it was our stop. We hauled our stuff off, looked around for the railway station - Couldn't find it!!! So where are we? No map and only the instructions we had, were for getting from the station to our hostel!! No "2 for a dollah" sellers, trying to sell tourist maps... Decision time, what to do next.... Posh hotel across the road - Someone's bound to speak english!! We were asked in perfect english "what sort of room did we need?" Explained we didn't need a room, and that we were lost. And we just needed an address written down in chinese for the taxi driver. Blank expressions all round!!! Didn't ... read more

If you are ever in China, get your haircut. I know this seems like an odd recommendation for foreign travel, but trust me. It is amazing. I will fully admit that I was planning on growing my hair out for the entire year because I had heard horror stories from people on previous Asian Terms. The Chinese hairdressers were not used to cutting non-Chinese hair so they got butchered. Katie and Alexes were both talking about how they had heard that it was a great experience. After that, I opened my mind to the idea of getting a haircut…eventually. About 24 hours later, I was in class and I fell in love with one of my student’s hairstyle. It is a very popular style in China right now: short in the back with longer strands in ... read more

The one word that I remembered in Chinese prior to my return to China was jiaozi, or dumplings. From Day One, it has been our quest to find more and more jiaozi. We have found it in restaurants, frozen at the supermarket, and on the street. You can have it filled with the traditional pork and cabbage, pork and lotus root, egg and tomato (or the “breakfast jiaozi” as wee like to call it), spinach, onion, shrimp, chicken, beef. These little pockets can be filled with just about everything. We have had them steamed, pan fried and even deep-fried. Last Friday, we even had some homemade. One of Laura’s students is from Wuhan, so she said that her mother would come over to Laura’s apartment and make her some jiaozi. Laura (knowing that we would all ... read more