Last night

Last evening began at my place with Ruru, Armin and a couple of beers. The goal was to go out and have fun but we had no plan for it. After a few phonecalls we found out that some friends were at KTV singing karaoke, so we decided to join them. Once at KTV we had some problems with finding the others. They were hiding in room 232. Yes, the place is huge. KTV is a place where you can go for singing karaoke, drink and have fun. You and your company books a room that contains a large screen, karaoke machine, tables and a sofa. Then you simply pick the songs you want to sing and get the party started. Once in a while a guy in a suite enters the room and offers refreshments. We decided to enter the drink-store by our selves and that was an experience. The store looked like a small tax free shop with a large staff in suites. A man carried our basket while we picked out the bottles we wanted. They really tried to sell us as much as possible. Then we were escorted back to the room where the drinks were served.

Armin and I decided to open up with "Girls just wanna have fun" which we managed to wreck totally. The plan was to set a low standard for the evening. Unfortunately we had a Chinese elite singer amongst us and we sounded like frogs compare to her. Wow, her amazing voice gave me goosebumps.

My outfit for tonight

At about 21:00 we took a taxi down town for further partying. A Chinese guy, Benson, showed us his favorite place. It looked like a British pub with mostly Chinese guests but there were some foreigners as well excluding us. We were really in the mood for dancing so we planned to have one beer and then leave for a club. The plans were changed as soon as the live band started to play. Two Chinese men and one woman sang and played cover songs and they were really good! I think the woman was half American, because she sang and looked like a genuine singer from New Orleans. 

Anyone could grab a microphone and join them for some singing. That was incredibly fun! It did not take long until we traded the table for the dancefloor. There must have been something wrong with my wrist watch, because suddenly it showed 04:00 and it was time to find a taxi and head for home.

It was a long time ago since I had so much fun as we had last night. My knees are paying today for all the dancing. They better recover quickly, because the time is almost 20:00 and we are heading out tonight again, but just Armin and I this time. We will start slowly at some bar but will probably end up in one of the crazy clubs around Lai wai tan-district. Cheers!

The art of tea

Over a week ago I invited my Chinese friend Ruru for tea in my apartment. She did not class my bags of jasmine tea from Walmart as tea and I received several comments about the quality, or the lack of it. She managed to force herself to drink half a cup after adding several spoons of sugar to it. A promise was made that she would take me to a real tea-store in order to buy real tea. 

Said and done, she kept her promise. A sunny afternoon last Sunday we took a taxi down town to a district full of tea-stores. Stores and more stores, there was no end to it. Ruru had a specific shop in mind that she used to to business with and she called it "the king among tea-shops", and we went there. We were welcomed by her friend, a young girl about 25 years old who were supervising the store and we had a quick tour inside the facilities. I must say I were impressed. Not only by the amount of tea or teapots, but even the decor, lightning and mostly the knowledge of the staff. I was asked what kind of tea I wanted to buy and it was not easy to decide. How do you decide when you have 1000 different kinds to chose from? I said "Lap sang" but  it seemed like they never heard of it, or maybe I pronounced it wrong. The only other tea I could think about was jasmine tea. Of course, they had many different variations of that sort so I was back on square one.

Ruru  with a sample of jasmine tea

We could pick up some tea with the hand and smell the fragrance. If we liked it we got a cup of hot tea as sample. The preparation of the tea looked like a ritual. We sat down at a table and the girl prepared different pots of tea. Now and then she poured tea over stone figurines shaped as animals on the table. I was told that the figurines could never be sold for any money, because they are very very old and have absorbed tea for many years. Still I do not understand the purpose of it but I like and respect traditions. Tea is considered to be an art in China.

Finally I decided to buy some jasmine tea with a wonderful fragrance and some kind of black tea. Along with it I bought a tea pot which has already come in handy several times since last Sunday.

Ruru was behaving like a kid in a candy store. She made a sound of joy every time she saw a cup or teapot that she especially liked. After about 45 minutes we had to leave before we would spend to much money. I did not buy enough tea on purpose. Now I have an excuse to visit the lovely store again, and again...

Different sorts of black tea

Flavor of the week

I forgot all about this weeks Flavor of the week!
It was a tough choice, but here it is, the Flavor of the week:
*Drum roll*
Kiwi flavored chips!

So how does it taste? Like normal salty chips but with a touch of kiwi. It is really not as bad as it seems. No worries Jonas, I will bring you a sample when I come home.

I must also publish a picture of my latest shampoo, recommended by the good people of Ningbo and Jackie Chan.

♪♫ Everybody bought Kung Fu shampoo! *Didilidi didi li di diii* ♪♫

The shampoo goes perfect with my new Chinese haircut I got today. Maybe it will be shown in a picture or two later.

Today we will hit the city center in order to consume alcohol and practice dancing. Well earned if you ask me. I am very much looking forward to it. Cheers!

The plans for today and more

Good morning Europe and good day China!

The afternoon's lecture was canceled and we do not complain. The weather is beautiful and it was a long time ago since I saw such a blue sky. To good to spend the afternoon inside a classroom. I must study really, but I will skip it at head down town for shopping clothes with Armin. We are also in the need of a tailor's skills because Armins pants has a couple of extra holes and my pair is too long. The tailor charges 3 RMB per pants so it is really cheap, but usually we pay her extra for the good work.

