Completely irrelevant

That has to be one of the funniest things of all time. I laughed 'til I cried. And stopped breathing. For quite a long time.

Day 135: More still about Christmas

DAY 8: SHANGHAI

Today, we decided that as we had seen so much good shopping, we were going to do it. So we did. We toddled off to Huaihai Lu (淮海路) and hit the shops. Hard. Well, I did. I spent far too much money in H&M (but then, it's Christmas, and I got money for Christmas, and I figure it's better to spend that money on stuff for me rather than bills and other such uninteresting things). So I went to H&M and bought a lot of things. It was good. Not much else to say about that really, although I'm trying to think of interesting things.

After shopping, we went to get our hair cut. We had been waiting since we got to China, as we were scared of what they might do to our hair. See, there are two types of hairdressers in Urumqi (three really, but I figure brothels shouldn't count in this): Han hairdressers, where they only know how to cut Han hair into Han styles; and Uyghur hairdressers, where they can cut caucasian hair, but only into Uyghur styles (which are basically a short back & sides with a side parting, ALL of them). So they did our hair, which was weird. When they washed mine, they didn't do it the way one would expect (you know, a sink and water and stuff). No, rather I sat there in my chair, and he started washing my hair right there. With a little squeezy bottle of water and a rather large amount of shampoo. Apparently, it's called 干洗 (Dry wash), and it was actually quite nice, as you get a full head massage while they're doing it. Western hairdressers should start it.

Here is the result (in the style of Hello Kitty):




After that, we met Vanessa (Nikki's Chinese friend) and we went for dinner, before heading back to base to go to bed, as it was quite late, and we were leaving for Hangzhou the next day.

DAY 9: SHANGHAI -> HANGZHOU

In the morning, we wanted to go for a massage and to the foreign language bookstore, so we toddled off to find them. We got to where a recommended massage place was, but couldn't find it (we figure it closed down, that happens a lot in China). So we decided to head to the foreign languages bookstore, buy a guideboko (and some other books) and find one from that. But by the time we had finished in both the bookstores, there was no time to go for a massage, as we had to get back in time to see Francesca before she went off to work and we left for Hangzhou. So we went to Mister Donut instead, which was AMAZING. They should have that in the west.

We went back to pick up our belongings, at which point I discovered my credit card had gone walkies. Alas. I had another card with me, and Nikki had access to money too, so it was okay. We went off to Hangzhou on the train, and after arriving at our hostel, we decided to take a little walk and find some food. After a while, we stumbled across 西湖天地, a little bitty on the edge of the lake with restaurants etc. We saw an Italian, so decided to try it. After looking at the menu (and its 150 kuai dishes), we decided not to eat there. But downstairs, they had a different, cheaper menu. And live music. So we ate, and cringed at the music. One girl tried to sing "La Camisa Negra," a Spanish song, but she clearly spoke absolutely no Spanish and had never actually heard the song. It was truely awful.

DAY 10: HANGZHOU -> TANGKOU

While in Hangzhou, we decided to make an excursion to Yellow Mountain (黄山). So we got up bright and early, and toddled off to the bus. After paying far too much for the bus (90+ kuai) and eating some "bread" that tasted like vomit (probably because it had 肉松 (A weird way of treating meat) in it), we got to see some lovely Zhejiang(浙江) and Anhui(安徽) scenery. We played the game where you hold your breath when you go through a tunnel, to see if you can make it. And then the bus arrived in 汤口 (Tangkou). Outside a hotel. Which is where the fun and games began.

A little man who was really quite obnoxious immediately approached us, asked if we were staying in this hotel, and when we said we weren't, offered to take us to the bus station from where we could get the bus to the Mountain. Now, I was confused, as I thought the bus we had just got off was supposed to take us to the mountain. So we followed him, and he kept telling us that if we went to his restaurant, we could look at a map, and his wife/mother/sister kept telling us we should be cold. I informed them I was in fact, not cold, as it was really quite warm there. But no, I was cold! I should buy a coat. This carried on for the 10-15 minute walk to near his restaurant (although it felt like an eternity, because the woman said literally nothing else except that I was cold).

At this point, we had figured out that it was too late to go up the mountain, and we hadn't taken things or money to stay overnight (and everywhere was a complete rip off), so we went to the bus station to see when we could go back to Hangzhou. The next bus was in two hours, so we bought tickets, and wandered around a little in Tangkou. Which was horrible. It is a run down little dump where everyone devotes ALL their energy to trying to sell tourists crap they don't want. If half the people selling maps went into something else, ANYTHING else, the town would already be a lot better. I haven't seen the film "The Hills Have Eyes," but apparently this village was like that.

