A few more pictures of China

I thought it would be fitting to add a few more photos from China. And, for good measure, I have included a short caption, story, anecdote, pun, joke and/or sentence so you have some kind of opportunity to empathise with the imagery.


Number One: We were taken to a tea house. We were sat down and then demonstrated the making and tasting of a select few teas. All very nice and tasteful. The Chinese host did, unfortunately but rather hilariously, made the experience a rather comical one. She pulled out, from beneath her tea table, two mugs. They had an image on the side of the mug. The black and white image was of a dragon and the great wall. She then told us to "pay very close attention to the mug", as she poured in the hot water the image changed to a mixture of very vibrant colours. But the raising of her voice, accompanied with the fluttering of her eye lids gave us the impression she was revealing god's biggest piece of magic. It was very embarrassing. Giovanna and I were clearly not in the slightest bit amazed by her pathetic attempt to to wow us, we both gave excruciatingly false ooooooo's and rrrrrrrrr's. It worked out it was her selling technique, as she proceeded to tell us we could purchase the exact mugs in her tea-house. Next!!!!

I like this picture. Giovanna and our guide walking.

As you can see the picture above is of my good friend Giovanna. Here you can see Giovanna eating a ringed donut. The catch is that we had stolen these donuts from our hotel buffet. Then we had taken them into the Coffee shop in Beijing Zoo and decided to eat them. It was funny as it was naughty to bring food into an establishment that sells food, we were getting in touch with the child in us.

In the park surronding 'The Temple of Heaven' there were many local people hanging out. Some were playing cards, badminton, chit-chatting, stretching, practicing Tai-Chi etc. On a concreted section of the park there were a herd of Chinese locals dancing. The picture above is of the moment when their tape player broke down. When the tape player was working, anyone with half a brain could tell that it wasn't going to be supplying people with music for much longer. The noise was dreary, weak, feeble, sappy and without question strained. Once it had stopped the party all stopped their dancing and a very eerie mood swept across the dance floor. The crowds were motionless and deadly silent. One poor man, who is obviously the resident DJ in the park, was working overtime trying to fix the player. A very anxious minute had passed and then suddenly music started again. It's difficult to explain how it re-started, but if ever you have tried to start an old car in freezing conditions, then you will be able to imagine a tape player doing/sounding the same. It coughed, it spluttered and it finally chugged its way into chorus. The dancing resumed peacefully.

Final picture today is of Giovanna buying some souvenirs. Not a very interesting picture. However, when we went to Silk Road market a couple of days earlier, Giovanna ran into a bit of haggling trouble. She decided to try on a North Face branded jacket. It was a very decent fake. The selling lady started of with a price of around 800 Chinese monies. Much haggling and o-ing and r-ing later. Giovanna found herself cornered in the little shop. She couldn't get away from the persistent selling lady. Things were getting fairly heated as Giovanna decided that this wasn't the person she wanted to purchase anything from. The price had gone down to around 140 Chinese monies, which is £10. Giovanna decided enough was enough and walked away, with the selling lady dragging behind like a screaming baby (attached to Giovanna's wrist). Two or three shakes later she fell off and walked back to her little shop - however she had the last say in the matter. There was a mere 5 metres between us all and the selling lady shouted "F--K YOU - F--K YOU" very loudly, the row of shops stopped and all stared. We moved on to the next row of shops.