The tailor and Hong Wan Peng, a friendly local

If there is time enough we will try a local tea house along with some of the other foreigners, and after that we will most probably go to a club for some drinks. Andy, a new Chinese friend will show us some places. I have been  to a few bars for foreigners but I do not really like it. I can visit such places at home and I really do want to connect with the Chinese people.

The past week has been filled with studies, studies and studies. I had an examination this Wednesday in Statistical methods and I think it went OK. There will be another re-exam in one month if I fail this one, and it will not be a problem. Due to all studies I put the blog on low priority as you may understand.
I will dedicate this weekend to fun activities, I could really use that now. Just working makes me a bit dull.
And oh! I got a job offer  from the international student coordinator which I accepted. The job is about teaching English to the local police officers during evenings. That can be challenging and fun! I can also learn something from it and the pay is really good. A full time English teacher can earn about 10 000 RMB a month. Compare that with a normal salary of 3000 RMB/month. China lacks of such teachers and the demand is very high. Some classmates teaches English to kids and are payed 200 RMB/hour.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend! Hopefully I will update the blog with new happenings, but have lots of catching up to do as well about old events. More things happens than I have time to write about. No complaining here, I love it!

Interviewed by Chinese TV

Last Thursday my friend Armin and I were interviewed by a Chinese TV-channel and it were broad casted the same evening on the 18:00 news. Of course there is a story behind this;

About 2 months before I moved to Ningbo I was reading about the city in forums on the Internet. On ningboguide.com I found a post with the topic "Can you help this girl?". I started to read the post and was caught by the story. Short version; It was about a girl who worked as a nanny for a British/Chinese couple. The girl became very ill and was dying. The nice couple took her in but could not finance her treatment by themselves. They turned to the citizens for help in order to buy a dialysis machine. The whole story about Penny can be found here:  http://www.ningboguide.com/node/5613

Kath, our international student coordinator, told us about the story last Tuesday and I thought it seemed familiar. The Wanli university and the Ningbo group needed 2 foreign volunteers to represent the school in a meeting with the girl. Since I have been following the story for 3 months I saw an opportunity to meet the girl, so I gladly signed up along with Armin. We were suppose to hand over an envelope with money, flowers and a fruit basket. We added some money ourselves. The bouquet of flowers was huge! And the fruit basket as well, it was heavy to carry. I couldn't help my self thinking that it might have been better to give the girl money instead of spending it on flowers and fruit.

On Thursday morning a car picked us up an drove us to the family's apartment. After the 30min drive we stepped out of the car and became a bit surprised. We were met by a TV-team and a photographer from a newspaper along with other visitors such as 2 kids from an elementary school and Craig, the founder of Ningboguide.com. In the apartment we delivered the load of presents and had a nice chat with Terry, the husband, and we exchanged a few words with the girl, Penny (Yu Ping), over a cup of coffee. The news team interviewed most people in the room, including Armin and me. It was kind of lousy and very hard to understand the reporter. I had to "freestyle" a bit and surprisingly a clip with me in it appeared on the TV-screen later that evening. They said something about the American student "Han Sen", hehe. You can watch the clip at this adress:
http://www.nbtv.com.cn/video/index.asp?channel=1&contentid=120100319062000
Story starts at 08:08 minutes and the part with Armin and I starts at about 09:20 minutes. I had problems watching it in Chrome but IE works well. The site is Chinese so the connection might be a bit slow.

I must admit it was kind of cool to be subtitled in Chinese.

If you have any interest in the story about Penny please read the forumpost on Ningboguide.com, and don't hesitate to contact Penny's family on friendsxofxpenny@gmail.com if you can help in any way.

Just for the show

I am not going to write anything interesting, I just wanted to show you how things are looking on my balcony now(08:03 CET). We have 29°C at the moment and it feels just wonderful, but I must study. Then I got the brilliant idea of moving my job out to the balcony. Imagine sunny 29°C, the fragrance of newly cut grass and a cold drink... This is how it may look like:

Tomorrow is a good day for purchasing real furnitures for the balcony.

Also, Simon took this picture while we were having lunch earlier today.

Taxi ride down town

I don't have that much time to write today but I need to update the blog with something. Yesterday my friend Armin and I took a taxi to Tiyanyi square down town of Ningbo for shopping. The plan was to buy a camera support for my Nikon, but we ended up with lots of clothes instead after 6 hours of shopping. Armin filmed the ride with my camera, and here is a short sample:


It was good to have Armin as my wingman during the shopping. He showed me different styles and I bought clothes that I am not used to wear. I am very much enjoying my new style and I do not think that my friends in Sweden would recognize me if they saw me now. It is amazing how you can surprise yourself. I must  upload a few pictures later.

A very exciting thing happened today. Armin and I were interviewed by Chinese TV and newspaper and it was shown on the 18:00 news. I will post the whole story tomorrow when the TV-station uploads the clip on their website. I must say it was kind of cool to be subtitled on Chinese TV :-)