Chinese Breakfast

I don't often eat Chinese breakfast 1) Because the choice this side of the river is more limited 2) I can actually get some cereals like Cornflakes, Instant Oats (Frosties, and Cocoa Pops now also, if I like), So I just prefer to mostly keep one regular, kind of normal meal for the day and that is Breakfast.
I must admit though that I really do like Baozi and the teachers like to get Baozi from a particular restaurant in Yichang. It's known as the best Baozi in Yichang and across the road is a shop selling the best breakfast Jaozi in Yichang (according to the locals). I've never actually been to either place because it's nowhere near my apartment or Nettie's apartment, nor near Yiling square or other places we usually hang out around. Also I'm rarely in the city at breakfast time.
Today we had the opportunity to pay a visit. "Was it good Baozi? shide...very tasty :-)"
"Baozi" is similar to bread but it is steamed and filled with various fillings such as beef, pork, vegetables and pickles. You can also get "Soup Baozi" which has meat and soup inside, that is very delicious.
The bowls of food we have in the pictures are "Rice Porridge". The other popular breakfasts here are many different types of noodles, a soya bean curd porridge(which I like very much)called "dou hua" and instead of a cup of tea or coffee, it's mostly often a cup of hot Soya Milk.

Thought you may like to see what most brekkie places in China look like :-)

加油

I've been watching the Australian Open... The Aussies not very strong at the moment but WOW I've got two great little dynamo's from my adopted country to support
Zhèng Jié 郑洁 Chengdu, Sichuan CHINA
AND
a local from my province :-)
Lǐ Nà 李娜 Wuhan, Hubei CHINA

at the moment both are through into the 1/4 finals...history making :-)
"JIA YOU"
加油

GO GIRLS!!!

Busy times

A condensed version of the last few days would be something like this...
FRIDAY : "Happy Birthday Nettie", Lunch at the steak house in CBD and window shopping for the afternoon.




SATURDAY: Delicious Lunch and Dinner at Netties parents house, bank business and bits and pieces shopping in between.
SUNDAY : Lunch with Friends of friends, sleep in the arvo,learned some Chinese, stuffed around at Netties house before she cooked a delicious dinner.


MONDAY : "Yichang Foreign Teachers New Year/Spring Festival Get together Party"
only 13 government employed primary through to senior foreign teachers here in Yichang....4 or 5 of which come from a school in Yidu (a district or county of Yichang, about an hours drive away). So not really many of us considering the total population of Yichang is over 4 million (keep in mind that includes all districts etc, not just the city).




We all had to do some kind of performance, partake in some games and eat a meal with the government officials. Not exactly what any of us westerners would call a party :-)but I guess the key word is COMPROMISE. I like to believe they meant well, but I've never been one for taking part in such activities. It reminds me of when I used to bend over and pretend to be doing up my shoelaces whenever they were looking for people to come on stage at shows and performances in shopping centres or school etc, but from this show, there was no escape!!!but hey, I got to meet other foreign teachers and was given a great gift of a whizz bang ping pong paddle.

A night at the Beijing Opera

Last night Nettie and I trotted along to watch some Beijing Opera here in Yichang. It wasn't only myself who had never seen it, Nettie was also going for a first time experience :-) It was held at the "Yichang Theatre" which is a new building, only small (two tiers) but cosy, clean and a great little venue. It reminded me a bit of our Concert Hall in Perth, but of course much more modern.


The performers were from the "Shanghai Beijing Opera Troupe" and the star of the show, who played the leading role in the performance we watched, is actually a Yichang girl "Xiong Mingxia 熊明霞". The performance was called "Hong Niang 红娘" (meaning Red Lady). In the below photo she is wearing red.



The Chinese people love to spend their freetime match making and organising dates and "Hong Niang" is the name given to a lady who sets up a date between two people. I really enjoyed it for the first hour and a half, but the whole show( including a small performance taken from another famous Beijing Opera as the opening act) went for around three hours and whilst many of the older Chinese people really enjoyed it, even many Chinese people were fading out, so considering I could understand very little (without Netties pre description of what the show was about, I would have had no idea what was happening)We did rather well, I think.
The first performance was really very cool as it involved a lot of "Wushu"(martial arts)It was called "Sanchakou, 三岔口", a story from the song dynasty. We watched a fight scene taken from the story in which the guys are fighting as if they are in a pitch black dark room. It was very clever!


