After a very sad goodbye to John the trip was OK apart from having to throw out my vegimite at customs! (but I bought some more at the duty free shops) We met a few aussies on the plane and swapped details. Flying in was great, there were hundreds of fireworks going off all over the city for chinese New Year.
The four of us got split up at the airport and taken straight to our families which was unexpected but OK. My family is a mother and father Jessica and Whang (obviously not spelt like that) and a four year old girl Doris. the maid is yet to show up which mkes me think it could be me...haha no apparently she is on holidays.... Whang cannot speak much english at all but Jessica is OK and they are both really nice. I have my own bathroom and bedroom which is nice but my beautiiful double bed is made of wood which i discovered by sitting down on it way to quickly!! It's covered by a thin doona so I can see sleeping becoming uncomfortable for 5 months. but last night was better then I was expecting.
Tha apartment is...nice though nothing like what I thought. It reminds me of the streets of Ukraine with neighbourhoods of apartments all in rows. I guess thats the communist side of things shining through. we are east of the city in a suburb possibly called Chenyuang haha about 15 minutes drive from Tienamen square which is in the centre.
Today was all with the family. Breakfast made me realise I'm probably going to stuggle with the food haha and made me thankfull my parents forced me to eat everything I was given (thanks mumsy). It was a bowl of soupy corn/water stuff that you added sugar to and I think this is a common drink as we had the same thing for lunch but it was greyie purple! breakie was also dumplings, sliced sweet potato and a boiled egg. I would of loved some weet-bix but I'm not complaining...yet. we spent the day driving round the city passing Tienamen Square and the Parliment building near it. We walked down Wang Juing which is a street just for walking with lots of shops. Lunch was strange but OK in a fancy looking resturant but you'd never know it existed as its just through a door of a grey apartment building. We sat down and they brought a steel dish with two halves each with a different soupy looking thing which they placed on a hot plate in the middle of the table. Then out came plates of raw things like sliced lamb, prawns, fish etc and plants that Whang then plopped into the soups and let them cook. I stupidly said earlier that I loved spicy foods so he kept serving me the meat and things from the spicy soup. I survived that but am starting to realise they dont ever just serve plain old jane water. I had to ask especially for it and it came with lemon in it and tasted like lemon cordial without the water....sigh...
