Maral in China -

February 13

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today we celebrated Chinese New Year!

My day started pretty slow. I've got our room all for myself,

since the other girls decided to stay with a chinese family

for 3-4 days. I like the girls a lot, but thank you god for some

privacy. It is quite demanding living so tight and

close to other people all the time.

So, waking up alone today felt kind of strange,

but also felt really good at the same time.

Chilled some, not doing anything special at all for

quite some time. Livestreamed some, listening to Lady Gaga.

Showing people on stream how I live and the surroundings etc.

They didn't believe me when I told them that kids here at our

school go to school from 8 in the morning to 10 in the night.

Ofcourse the courses late at night aren't a must, but all the

kids do them anyways since there is nothing else to do anyway.

Weather was complete shit and I was freezing as usual.

Was really looking forward to taking a warm shower, so

when I finally decided to get out of my slightly warmer

sleeping bag and stroll down to the bathroom.. Well yeah..

I took my clothes of, ready for shower, turned water on...

and you don't think it's the coldest water ever imaginable?

Apparantly we didn't have any gas left, so the heater didn't

work. I wanted to cry, because it was so freaking cold.

I know I'm ranting a lot, but guys... we don't have heat in

our houses like you do. Infact our houses are colder than

the weather outside because they are built to isolate cold.

(Since it gets really really warm here in summers and they

want to keep the rooms as chill as possible.)

I have goosebumps everyday, but I don't even notice anymore.

I'm like.. Immune, bitches!

So yeah, It was 2*C today, inside.. even colder.

I just splashed myself with coldest water in the world.

Depressing meter went up by 100%.

It was so bad that I didn't even feel like cursing.

So I slowly got dressed again. Looking like shit on new years.

But I couldn't care less. At this moment I just wanted to gtfo.

We arrived at this "french restaurant" in the middle of town.

There were like reporters and stuff there and they interviewed

many of us, so yeah, will end up on chinese television saying

the stupidest things, looking like shit, while making a dumpling.

(which I totally failed at doing, but I guess they'll have a

good laugh while watching that.. hmmmmmmmpff.)

The food was AMAZING though, best food I've ever had.

Don't know what it was, I really have no clue,

but it all tasted godly. We also got these lottery tickets,

and I actually won a prize! A small red Tiger and lots of

tickets to see different places around Yangshou. Pretty nice.

Ricky and Kajsa won the same thing so will definitely go with

them. John didn't win any, such a shame but he'll come too so

it's all good. At the end of the night we all got red envelopes

with money in it, which was pretty cool. We all got 120 yuan.

I could seriously live on that for a week. :D

After dinner we went to Lucy's but Ricky and I didn't feel

like drinking or partying, since it was Valentines day tomorrow-

Ricky wanted to do something special for Ellie (His beautiful girlfriend!).

So we hurried home so he could make Ellies surprise.

It was lots of fun but quite a hazzle, because he was making

Ellie a video and since it was newyears you could hear all the

fireworks in the background going "BAM BAM BAM" evertime he was talking.

- Short input about Chinese fireworks -

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

I thought that fireworks were meant to be beautiful shit

in the sky, but NO. Here in China, there is no glitter.

Well there is some, but 85% of the fireworks are just the

loudest bangs you'll ever hear with no niceness to it

whatsoeveeeeeeeer. It's just a big bang and you honestly

think you're in the middle of a warzone. No joke.

But I think it turned out quite well in the end and

I'm pretty certain Ellie loved it. :)

Can you guys guess what I did the rest of the night?

It starts with "I was skyping with" and ends with..

"Jessnom".

Goodnight!