To Suzhou!

10/01/2010

可以带护照去杭州Happy National Day! Not a clue when the actual day is, all i know is that from today we have a week-long holiday ^__^ Huzzah for China. To celebrate this momentous 61st anniversary of the PRC Louise and I are going to Hangzhou 杭州，Suzhou 苏州 and Shanghai 上海 ^^ We shall rendez-vous with Ruth and buy her the best damn wedding dress the UK has ever seen. *MISSION* She's said she wants a strapless A-line dress... but I'm sure once she sees the frilly-cake-monstrosities they create, she'll at least want to try a few of them on

I've managed to cram 5 days worth of clothes in to my computer rucksack ^^ We're actually travelling for 7 days... but my standards are low and I'm willing to wear some outfits twice *cringe* This is probably the reason I have to do so much laundry -_____- As a massive upside, I also got my passport (complete with residence permit) back yesterday ^^ Good times! I arrived at the bureau and, even though most people were handing in their receipts and being given their passports, the woman took my receipt and wandered off with it o.O; When another woman asked me for a receipt I pointed at the woman and literally said "She took" (fabulous Chinese, I know). The woman then looked completely blank (O_O), asked: "You gave it to me?" *head-desk* On the bright side they then left me to wait for an hour and a half whilst they retrieved my passport from "other people" (probably scanning my photo for criminal features -_-). Eventually I got annoyed and told the woman that I'd been there for an hour and a half. She looked really suprised at this, next thing you know my passport had materialised -____________- The bureacracy here literally demands you set aside your entire day to deal with it. Cos. You know. People don't have lives. I just hope I don't ever have to deal with a bureacracy again where it's common practice to interrupt the desperate foreigner to talk to your sad, saggy husband on the phone and tell him you love him.

Class-wise I've thrown in the metaphorical towel and moved down to B Class - there's such a huge gap between the difficulties of the two classes, it's unbelievable - B Class is more akin to high-school, you do the same lesson for a long time, but as it's Chinese high-school, the teacher drills you relentlessly in the vocab and explains everything in detail _< I think a weeks holiday will chill me out. Hopefully.

Also techie innitiation happened last night at Bedlam. It's probably best I didn't get to adopt again, my only child has adopted enough first year students for the both of us *maternal pride* But I miss Freshers' Play week, the atmosphere is so exciting. Hope you guys are having fun!!



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