A busy beginning to the end..

Another busy weekend to kick off my final week in China!! I cannot believe I've been here 7 weeks and am thinking about heading home now, I have had such an amazing time and experience, one that I cant really put into words to explain, but all I can say is that it has been so good.

Weekend wise it followed a similar format of other weekends, Friday night we went out to Sanlitun, street mojitos followed by Cocomo's. A good night, everyone up for a fun night although a not too late finish as I had a busy day planned for Saturday! (And nothing got stolen, an added bonus!)

Saturday I had to be up earlyish (8am) as we were taking a day trip to Tianjin, a colleague from work recommended that I visited, it is half an hour away on the bullet train which was actually pretty amazing, it went at about 250km/h! Very speeedy!
So me, my colleague Jean, and my friend Emma all decided to go. However, the day did not go quite as smoothly as we may have hoped, and maybe we should have known that when Emma was at the wrong train station, we should just all go back to bed!!
The train station issue was my fault, we were taking the train from Beijing South Station, however I did not specify and Emma didnt ask, (who knew there were like 5 train stations in central Beijing!) so we were delayed slightly to begin with as Emma had to make her way over from the other station. When she did arrive we had problem 2, she had forgotten her passport!!
Again, who knew you needed a passport! Luckily I had spotted mine lying on the side as I left and chucked it in, just in case! Even getting a train in China is not simple!!
However, I managed to engage my brain (it was hard!) and ask if she had a scanned version on her phone, which luckily she did have. So with some persuasion we got tickets, and although we had to wait a while for the train and were leaving about 3 hours later than planned, we were on our way!!

Having no idea what is even in Tianjin and taking Jean's word for it, we arrived and went for lunch. Failing to find a decent looking restaurant we settled for this traditional, slightly grubby looking chinese restaurant. And truth be told the food was good, and nobody got ill, so I cannot complain!!
After lunch, Emma and I realised, that in Tianjin there is not really much at all! There was a "chinese culture street" with shop upon shop selling the same things, and a fake Italian town. It was so strange to see western style buildings plonked in the middle of China, and restaurants that looked really western apart from the chinese plastered all over the menu. Anyway, we made the most of what was there, had a look around everywhere and a walk along the river. The air was a little fresher in Tianjin than Beijing, so it was nice to get away from the pollution. Tianjin was also FULL of people having their wedding pictures taken, apparently in China they do their weddings on 3 different days, one they go and take pictures, one they sign the certificate and one they have the service and party. It seems saturday was the day for many people (in badly fitting and some very interesting dresses) to have their pictures taken.

We then attempted to go home, however in true China style, even though Emma had got to Tianjin with her scanned version of her passport they would not let her home!!! After some persuasion, and I dont think the chinese do persuasion very well Jean seemed to give up far too easily, especially during the next part of the story!... they agreed to let her travel if she could print it out. So being English, we thought ok, a hotel is bound to have a printer and will be willing to help us if we explain the situation.. not in china.
We went to a total of 9 hotels, and like I said Jean gave up far too easily in my opinion, a time when I wished my Chinese was better!!! Finally and about 2 hours later, we got a printed copy and got our tickets!

After all this shenanigans we had another night out to get on with..! So we decided we werent going out till late as we only got back at 8.30, and I didnt leave till about 10.30, as Vivian was going to bed, she looked at me very bizarrely! Another good night out, George is leaving Tuesday so it was his last night. Unfortunately we spent the beginning of the night in Beer Mania, a belgian beer bar, I will be there next week! Didnt really want to spend one of my last nights in Beijing there! So me and some of the girls ditched the guys for a while until they moved on to another bar and instead went for cocktails in Nanjie.
A very late night, home for 6am! You only live once -right?

Sunday (when I was conscious again!) I went to Simons, spent the afternoon at the pool with Nats, and then we had a bbq with some of his friends in the evening.

So overall another great weekend!
Although, I am excited to come home and see everyone, I dont want this experience to end!!!

This time next week I'll be waiting to board my plane home :(

xxx