The main performance was colourful, traditional music was great and with very little stage props, was still quite engaging to watch. Although as you can see from this picture, maybe Nettie didn't enjoy it as much as I did, the book was obviously much more interesting :-)




Anyway, to sum it all up, very entertaining, something very unique to China and I think alot of fun.

What do you think this is?

O.K. I don't normally take photos of all the wonderful Chinglish signs, menus and packaging, but this one is a goodie and I couldn't resist throwing out the challenge :-)
Anyone wanna guess what this is? I saw these quite a few months ago now and when they were on sale in the shop yesterday, I just had to get myself a bag of 1 time sex shoe sets :-)
This is a perfect example that you can't just translate word for word and get the correct translation.

Winter Holiday

My Winter holiday has just started. It's late this year as we follow the Chinese Calender for this stuff and Chinese New Year this Year, 14th February, Year of the Tiger!
Had a great start to my holiday. On Friday we went to see "Avator" at the movies...All the movies here are voice dubbed in Chinese and subtitled in Chinese, so alot of guessing is involved, but, it's amazing how you can pretty much follow just about everything. We also checked out some new restaurants, window shopped and relaxed our way through the weekend.
Hasn't been quite as cold the last few days and they are even saying it may get to around 16-19 degrees today? Which in Yichang standards will feel about 11 - 15 :-) hmmm maybe?

励志警句

"When you come right down to it, the secret of having it all is loving it all"

Dr Joyce Brothers

Just Hanging!

Because of my very busy Tuesdays and Thursdays at school, I have Fridays off. I usually spend a bulk of the Friday getting lessons for the next week organised but today I spent the morning giving my apartment a thorough winter clean (very therapeutic)lol and this afternoon hanging in "Walking Street". Here's a few shots just having some fun :-) Unfortunately with the opening of the grand "CBD", "Walking Street seems to be suffering a little, although I think it's always busier of an evening. I actually love to just hang around this area, grab a hot drink, some snacks, look at the cool shops...I find it relaxing here. The photo up above was actually quite funny, as I was talking to the Chinese statue of the lady cooking mianwo and asking her how much and stuff...the Chinese people in the nearby stalls were finding it very amusing :-)It's strange how in Australia we presume that all foreigners visiting or living in Australia can speak English, because in China all Chinese people seemed stunned when you speak Chinese! It's quite the opposite reaction here.

Winter wonderland

This morning at around 10 am it started to snow. Tonight, after a heavy days teaching, I am snuggled up in my apartment and it is still snowing. It has been a steady snowfall all day and tonight everything is blanketed in white.The above photo is taken from my bedroom window. For a "West Aussie" who's only seen light snow a couple of times now, it's a wonderous thing. It looks stunning! The kids have been playing all day (when they have break periods)throwing snowballs and drawing pictures in the snow which is covering the sports field. It registered about 2 degrees most of today and at the moment is -1 degree.
Lunch break on the street outside my apartment.


Thank goodness for the extra double thick thermals my friends bought for my Birthday and Christmas.

The best restaurant in town :-)

Yichang is full of many great restaurants, food stalls and places to find yummy food. Though it can be very difficult finding food that isn't spicy (even much of the stuff at KFC and Maccas has a kick), generally I like the food around here. The best place to eat around these parts though is definitely at a reserved for friends and family place :-) So often, (actually nearly a couple of times every week) I end up eating at Netties Mum and Dads apartment. The food is so delicious and it feels good to be in a home/family atmosphere. I have mentioned the great Jaozi and Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs, but Netties Mum cooks so many different types of food and they always taste delicious and often there are left overs for the next day...giving me something to look forward to. I'm so lucky :-)I was very kindly invited for "New Years Day 2010" Check out the above feast! Happy New Year!

Teachers New Year Party

This is our group photo of Junior One teachers (but 3 of us are missing from the photo? I'm not sure where they are?)



New Years Eve, we only had to teach our morning lessons. The kids were sent home from school at lunch time for a long weekend. Thursday afternoon we all went to a restaurant for our schools New Years celebration party. Each group of teachers from all the different years taught (ie Junior 1 through to Senior 3) think of a performance , rehearse and then perform at the party. I was asked to join the Junior 1 group but it would have seen me having to dress, sing and dance a traditional Chinese Number. Just a bit too far out of my comfort zone. Heres the video of a little of the Junior One performance :-)


The teachers performances were fun to watch and although many of them think it a bit of a laugh to dress in the traditional clothing, I think the Chinese women really look very beautful when they do. Heres some pictures of some of my friends and collegues.