Merry (late) Christmas everybody!

I think that with 3 weeks passing since christmas i should probably get on writing what we did for it.

Our plan for christmas was to meet up with all the Jiangxi volunteers (8 of us) as well as meeting Ned's French girlfriend who was coming to visit him for 2 weeks. Lots of preperation was in order and we set out to get everyone the best christmas gifts we could as we knew it would be difficult for all of us being away from our families, even if the boys don't admit it. I headed for TaoBao (Chinese ebay and my new best friend) to get Rob and Dan their gifts. I ended with a pokemon hat for Dan as well as some Pikachu slippers (They'll look great with his onesie). Rob was a little difficult at first but then i came across an old gameboy advance.. PERFECTION! This is for the boy who sits quietly, likes to stay in his room and moans whenever i open my mouth to talk! I got the gameboy for him and a few games as well as some chino's as me and Cat are disgusted by the boys dress sense.. sorry Rob but you're dad jeans are hideous! For Ella we got her a nice scarf and some sketch pads for Nicole. Ned and Matt got cigarettes as we really were stuck on them and we got Ned's girlfriend a bottle of Bijou as everyone has to try that delicious drink some point in their life (SARCASM!!). Cat got a few gifts of her parents too so we had some crackers, decorations and lots of chocolate .. YAY (but we've run out now :( ) Me and Cat also went to treat ourself to a massage as a christmas treat. We went with 2 chinese friends and i got a full back massage and facial.. was unreal! What made it even more amazing was having our friend pay for it all, no questions asked... we were in shock but very very grateful... true celebs here for real!

Just before christmas we held a 'christmas' meal for our 2 chinese teachers and Judy. We did cook them pasta, not too christmassy, but we wanted to cook them western food and pasta was what we managed to grab in Nanchang. They all loved it and we set the mood by giving our crackers, christmas hats and playing good old christmas tunes. There was no pasta and sauce to spare by the end so we took this as a good sign but had a lot of cleaning up to do the next day, not helped by the fact our water machine leaked all over our kitchen floor! .. the pain of not being able to drink water from the tap!

On the Friday night we crammed every present we had into our backpacks, having to take a smaller one in addition which was just full of presents. It was off to catch the train at an early 6am the next day and lugging everything everywhere really wasn't fun! We grabbed our usual McDonalds in Nanchang and then headed to Jiujiang, not waiting for the boys who i'm sure were taking as long as they could on purpose :) We arrived to an amazingly decorated house at the girls! There were paper chains everywhere, merry christmas signs and a fridge full of snacks.. yay! I was assigned to the usual cold room which was a freezer compared to the rest of their house which is a fridge. If it was cold last time this was another level! There is NO heating in the house except for their bedrooms and the house is not well insulated. This meant that coats had to worn in the house and in bed we had 4 blankets and were still freezing... it was painful.. just a tad (you think i'm moaning about the cold now wait until i go to Harbin next month, -25!!). The boys soon arrived though and we unloaded our presents under the tree and set out for some food and to get the drinks in! We celebrated christmas on christmas eve though because the boys had to go home on christmas day as they were teaching boxing day. We only just managed to get boxing day off because of a huge amount of moaning on my half!

The next day was our christmas eve so us girls headed to the shops to buy lots of food and prepare for our christmas meal. We got some pork which we were going to chop up and cook, some vegetables to boil, potatoes to makes mash and sausages and bacon to attempt to make pigs in blanket. I need some credit here though as everything had to be cooked in a wok or with a microwave.. it wasn't the easiest of jobs. Their kitchen isn't very well equipped either with the best knife being very blunt. Everyone seemed impressed with our produce and we got onto playing silly games before bed. A favourite is taboo, split into two teams and you have to get your team to say the word on the card by you describing it, but there is a few words you can't say when describing. Its great fun but i get VERY competitive and shout lots at others... its tense! Some of the others decided to do one of them ghost board things so i immediatly headed to bed, not wanting to get spooked too much!

THE NEXT DAY WAS CHRISTMAS

Me and Rob woke up and set out on waking everybody out. I ran into each room jumping on everyone then Rob followed in wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in his santa costume.. it was pretty awesome. Everyone then gathered on the sofas downstairs, wrapped in our blankets for warmth and Santa handed our presents. I got some AWESOME presents. Dan and Rob got me and Cat some amazing speakers.. like amazing, i was so shocked by what they got us, it was awesome! I also got a necklace with my chinese name on, some choco biscuits from cats dad, new scarf, tampons and vasaline (trust me the last 2 listed were amazing, i really needed them and can't get them here in China!) Rob seemed maybe the happiest with his gameboy though, i was really happy with how much he liked it and it kept him occupied for a long time whilst us girls got started on the cooking. Respect has to be given to Dan though who did do the job none of us wanted to by peeling all the veg for us :D THANKYOU. Cooking was a bit hectic and me and Cat managed to boil the veg, rope Matt and Rob (the bromance) into mashing potatoes and try our best with cooking the best. Cat even had some gravy from home which we heated with onions. The table was set with a christmas table cloth, crackers and some horrible red wine. The food was half cold half hot but added with gravy it tasted really good, even my pork turned out well. Everyone really enjoyed it and you can see the finishing product on the cover photo. For desert Cat reserved some chocolate cake just for us two whilst others shared some mince pies and christmas pudding. Ned's girlfriend also brought some chocolate spread which i dug into with a spoon, a very bent spoon by the end i must add as the spread was pretty frozen from the cold house temperature.

The night ended with us drinking but playing games again and a not too late night as we were all shattered. The next day the boys headed off and me and Ella went for a nice walk around the lake to get out and about. The Chinese don't celebrate christmas at all, so despite it being christmas day, nothign felt too festive except for crowds of people watching what seemed like a traditional chinese performance or doing some very bad karoke on little laptops.. god china. In the afternoon we went out for dinner with one of the girls american friends for some pizza. It was good fun meeting other foreigns and the pizza was pretty good and not too expensive either .. WIN WIN WIN! Boxing day was time to travel home and me and Cat being very tired. This resulted in poor packing and missing a few things including a panic at the train station thinking i lost my passport.. it was in the front pocket haha! Arriving home after attempting and failing to sleep on the train meant was straight to our beds and throwing everything everywhere. I can use the excuse for being tired that we had to lug our speakers back home, not fun for two weak girls

Anyway.. next week we are off to Yihuang to celebrate new year with the boys, catch up then

<3