A quiet weekend and my first Chinese class

Weekend

We started the weekend quietly. We went for a walk along Nanjing Road, a really big shopping street with every shop you can imagine. The street also runs all the way to the Bund. Of course we ate well here again; everything I've eaten so far has been good!

We walk seriously long distances here: I think we walk about 10–12 km a day on average (roughly 15,000 steps). So after a day of serious walking we got back home, but we still had to eat. After some thinking we came up with the brilliant idea of having food delivered! So we started looking and found the perfect website: www.mealbay.net. We ordered a few nice pizzas! After about an hour they were at the door.

Pizza isn't exactly a Chinese meal, of course…

But when we woke up on Sunday there was another surprise waiting for us: it was pouring with rain! We literally did nothing that day. For comparison, I didn't even take 4,000 steps that day. That's a lot less than the other days (roughly 15,000 steps).

So you can guess we didn't really go outside. In the morning I popped out to get baozi (a kind of bao) for breakfast, but apart from that I didn't go out. That day we just ordered food again, but this time it took a whole 95 minutes, much longer than on Saturday.

Chinese class

Today I had my first Chinese class!

To be honest, I'd really been looking forward to it. This week is an intensive Chinese week for me, which means I have 4 hours of class a day. That's a lot, of course, so the first class was a bit overwhelming. First you also have to learn to read pinyin. It's a way of writing Chinese with our letters, but the letters themselves are pronounced very differently. A q, for example, is pronounced as tch. So that takes some getting used to, but it was great fun!

Afterwards we went to get something to eat. Hutong School is in the French Concession, so there are lots of little restaurants nearby. So we went out for a nice meal again!

To finish

To finish, I thought I'd show you how I write my blog! This is how: with a nice TsingTao (Chinese beer) on the side!

Until next time!