Today was meant to be my day off, but as I was off sick for a day last week they asked me to work. I told them I was busy in the afternoon but I could work for half a day and I would leave half a days pay. I don’t think his is correct and I should have been able to take a day’s sick leave especially as I had a contagious stomach bug, so if I had gone in I would have undoubtedly given it to someone as well as thrown up at work, but never mind. I am keeping them on side as I am leaving in 3 weeks anyway. They don’t know I am leaving them in the lurch because I had to sign a 1 year contract to get the job, I feel bad about it but it can’t be helped.
We did cookery in the morning and made a kind of veggie omelette. It didn’t go too well as they didn’t have any milk so it was loads of veggies in a kind of eggy base – I told the kids it was an eggy pizza and they loved it and ate it all, but I got some funny looks from the principle and much chattering in Chinese – I told her it was an English style omelette and she seemed satisfied!
At lunch time Vincent came to pick me up and we got in a cab to go to a painting street. Paul’s friend had sent us a text of the address in Chinese so we just showed the mobile to the taxi driver and off we went. We passed a lovely garden on the side of a small mountain, but it wasn’t really the weather to stop and look round.
When we reached the street it was a little run down looking back street but every house had their ground floor as a shop selling Chinese paintings. We went totally mad and ran round all the shops bargaining like mad for about 23 paintings! Fabulous presents for people and Vincent got us some great deals!
I got so cold during this that my lips went blue, no-one heats their shops in China so it might as well have been outside, so by the time we were done we were long overdue for lunch and I decided I needed to warm up urgently and couldn’t wait until we got home. We went into the only open looking restaurant we could see, 2.00pm is very late for lunch in China, they usually start it at about 11.30am. We were handed a menu, but it was all in Chinese! We made ‘help’ faces and I tried desperately to say vegetarian in Chinese but to no avail. In the end the waitress took us into the kitchen! We just looked at the chef and pointed to various vegetables and his wok and every time they pointed to meat we shook our heads vehemently. It was really funny and the chef and waitress couldn’t stop laughing. In the end we managed to say ‘egg fried rice’ Vincent’s best Chinese phrase and got served that with some green veggies. It wasn’t a banquet but it was cheap and warmed me up enough to get home.