So eventually we got back, after spending considerably longer than we would have liked in Hell Tangkou, and had a look at night time Hangzhou.

This concludes another installment of our trip (one more remains (hopefully))

Day 134: Yet more Christmas.

DAY 5: SUZHOU -> SHANGHAI

So, I got up early in Suzhou, and looked at the map, and worked out what the suggested route I had written down looked like. Nikki wasn't well though (just a cold, but she still felt rubbish), so we did the walk slowly (it wasn't that great, but we did see a lot of Suzhou), then we sat in Starbucks for a while to let Nikki rest (shh), then went to the train station to get the train to Shanghai.

One of our classmates who lives in Shanghai said we could stay with her, so we toddled off to her house on the subway, and when we got there some of their friends were over. They were having a Christmas Eve party before going out on the town. However, nobody made it out as people had to leave early as they were working on Tuesday etc., so by the end there were only a few of us left. Another classmate who was supposed to be going to Singapore on Christmas Eve had changed her flight to Christmas Day(!), but she couldn't come over so we didn't get to see her.

DAY 6: SHANGHAI

Christmas! We dragged ourselves out of bed around 11am, and lazed around a bit. It was nice to just sit and do nothing, and Francesca (our classmate) and Justin (her flatmate) opened their presents. Around 5pm, we finally made it out to go and get Christmas Dinner at O'Malley's, an Irish pub. But when we got there, we discovered it was reservations only and they stopped serving at 6pm. And it was 6:10pm when we got there. So we went around the corner to British Bulldog (on Urumqi Road!), where we were met by Nikki's tandem partner from Newcastle, Vanessa. After the starter (a salad with the smallest piece of salmon I've ever seen), we got the traditional dinner, turkey, potatoes, sprouts (which I still don't like), stuffing, gravy, cranberry etc.:



Then it was apple crumble pie for desert, which was really good. The meal came with a free glass of wine (but then, the whole meal was 228 kuai, so I expected something really). I phoned my mum (and spoke to everyone, including my grandparents), then we went off to a pub called Windows Scoreboard, where we had a few drinks and some games, which were highly amusing:



After sitting there for a while, we went off to a club called Babyface, and danced the night away until 4am. The taxi home cost 50 kuai (Urumqi taxi drivers make around 500 a month, so that is phenomenally expensive). All in all, a good Christmas.

DAY 7: SHANGHAI

Boxing day, we decided to see some of the touristy things in Shanghai (of which there aren't many). So we jumped on the metro to the old town, which I like to call Tourist Trap Town. People by the BILLION came up to us with little leaflets overing us "shoes, bag, watches" in a variety of brands: "Adidas, Nike, qreyhqoeiguioj" (I never did work out what the last one was). We found an old teahouse, which is quite famous. It's in the middle of a little pondy thing, and has a zig-zag path to it for protection. Evil spirits can't turn corners, you see.



We then paid 60 kuai for a cup of what was essentially wet grass. I have never seen so many tea leaves in one cup of tea in my life, it was horrible. Nikki removed around half from hers, and it was still too much, but now she had a pocketful of soggy leaves. After forcing a couple of cups down (they add hot water as many times as you want for free), we toddled off to see the French Concession, but not before taking some photos of the pretty lit up buildings:



The French concession was cool, all big buildings and lights and western things. We walked around there for a while, and headed to the bund. The bund is essentially the bit along the river, with lots of big old colonial buildings, which you will undoubtedly have seen in pictures of Shanghai (although probably not realised that's what it was).

The sightseeing tunnel under the river was...an experience. It's worth doing once, but for the love of God don't get a return. It's awful. It's tacky, cheesy and naff. All at once. At the other side, we climbed the Jinmao tower (once the tallest building in Shanghai, possibly China, I forget now):



The view from the top was quite good, but the windows were dirty, so I couldn't really get good photos. Here's two anyway:


(I just like this one because it mentions both Urumqi and London)


At the top of the Jinmao Tower, they have what is officially the tallest post office in the world, 88 floors up. As I couldn't resist, I bought some postcards and posted them from the tallest postbox in the world:



Back on the floor, my legs were too shaky to do much, so we searched for a restaurant. Not fun. We went to one recommended in the Lonely Planet, and it was closed. So we went to another recommended restaurant, also closed. So then a third, which was also closed. Eventually, we found a stupidly expensive restaurant which was still open, after which we returned home and flopped into bed.

