Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

Don’t you just hate it when the night prior to leaving,
Someone spills ice-cream and sticky warm milk over your winter clothes!

After term finished I changed into my second set of winter clothes and washed the others. I had a few days to wait until Ting Ting was free and as it was and still is freezing cold it would take more than a few days for them to dry. Once dry I packed my pack ready for the 2014 Winter Beers N Noodles Adventure and headed into town to share a chicken dinner with a friend.

So there I was minding my own business waiting in line.
In front of me were a guy and his girlfriend.

I must have been the respectable four steps or so steps behind them waiting for their order to be placed upon their tray. Once he got is food, he grabbed his tray and instead of moving side wards as a normal person would, he just spun around while talking to his girl and without looking, quickly moved forward and SLAM, warm milk drinks, ice cream and food all over me.

Winter pants, shirt and thermals, the whole lot covered and another four days lost!
So why did I spend two weeks in Nanchang?

I’ve just arrived at my hotel room from another deliciously snacky stroll around Nanchang’s inner shopping/snack streets and alleys. Tonight, eighteen oysters and a hand full of meaty treats for dinner, last night Japanese, the night prior Korean, the night prior to that claypot noodles etc. The weather has been freezing and most afternoons snowing, so I usually wake around mid afternoon and read or watch a movie and then rise after darkness has set in.

My 'usual’ hotel is around an hour’s walk into the city centre (five minutes by motto).
Why not stay in the city? Because it’s freezing and the walk warms the bones.
My hotel is a Business Hotel I get at a very nice rate through a friend.

Each evening I spend a few hours walking around searching for something new to eat and then walk back to my hotel which is located in a nice temple area that has its own pedestrian street (about two hundred meters from my hotel) that at night becomes a night food market. Several nights after my arrival I met a group of guys who return each year to see their families for Spring Festival and also to catch up with each other. Most nights they share beer and rice wine over catchup chat and meat sticks and if they are there when I return I usually drop in and get amongst it.

Putting the food and friends aside,
The main reason I decided to stay was people!

The evening I arrived I went directly to the train station, took one look at the lines, said a few rather 'harsh words' and grabbed a tuk tuk to my usual hotel instead of spending the next many hours waiting for NO ticket!   The next day I headed to the ticket window in the city, said more harsh words and grabbed a tuk tuk to the train station and actually invented some rather new harsh words before joining one of the lines. After waiting for over an hour and progressing not very far the ticket window shut and without complaining everyone just scampered and joined the ends of other lines.

I simply rearranged my latest string of harsh words and evolved them dramatically.

Being my ninth Spring Festival here in China (10th if you count the 2000 Spring Festival) and I then got to thinking that this might be my last Winter Break in China. No, I don’t mean leaving China and my life here I simply mean NOT spending another Sprig Festival here. It’s getting too much and as more and more people’s lives prosper each year more and more people are choosing to travel for their winter holiday. So I figured why not set Plan B free and just eat my way around and if all the people begin to really bother me, I’m just a half days chicken bus ride back to my school.

So how was Chinese New Year in Nanchang?

There is a maze of alley ways that surround my hotel and for almost twenty four hours a day people are out and about (or as my Scottish Nanna once said), Oooot Na Booot, letting off things that the band SLAYER would be proud of. It actually feels like I’m in a war zone, or at least from what I see on TV anyhow. In the distance there are continuous blasts and every five or so minutes several more go off somewhere else nearby and in between in the alley ways that surround me.

Beers N Noodles toya…..shane

PS: I actually forgot about my Winter Breaks blogs.

I was going to put it all into one blog as not much at all happened due to snow and rain but I did catch up with a few close friends and I personally want to remember it that way so I broke it into sections. Most of the photo’s are ‘food based’ simply because evening was the only time anyone really wanted to leave their homes.
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Cinderella
The album was ‘Long Cold Winter’
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