J+133 大家好！新年快乐！Happy New Year

I want to wish all of you, people reading this blog, happiness, luck, good health, friendship, professional success, love for this new year 2013!

I suppose you all celebrated on the 31st, I didn't. It doesn't mean a great deal here. The new year is in February.

Today I went to Lisa's home, she invited me to make dumplings, it is a tradition in china to gather together and make dumplings, the first days of the year.
(I had an arrangement to go to the park, but it was simply TOO COLD)
Lisa kindly invited my Hungarian friend, tamas to join us. Her husband, son, niece, 阿姨 ( lady who does the cooking/house work) and her doctor were there too!
The dumplings tasted delicious! We ate too many of them!
We had a really great time! And we played cards after that!

 

J+131 1st January 2013 : 1 day vacation...

We had one day OFF today, the 1st of January, to celebrate new year.
I went out with Evan, for lunch, and a long walk.

The lunch was delicious, we had some "pumpkin and lemon" dishes, smoked fish sushi , grilled chicken wings...
When it comes to food, Evan can be trusted!

J+130 SCHOOL PARTY... Chinese style...

Today, Monday the 31st, most schools had a "party" in the afternoon.
Let me explain.
Instead of 4 lessons in the morning we had five, and no breaks, to insure a minimum impact on our study.
And after lunch, each class had to hold a sort of "garage sail" which benefits to charity works.
Is was strictly forbidden to play basketball, or do anything potentially amusing~

After this I went out with Nicky and Evan

J+129 FREEZING day, -6°C in Nanjing !

Today was a Freezing day. Temperature went down to -6C!
To answer a question that has been asked, the classrooms in my school ARE equipped with a heating system, HOWEVER, it's almost there for decoration. I've seen it "ON" twice, for 10 minutes each time; no more.
One of the students in the class is responsible of the remote control, and the final decision "whether we can turn it ON or not" requires the class monitor, head teacher, subject teachers agreement~ so it never happens ! (My monitor is never cold, he therefore doesn't feel the need for this... )
Today is Sunday, but we had school, just a basic school day. This is pretty common, they just want to make students catch up, practice more before the exams.
I, only stayed from 7am to 2pm, I had arranged with Lisa to get me out. I met up with an American girl also from AFS, we had seen each other a few times, but hadn't really talked that much.
I spent a wonderful afternoon! Her name is India (yeah, like the country)
I showed her a beautiful shopping centre, we wondered around, both needed some basic items which we victoriously found! Socks, gloves...
We had milk tea (of course...) and had some dumplings !
We couldn't understand most of the milk tea menu, so we just randomly pointed at drinks, and had great surprises! Delicious!
I will definitely see her again. Not too often, I do privilege going out with my Chinese friends, that's what I'm here for!

 

J+127 CLASS 9 "mini concert"

 

 My classmates were overexcited yesterday about a "mini concert" they organised, since the music teacher exceptionally couldn't teach us.
It was really cute to see how much they had prepared for this! A planning, an order for the er.... "Performances", they asked me to write "mini concert" on the board; they are all mad crazy about my handwriting !
Anyway~ one boy played saxophone, it was amazing! The rest made me quite sleepy to tell the truth. Asian music is very soft, and sweet, has no beat most of the time. I miss that a lot !

J+126 SNOW in Nanjing!

On the 26th, we had snow in Nanjing! I was woken up by my Christmas alarm... Looked out the window... WHITE! Oh! Goodness! I never got dressed so fast! And, I decided this was worth arriving late. Yes, in school the first lesson starts at 7:15, very early and ends at 8:45...
My teacher told me "if you feel uncomfortable one day, just arrive at the first break" ~ I couldn't fight the temptation this time!~

 

 I took some pictures ... For my two best friends, ... Who I miss terribly ...

J+126 My special Christmas

To sum up, my Christmas was nothing like what I had expected. I have been warmly surprised, and realised how many good friends I have here.
I received a lot of cards, gifts, in school.
I got a HUGE teddy bear.. Check out the pic, a LOT of chocolates, poems, flowers...
I made a lot of little cards, with personal messages on them, added a chocolate and gave them to about 70 people!
I also gave some chocolates to the guardians of my building, and wished them Merry Christmas.

 The two next photos were taken in Xin jie Kou, by a photographer. For than "Nanjing beauties" ... What an honour!

 

And this is what shopping centres looked like:

 

 Christmas party...Also, in front of the church, just next to my school, MASSIVE QUEUE!