Day 133: More tales of the Christmas Trip

Episode 2

DAY 2: NANJING (continued, 'cause I missed a bit by mistake)

So after Hunan Lu, we wanted to get a taxi home so we could sleeeeeep. So we waited at the crossroads. We waited at corner number one for a short while. As this wasn't working for us, we moved to corner number two. Then three. Then four. Then back to one, then three, then four, before finally getting a taxi. The whole process took around an hour.

DAY 3: NANJING

This day, we decided to be good tourists, so we got up at stupid o'clock in the morning, and spent 27 kuai on a taxi 7,000,000 miles across town to get on a bus which left from really near our hostel. The bus took us to 紫金山 (Purple Mountain), where we saw many sites. First, we went to see 宋美龄(Song Meiling)'s villa, which was done in both Chinese and Western style. It was a nice house, but not much to say about it really. But here's a photo of me in the doorway anyway:



After that, we got on another bus to 钟山风景名胜区 (Zhongshan Mountain National Park, another name for Purple Mountain) which had many sites. First of these was the Linggu Scenic Area (灵谷景区), named for the Linggu Pagoda (灵谷塔). Below are some photos, and I'll just summarise what we did. We saw the 灵谷寺 (Linggu Temple), a really important temple. Going in the door, you saw a courtyard where people were burning yellow paper in two drums at either side of a giant incense holder. There were loads of people praying, and it felt kind of wrong to be intruding, but people didn't seem to mind. Still, we didn't hang around long. The 灵谷塔 was terrifying, 9 floors (which doesn't sound much, but when you think about the high ceilings and the fact that there's basically nothing under you), but I climbed it anyway. But the weather wasn't great, so the photos aren't great.



After we finished there, we tried to get one on of those little tourist bus things made to look like trains to Sun Yat-Sen(孙中山)'s mausoleum (for the record, his name in Chinese is not Sun Yat-Sen, it's Sun ZhongShan). But we got on the wrong one, and went to the Ming Tombs instead. Which was okay, because we wanted to go there anyway. So we walked along the Sacred Path, which is in a curved line so as to avoid an old king's tomb (The emperor's advisors suggested destroying the tomb so that the Sacred Path could be in a straight line, but he didn't want to do that). We posed next to all of the animals as the animals, for example:



The animals they had were Elephants, Lions, Camels, Horses, Qilin (麒麟) (which is not a unicorn (which is the usual English translation), but rather a mixture of a lion, a tiger, an ox and a dragon, and it appears only in the reign of a benevolent and wise emperor, which is why only emperors have it in front of their tombs) and a Xiezhi (獬豸)(which is also a type of Chinese unicorn, which had a horn which it used to gore the guilty but it would never touch the innocent, so the Xiezhi appeared in courtrooms).

Then we saw the tomb itself, which wasn't particularly interesting, as it's just a big rectangular brick building in front of the hill, and his actual tomb is somewhere inside the hill. But out of respect, people don't look for it.

Then after a sit down (we were getting tired by this point) and some Starbucks chocolate covered coffee beans, we went to the mausoleum of 孙中山. They say communism never really reached Nanjing, and the way they are about the people from the Republic of China (1911-1949) makes that clear. His mausoleum is huge, they still have Song Meiling's house the way it was when she lived there etc., despite them being not too popular in China (as they were capitalists after all). The mausoleum is HUGE, and quite impressive, but 392 steps when you're already tired is not much fun. Still, we saw it, and it was good. We then got the bus back into town, and went to get some coffee. Not done being western, we went to Haagen-Dazs, which was half awesome, half not. I had Chocolate Cookie Dough ice cream, which was amazing, and a "Chocolate Stir," which was supposed to be rich hot chocolate served with a dark chocolate spoon. What I got was watery horribly hot chocolate with a sickly milk chocolate spoon. Unimpressed.

