I started to realise what I would miss the most about my time in China during the last few weeks I spent in Shijiazhuang. Walking somewhere I don't remember on my own, the sun was shining and it was a gorgeous day. I'd finished teaching, had a months worth of traveling and hotel visiting ahead of me and I had absolutely nothing to worry about what so ever. Nothing. I wonder how old I'll be before I ever have that feeling again?
Going out for food every evening was a huge part of the time in China. The basics of the Chinese we picked up was done so through ordering food and drink in restaurants - without the aid of any English menus. A tiring and dull day was often picked up with a fun and eventful evening in a local restaurant. Imagine getting together once a week with your best friends. Eating, drinking and having a laugh (i'm sure this happens a lot). Now in China, we did exactly this nearly every day of the week (Even if sometimes we argued more than we laughed it was still amusing).
It would be hard not to become friends with someone who has been thrown in at the deep end in a foreign Country, for the first time just like you have. I won't lie, there were times when I would have loved to have just slapped people across the face with a cold trout. Given the chance, there would have been a queue out the door with people wanting to do it to me thats for sure! But I was undoubtedly lucky getting grouped up with the people I did. And I would even include Meredith in that (One last dig, I couldn't resist). It would have been impossible to stay the full time that I did had I not got on with the others as much as I did.
Going out for food every evening was a huge part of the time in China. The basics of the Chinese we picked up was done so through ordering food and drink in restaurants - without the aid of any English menus. A tiring and dull day was often picked up with a fun and eventful evening in a local restaurant. Imagine getting together once a week with your best friends. Eating, drinking and having a laugh (i'm sure this happens a lot). Now in China, we did exactly this nearly every day of the week (Even if sometimes we argued more than we laughed it was still amusing).
It would be hard not to become friends with someone who has been thrown in at the deep end in a foreign Country, for the first time just like you have. I won't lie, there were times when I would have loved to have just slapped people across the face with a cold trout. Given the chance, there would have been a queue out the door with people wanting to do it to me thats for sure! But I was undoubtedly lucky getting grouped up with the people I did. And I would even include Meredith in that (One last dig, I couldn't resist). It would have been impossible to stay the full time that I did had I not got on with the others as much as I did.
Yep, the food, the friends and the lack of stress - the three things I will remember most fondly of my time in China.
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