We are definitely getting more and more comfortable in China, making more Chinese friends even bumping into them on nights out which is cool. We went to English corner this Friday and decided to explore more of our city on the night. We stumbled across a bar where we were escorted to a table of Chinese men who were happy to share their red wine with us. There were some performances in the club including some girls dancing on the side platforms. To make extra money in China we decided to ask the owner of the bar if we could dance in the club for extra money (no it isn't a strip club mum(s) don't worry) literally just getting paid to party and be white. They said yeah and told us how much we'd get paid. We were slightly drunk at the time but think we might pursue it for a couple of week nights and have written up a letter to give to the manger (our Chinese friends translated it for us).
We have also made friends with a Chinese boy named Johnson who is a similar age to us and speaks quite good English. So during the night out we text him to see if he was up for taking us for light dinner! He then came and picked us up in his Jeep and along with his six other Chinese friends, our favourite was a girl named Jennifer who was sooo drunk but so friendly and we carried on drinking and eating around an outside Chinese restaurant until the early hours of the morning.

Because of the holiday we had to teach on Saturday as well (not so good when you're hungover) we hadn't really planned much so we spent most of the time listening to music. Nik introduced her class to one direction who they were very excited about. Lessons were over and we were ready to go off on our first major adventure in China.

We really didn't know what to expect with Shanghai but as 5 other of our friends were going we thought it would nice to go as a group and the 'Shanghai 7' were formed. When we arrived we literally dropped our stuff off at the hostel and went out clubbing. Straight away we noticed a big difference; there were loads of white people. You would think that this would make us less of a novelty but our blonde hair meant that we were even a novelty with them. This club that we went to 'Pheobes' was an all you can drink club and we certainly took advantage of that! A few quadruple vodkas, beers and glasses of Champaign later and we were English standard drunk for the first time so much so that Nik was sick when she got in.

It is a good job that we came to Shanghai with other people because we probably would have slept all day! The lads woke us up around midday and we went to the observation tower; we had to queue for quite a while but it didn't matter as it was nice to catch up with one and other. Once we got to the top the observation deck it had a glass floor, it was so weird. Being white we turned into the new tourist attraction on the tower people kept asking to have pictures taken with us all, we should have started charging per picture haha. We even had people chucking their babies at us and taking pictures, Chinese babies are the cutest we were so tempted to run off with them. As we were up the next morning early and still feeling the effects from the night before we decided to have our one and only quiet night of the trip.

The group split off the next day and we went to a nearby water village called Zhou Zhuang with Nick and Amy which was an hour and a half coach journey. Visiting the water town was nice and chilled with beautiful views, we even watched some Chinese opera which is the strangest thing we have ever seen, looking and sounding like something off a horror film as opposed to opera. It's really nice to get chatting to random people and exchanging language and culture with them and that is what we did on the coach journey there. Nick even bumped into 3 girls that he teaches at the university, it really is a small world even in China!! We travelled round the beautiful water village with them, Nick decided to buy them some candy floss to say thank you for acting as a tour guide for us we were then showered with gift after gift starting with this sugar glazed fruit and then a purse, mini bag and fan. It was so sweet of them, they probably didn't even have a lot of money to buy us presents. It may have been a bribe but anyhow it worked because Nick is now giving them all A's.

That night we met back up with Zach, Jay and Sam who had visited a different town and had a beer on the roof top bar of our hostel exchanging stories from the day. Due to the long day everyone else decided to have an early night but not wanting to waste the nightlife in Shanghai we decided to go out on our own and explore some Shanghai bars.

We asked the taxi man to drop us off at phoebes as this was the only nightclub we had been to and could remember the name of but given our Chinese is not the best we probably didn't communicate this very well and got dropped off somewhere completely different, but we thought we'd try it out. Not long after we got speaking to two old Mexican men who bought us cocktails and rose wine (which is not very common in China). These men then offered to take us to the best bars in Shanghai. We were then across town to the top floor of a hotel with a roof top terrace overlooking the Shanghai skyline. This bar was literally amazing and had the most amazing view ... we definitely relived Marbella Shanghai style. It was safe to say we got ridiculously drunk again and returned to our hostel at 5.30am and was not so happy to be woken up for a day of sightseeing a few hours later.

The next day we explored/got dragged around the French Concession, Nik even manged to be sick again in a Chinese park (not her proudest moment) but after that felt miles better lol! The French concession is like an area in shanghai which is beautiful, full of bars and restaurants and you could really see why this city is renowned for its business. We explored further into the markets where you can buy really cheap fake things such as raybans, headphones, bags and purses ect. Nick bought 9 pairs of Dre beats which look and work exactly the same as home for 6 pound each (60 yaun) which he plans to sell in England. So we might be kind and send some home if someone really wants some.
After all eating together we left to have a power hour before the next night out! We all met up at Sam, Jay and Zach's hostel and along with Franco (their Italian roommate) and a new French girl who had just arrived in the hotel. We all pre drank together in the lobby and a few drinking games later we made our way to M2 a nearby club. This club was more like a club at home with a big dance floor instead of small tables. We managed to attract trouble from a few Amercian guys who tried to fight with Jay and Zack but the situation was resolved with only a few pushes. One guy came over to apologise for his Friends and we carried on enjoying our night. After we had a standard end of night McDonalds before heading to bed!

The next day we all got up in the late afternoon to visit the Yulu Gardens ... these are quite famous beautiful gardens in China. 40 yaun to get in, though Nik and a few of the others managed to use their student IDs (which have expired) to get it for half price, Emily and Zach tried to pretend their driving license were student cards but it turned out the lady at the ticket office could speak and read English oops.
As this was the last night most of us were in Shanghai we thought we would go for a slap up meal at a Cantonese restaurant and were given special treatment presumably because we were white. The food was so nice and was the meal that resembled Chinese food back in England the most. Everyone looked smart and Sam even bought a shiny new suit for the occasion. 'Dressed to Impress' Sam wanted to head to the Bund for cocktails.
We stayed by the river, enjoying the view then headed into a bar to sip on cosmopolitan cocktails, after drinks the rest of the guys decided to call it and night so we headed to M2 on our own and raved the night away again. Emily even got given an IPhone off one man, but as she already has one has given it to Nic so all in all a very good night!

Being around so many different accents and new words it's very hard not to pick them up, in the mcdonalds at the end of our night we met some brummys and even though Em's always had a strong brummy accent it didn't sound very strong compared to theirs. No doubt when we finally return to England everyone will laugh at how our accents have changed.

All in all we had an amazing experience and couldn't have gone with a better bunch of people. We all met up when we were back in Changsha last night for one last piss up and meal but we are back to teaching tomorrow but look forward to our next holiday adventure.

Much Love to everyone at home

May Lee & Ning Jing

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