DAY 4: NANJING -> SUZHOU

Sunday, our last day in Nanjing, we got up kind of early, and checked out. We visited the Nanjing Massacre Museum, which was really quite grim. We went in, and a man came up to me, and gestured writing on his hand. I had no idea what he meant. He refused to speak though, as a lot of people did in South East China (they probably assume we're just like all the other white tourists who don't speak Chinese, which is fair enough, but still frustrating). Turned out, he wanted us to write our nationality and how many were in our party. Anyway, we then went on and saw the mass grave (which had around 10,000 bodies in it), then an exhibition which had loads of artefacts and stories from people who survived it, which were really horrible. The ways the Japanese killed people, the raping and burning...they were generally really horrible, and refused to admit it. They set up Comfort Centres, which were basically little buildings with Chinese women whom the Japanese could go and rape at will. The exhibition was slightly ruined by the schoolchildren running around screaming and laughing, and apparently finding the whole thing quite amusing. Although I do think they were two young to appreciate what it was all about.

After that, we got some street food (a big pancakey type thing with egg and mixed green bits with a spicey sauce, very nummy):



Then it was off to the train station to head to Suzhou. When we got to Suzhou, we went straight to the taxi rank where the guy immediately ran the meter (nice change) and took us to where we were going. Where they told us they weren't actually open for business, despite taking bookings online (I hadn't made one, I just looked and saw that they were). They sent us to another one, where they did have a room. But the walk was pretty:



We walked, got some street food (I got what in the UK would be called Chow Mein (炒面 - chao mian), and Nikki got some fried potato thing), and went to bed. And this concludes the second part of our trip to the South East.

Day 132: Christmas Trip!

This Christmas Trip will be broken into several parts, as there's a lot to say, and I can't be bothered writing it all out now.

So, without further ado...

DAY 1: URUMQI -> NANJING(ish)

At 4am Xinjiang time (GMT+6), my alarm went off, and I nearly cried. I hit snooze, then got up at 4:10am. I packed quickly (I'm getting really good at packing light, it was quite easy), then we toddled off to get a taxi to the airport. After checking in, we looked at the sign and discovered that our plane has a stop at Yinchuan. At this point, I didn't think it should count as going to Ningxia (The Autonomous Region of which Yinchuan is the capital). So we landed at Yinchuan, and we got off the plane to stretch our legs for a bit. After a wait of 45 minutes or so, I noticed a sign saying that due to weather conditions, our plane would be delayed, and more information would follow. The weather in Yinchuan was fine, so I assumed it was weather in Nanjing - great. A while later, another flight was also delayed, but this one was to Tianjin (next to Beijing) so I figured it was the weather in central China. Then an announcement came: "Passengers for the flight to Nanjing: Your new departure time is 11:30pm." An angry mob formed at the gate, and the woman repeatedly said it was nor her fault, it was the weather, and if they wanted to complain, they should go to the information desk. So the angry mob moved there. There was much shouting, then it was revealed that the problem was not the weather, it was a fault with the plane. More shouting.




After a while, we were given "refreshments" (a choice of Coke, Sprite, Fanta or Water), then bussed to a hotel in Yinchuan. This definitely counted as Ningxia now. We got to the hotel, and Nikki slept for a bit, as she was somewhat fatigued. I wandered around for a bit, read my entire book that was to keep me entertained for the entire trip, had dinner, wandered around some more. Then at 9:15, I was told we would be picked up at 9:30, and to get my bags and wait in the lobby. I went upstairs, to rouse Nikki from her slumber, and was informed she had (fairly minor) food poisoning (again). Excellent start to our trip.

We got to the airport, and at 11:35pm we took off, flying to Nanjing. But only after we were given 20 kuai for the inconvenience :D We landed around 2am, then got on a shuttle bus to the city centre(ish, we think), and got a taxi to a hotel. Hotels in China have an annoying habit of being empty, but telling us they have no rooms. I think it's because filling out the paper work and making the report to the police (they track your every move here) is too troublesome, so it's easier to turn people away. And also, our taxi driver was really quite stupid. The conversation went something like this:
Stupid Taxi Driver: Where to?
Me: Zhongshan Bei Lu.
STD: Where on Zhongshan Bei Lu?
Me: Number 550.
STD: Where on Zhongshan Bei Lu?
Me: Number 550.
STD: What place on Zhongshan Bei Lu?
Me: It's a hotel.
STD: Which hotel?
Me: Jinjiang something
STD: Call and find out.
Me: It's number 550, go there.
Waiting at a green traffic light for me to phone, until a car came)
STD: Is it Jinjiang Inn?
Me: Yes!
STD: Okay.
Two minutes later...
STD: Is it the Jinjiang Inn?
Me: Yes.
STD: Where on Zhongshan Bei Lu?
Me: Jinjiang Inn, number 550

So we walked down Zhongshan Bei Lu, and stumbled upon a little hotel, where they were willing to take us (although she was adamant we were allowed to get a Chinese ID card, despite not being citizens). The bed was essentially a board with sheets, but it was cheap, and it was 4am, so we didn't care.



