That night we had to finish our Christmas shopping. Well, I had to buy for Robyn and she had to buy for me. So we split off into partners, I shopped around with Mike and Robyn shopped around with Tara. We set a limit of 200 quai on each other, which in China is quite a bit of money. I was able to buy her a lot of stuff including some hilarious Chinese ear muffs with bunnies on them, and a huge foot warmer for under her desk. After that Tara showed us to this Thai restaurant that overlooked the city circle. Following dinner we went back to our apartment and got Christmasy. Mike came over, we put on some Christmas music and proceeded to wrap our gifts. It was a fun night.
The next day we were pretty lazy getting ready. Did some skyping in the morning and then we were off to Hankou in the afternoon. It was FREEZING though. Snow was blowing sideways and it just chilled you to the core. There were six of us girls planning on going. In the end it only ended up being 3 of us. The other girls couldn’t find a cab to take them all the way to Hankou and after 45min they gave up, as they were icicles. We wanted to take this 1 quai ferry to Hankou, which probably ended up taking us longer to wait for the ferry, but it was an experience. We missed a ferry by a couple minutes so we were right up front waiting for the next one. It was freezing cold, that’s besides the point, but once the gate opened to let us in everyone started screaming and pushing. So Robyn and Laura started screaming as well as I ran ahead to get seats, which is what everyone wanted to do. They ferry wasn’t more than five minutes, so it was funny that people were so concerned about getting seats. Once we got to where we wanted to go we went to a nice Thai restaurant, haha, yes, again, different one though. The owners sister was there helping and she spoke English, so she kind of watched over us the whole time, it was pretty cute. Once dinner was over, we headed back to Lindsay’s house where everyone was. It was very festive, she had a nice big tree and lights everywhere. We had some Christmas drinks, and had a big countdown at midnight (I know, it wasn’t new years….but whatever) and then we sang Christmas carols together. It was really fun. I know it wasn’t the traditional Christmas that I am used to, but it was so nice to be surrounded by friends on Christmas eve.
The next morning we woke up and did some skyping. Then the boys came over and we opened presents that we got for each other. Once that was all done and the tornado had come through the living room I got started on breakfast. We had a nice, civilized Christmas breakfast with the four of us around the table. I couldn’t have asked for more. Had a great morning with my ‘China Family.’ By the time we were all done trying to talk to everyone back home we had to start cooking for Gail’s house. She was having all the staff over for a big Christmas dinner and a present exchange. Dinner was amazing. It was potluck and everyone did really well. After dinner we continued with some drinks and the yanky swap Christmas exchange began. There were so many of us fitting into her living room, which I think made it even more fun. Everyone was pretty into it and there were some great steals going on around the room. We left pretty early that night and came home to skype again. Haha, it was just one of those weekend when you really felt you needed to talk to people back home. It’s great that we are able to do that instead of having insane phone bills trying to talk to people back home. It was really cute though. I still got to be part of our family tradition at home reading Twas the Night before Christmas. I read it over skype to my family all sitting on the couch. It was pretty cute.
Sunday was a very lazy day for us, and again talked to people at home, as it was Christmas for them. Once we were done we made a nice dinner, put on pretty woman and sat in front of the TV. A well deserved long weekend. It was nice to have a good group of people around to enjoy the holidays. Definitely one that I will always remember, that’s forsure.
This weekend coming up will be another eventful one I am sure. We are heading to Hong Kong Thursday night. There is a huge group of us going there to celebrate new years. It should be pretty fun. Mike got us tickets to this fancy night club there, so this way we know where we are going and we won’t have to stand in line anywhere.
Anyways, I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas back home!
-Taryn
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