We’ve got the next few days off as It’s a very special festival season in China here at the moment called Autumn Festival. Everyone gets a 4-day weekend and giving that me, Rosie and Tori have been busy pretty much every hour of the day since we arrived, we haven’t had much of a chance to get on with coursework! We haven’t wanted to get any more and to let it pile up so a few extra days of breathing space has come as a big sigh of relief to us!
We met up with Hongbon and Landon as usual, come to think of it, I don’t think there’s a single day that we haven’t spent time with Hongbon!! I reckon that boy is due a day off from us. He brought us ‘Moon Cake’ that his father had sent him. Moon Cake is seriously important and popular at this festival as we discovered! It’s expensive and is like Minced Pies or Easter Eggs where they’re mainly only available at a certain time of year. They’re brilliant! I had no idea what to expect, in fact when Hongbon first said ‘Moon Cakes’ I thought he was talking about Space Cakes!! So I was worried he was supplying us with drugs! Having a Malteser moment there, oops! But when he opened the packet they were more like Pork Pies than cakes. There’s no way to accurately describe them, just really good comfort food, savoury, stodgy and very tasty. With duck eggs of all things inside them. Another tick off the list of things to try whilst we’re here! Thank you Hongbon!
When Hongbon and Landon came round, we all set off to find a subway train to….. Let me find the name….. Nanluoguxiang!! There’s an enormous market there with the most wonderful shops and food places, with everything from fabrics, to make up, to souvenirs, to clothes, to pottery, from cheap products such as bracelets for a few quid, or a silk scarf for a few thousand!! It was so crazily busy too! It is obviously a very well celebrated day and everybody seems to go to the main places such as this to shop and celebrate and enjoy their extra day off. I was in awe at everything, there was so much that I was desperate to buy! I could easily have spend several thousand there if I’d have had the money and the space to bring it back home with me!
We set off from there in decent time asĀ Tori’s brother was arrivingĀ that evening. He’s studying Mandarin at a University a short flight away from here and he gets the holiday too so he took advantage to come and see his sister. We’d been walking around all day so our feet were absolutely shattered. We’d planned on meeting Tori’s brother George and his friend Rob back at the flat then going out for a meal together, but when we arrived back at the flat and collapsed on the kitchen floor we just knew that wasn’t going to happen! A good take away and bed time was sufficient for us after such a long day. But yet another fantastic one as usual!
alice eleanor 