DAY 2 - NANJING

At 11am, we got up, showered, dressed, booked another night in the hotel, then headed off for a day of exploration. I thought the Blossom Rain Platform (or something like that, not sure how to translate it into English) was near our hotel, but it turned out to just be a park. So we wandered through the park for a bit, then down a street where we felt famous. One boy saw us and did the stereotypical Chinese "oooooooo" when he saw us. One girl literally jumped when she saw us, and even a woman in her 30s tried her best English 'hello' on us. It was brilliant.

We then decided to jump on a bus, and went to the end of the line. We switched to another bus because a brown tourist sign was pointing in the direction that the bus was going, but it turned out to go nowhere near it. We realised we were going nowhere near anything, so we got off and went to a Wang Bar (from the chinese 网吧 (wang ba), which is basically a giant room with lots of computers, kind of like an internet cafe, but full of Chinese students playing games online), and researched places to go in Nanjing. Turns out, there's a LOT to do. So we headed back for the city centre to go to the Confucious Temple. The bus only went as far as a metro, so we hopped on that and got off a little along, where lots of taxi drivers wanted to take us to the airport. We realised we couldn't get to the Confucious Temple from where we were, so we got on the metro again to the very centre of the city. The metro was confusing: our tickets were small blue plastic tokens, and it took watching a couple of people go through to work out that it was a swipe thing.

Anyway, we got off the metro in the city centre, and then were too tired and it was so late that we didn't care, so we were very bad tourists.



It was brilliant. But then we became good tourists again! We had heard that Hunan Lu was good to see at night, as it used to have a night market (which was closed down), but it's meant to be nice at night, so we went.



This concludes the first two days of my time in the east of China.

Day 119: Exams are over!

Okay, so people keep asking me how exams were, and the word I use most often to describe them is "funny." How can exams be funny? I don't hear you ask. Well, it's like this:

Monday morning we had our exam for our all-round Chinese class (which focuses mostly on grammar). Last week, she told us specifically what the questions would be on, to the point of saying, "Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of this text will be in the exam." So it was really quite simple. The questions were also really quite easy. Fill in the blank in this sentence, using one of the words in brackets: I would love to go, [BLANK] I can't afford it (but, and, therefore, yesterday). I mean really. And the CHEATING that was going on was unbelievable. I mean to the point that both Nikki and I at one point had to put our head on the desks to keep from laughing too much. A girl sitting near Nikki kept looking at Nikki's answers. In spite of the fact that Nikki and this girl were doing different papers. People were texting each other answers, shouting across the room in Russian to get answers, passing notes, talking etc. It was mental. One girl had her textbook and notes under her desk. And what did the teachers do? Oh yes, nothing. I was too stunned to do anything other than laugh. Best bit - I had finished, and my teacher took my paper, looked through it, gave it back and asked if I wanted to check it again. I said no, I have already checked it, as it's unfair if I get told there are errors and given the chance to correct them, it was my decision to hand my paper in early. She looked at me and asked me if I wanted to check again. I said no again. She asked me again. I said no again. She said, "Right, okay, you can go home then."

Next up was listening, so we went to the listening room, sat down spaced out (this is just my class mind, the Kazakhs sat playing music loudly, sitting next to each other and talking about us in Russian. Then the teachers got there, and we sat around for a while. Then they handed out the topics for the oral exam. My first one was something about which I could deinitely not have spoken. But we're allowed to switch once, and the second one wasn't great, although I could have spoken about it. But we were all sat in a big group discussing the upcoming exam (which seemed to be encouraged almost), and discussing what our topics were, so I switched with Tobin as he didn't like his, so mine was "What do you normally do on Sundays? Decribe step by step your day." The exams started. During the exams, other teachers would go over and interrupt, the Kazakhs were still playing music and talking seriously loudly, and during my exam, the teacher got up and left when I was mid-sentence, without excusing herself or telling whoever needed her that it had to wait two minutes (as I wasn' even going to talk that long). But whatever.

