ni hao to you all my friends!

sorry about the late post, it appears chinese internet does not allow one access to my blog site =[
not to worry, my darling sister is posting my rants for me, so now you shall never miss out on my wonderous adventures! [Which I promise that I will in no way alter, censor or embelish - Lauren]

so let us start from the beginning (i hear its a very good place to start):
i caught my flight from melbourne at 5pm, after a lovely farewell from family and friends (pork, im yet to use your gift....). No problem, all smooth sialing to Singapore, except for a migrain i had untill i got to the hotel in Beijing, and then on to beijing! customs and whatnot were fine, and nothing of much interest had happend at this time. arrived at about 7.30 am on the 18th to -7 degrees celcius. fun times all round. it actually wasnt as cold as i expected; i didnt even need my hat or gloves. my scarf was a life saver though as my face was fair freezing.
we were given untill 5pm to do as we pleased, as the uk gappers werent arriving untill later and our tour guide, a lovely man named Dong Wei (english name was tom), thought we would like the time to rest and whatnot. i shared my room with my wonderful gap partner carina, and we spent a few hours wandering around beijing with caitlin (one of the other gappers form our province) and a few other gap kiddies.
beijing is a very intersting city, but its also freaking huge, and many of the attractions are far apart. we didnt go too far from our hotel because we were afraid if getting lost, so we didnt see all that much. what we did see, and something that is a very common occurance around beijing, is these free outdoor fitness centers which basically look like adult play ground. they have weight machines, ski machines, and massagers?!?!?!?!?!? and theyre made of the same materials and colours as kids playgrounds! and people really do spit on the streets, but not as frequently as we were made to think.
our next experience of beijing was attempting to buy lunch. an absolute disaster. tom told us the name of a good restraunt and we asked the hotel staff where it was and to write down the name in chinese chracters so we could ask people if we got lost. their instructions were very clear butb when we followed them we found no retraunt, just shops. we asked a few people for directions and showed them the name if the restraunt but the didnt seem to understad. in the end we jsut went to a restraunt that looked popular. were still not sure if it was the right place or not. then we attempted to order. and failed. fourtunatly one of the gappers, christina, new a little bit of chinese from school, so were were eventually able to order some food. but as for explaining vegetarian...
i tried to use the phrase book, but im 100% sure i was pronouncing it wrong, and even when we showed them the word and they appeared to understand it, the first the they pointed to on the menu was shrimp...
we eventually got through to them and ordered some potatoe dish which was described as sliced potatoe. it lied. it was basically shredded potatoe in oil with a small amount of carrot and something green. and it was cold. and possibly raw.
and then there was the issue of some bizzare bowl of liquid they gave us. we werent sure if it was to be drunk, or used as part of some kind of cleansing ritual, or what. it looked like water, but slightly more yellow, and with oil in it. in the end we decided to ignore it. the four meat eaters on our table ordered three kinds of dumplings and got two types of dumplings and one cold meet dish that had some kind of browish jelly in the middle, which was apprently quite nice.
after lunch we went back to the hotel for a bit. the hotel was quite nice. it was clean and modern and had a western toilet. but dont be fooled into thinking the absence of a sqaut toilet also ment the absence of any problem, oooohhhh no! you see, in china people dont flush toilet paper. theyre sewarge system cant handle. and i forgot. which resulted in a highly awkward situation involving the house keepers, and chardes, an electronic dictionary and a plumber. needless to say i learnt my lesson there....
that afternoon the english gappers arrived and we met the other gapper in our province, caitlins partner, lauren. shes very nice, and has such an amusing accent that started to rub off on caitlin =P
that night tom took the entire group out for dinner at a nearby restraunt and we finally got some decent vegetarian food. there is four vegetarians out of the group of 44, 3 of us are aussies and one is a brit. there was some wierd stuff on the table though, the worst being the preserved egg... its egg that, as we found out from another gapper whos family is chinese, is preserved in a lye solution which turns it black. BLACK. BLACK!!!!!!!!!! it seriously looks like rotten egg. and it smells and tastes horrible. not that i tried any, i wanted to live long enough to at least get to my placment. everyone was trying it whole, but we found out later you're supposed to eat it like blue cheese a very small amount on bread or a biscuit. tre odd.

after dinner a group of us went to the super market to buy bottled water, as the stuff in the hotel was very expensive. it was such an amusing adventure! everything was crazy!! there was coffee flavoured gum, and mango flavoured chips and dried roast veggies, and all sorts of odd things! and dove chocolate, thats big over here.

anywho, that was my first day of adventures, shall keep updating this thing through loztron over the next few days, hope your all well, and, as tom advised us, dont run away with beautifu chinses boys!

thats all folks!

love claire xo.