Then it was listening, which was a joke. We answered a lot of the questions before they were read out - it was all stuff we'd heard before, or common sense. For example, "Which is not true: The north is cold, the south is hot, the north-east is hot." Hmm, let's see. The north-east, sharing a border with Siberia, is probably not that warm. Again, there was rampant cheating, to the extent that once the exam was over, one girl had three other people's papers around her, comparing answers and writing in her answers. This was pointed out to a teacher who said, "You shouldn't do that" then let her finish copying. But it was quite nice when people shouted answers, as they were getting them wrong, and it made me feel much better :)

We were finished for the day, so we all headed home, to get ready for a big event that I will tell you more about in the next post.

Then yesterday we had our reading exam. As a test, Nikki kept her textbook on her table to see if the teacher would say anything. She didn't. But the book got in Nikki's way, so she got rid of it anyway. This paper was even easier, and there's one section I swear the majority of readers of this could get pass-marks in. It was supposed to be work out the meaning of the character from the radical. But it was actually, write which of these pictures is part of the character. And I trust most of you could find the 心 in 想 or 木 in 机. I mean really, we're intermediate now. Again, cheating, people coming in late, people we're allowed to leave to go to the toilet etc. A joke.

But hey, I'm confident I got over 90 overall, which converts to a 76.5+ in Newcastle, which replaces a 56 from second year, which would make my average to 76.4, up from 73, which is nice. And means that in 4th year, if I get 67 or more, I get a first for my degree :D Of course, it's possible I get higher next semester here, or in fact got higher than 90. And of course, my average will be 67 in my 4th year, so I think a 1st is definitely achievable :D Especially as I'm sure I'm dropping French now - while I would like to keep it on, it's just too much work. If I can keep my Spanish at a 70 (or higher), Chinese at an 87 (or higher), it means my other three modules need to average 51. Woohoo!

And while we're on the topic, modules I'm thinking of taking next year:

Level C Chinese
Screen Translation: Language, Culture and Subtitling (Chinese)
Level D Spanish
Either Inter-American Relations since the Spanish-American War or Culturas de la Juventad en Latinamerica, Espana y Portugal (Youth cultures in Latin America, Spain and Portugal)
then either Syntax and History of Spanish or Recent Spanish and Mexican Cinema

But of course, I don't have the list of modules available next year, they may add some, or stop some. So we'll see. That's just provisional thoughts.

The sign says "祝大家圣诞快乐" (Merry Christmas)

***LATER THAT DAY***

URUMQI - Police have confirmed reports that the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Mr S. Man (1 day old) are being regarded as suspicious, and are currently searching for the main suspect. His imaged was captured by local CCTV, and police are asking anyone with any information to contact their local police station immediately.

Day 113: Christmas Plans

So, our plans for Christmas are now sorted, and here's the deal:

December 20th, fly to Nanjing, spend a day there.
December 21st, train/bus to Hefei, spend a day there.
December 22nd, train/bus to Suzhou, spend a day there.
December 24th, head for Shanghai, which means the previous bits will be done slightly slower.
December 25th, eat western food in Shanghai.
December 26th, hang out in Shanghai.
December 27th, head to Hangzhou
December 28th, go to Huangshan for the day (Huangshan is one of the five most famous mountains in China, although they say this one is the most of the most.)
December 30th, fly back to Urumqi from Hangzhou, meaning Hangzhou can be done slower, or we can stgay an extra day in Shanghai.

You might get postcards, if I remember.

Day 105: Boredom

Slightly old, I just realise I forgot to actually post this:


我是中国苹果 (I am a Chinese apple)

I bangededed my head (with an arrow pointing to a huge bruise on the left)

你好！我是一个苹果！(Hi! I'm an apple!)

Day 102: Christmas is coming

As Christmas is coming rapidly, we decided we would taken on a little art project. Here is the result:

Nikki's

Catherine's

Mine

Catherine's one, Nikki and I worked on together, although to be fair, Nikki did more of it than I did. Nikki's one I worked on, Catherine helped me at the very end with decorating the boxes. My one, Nikki did alone. It was very exciting to get to open an advent calendar, I have to say. I haven't yet eaten the contents, but that will happen in about 5 minutes I reckon.

We also have a selection of Christmas cards on our fridge too, to try and make it feel a bit more Christmassy.


And Catherine also bought this:

It sings the tune of I Saw Three Ships, but the words are...not. I'm not entirely sure what it is saying to be honest.