Day 12 (22 July 2016)

Day 12

In today's Mandarin lesson we learnt about different foods. This included staple foods like rice and noodles but also special foods that are involved in festivals such as dumplings in the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). In the breaks Abener, one of our teachers, put Chinese music on and then me and Alex B went downstairs looking for Pokemon (we admit we've joined the craze!). We also learnt how to pronounce our Chinese names in the second lesson.
After lunch we took a bus ride for about an hour to the Museum of Ancient Vestige of King Dynasty. This museum is in a place where there was once a huge palace (nearly as big as the forbidden city) hundreds of years ago. However the Mongolian people tore it down when they invaded. Many artefacts have been recovered from the area and we could see these in the museum. There were lots of carvings, bowls, mirrors and even some sitting dragons. There were also paintings and calligraphy produced by the descendants of the King Dynasty. There were a lot of flies at the museum (inside and outside) which could have been because it was raining but it was still a little bit freaky. Alex B walked past a tree on the way back to the bus and was ambushed by thousands of flies (he says billions). There was also a shop on site and they were selling bracelets etc for a very cheap price as they were renovating so lots of people bought jade bracelets (including Mrs Hudson).
Today was also the first day of Alex DLB's non-sweets diet. We've decided she's been eating far too much sugar and she's suffering from an ulcer. So me and Alex B have supervised her sugary intake while Jack teased her for not been able to have any ice cream. She's going to have it as a treat on our last day!
Because the museum was so far away we then went to a restaurant to have our dinner. I was once again reunited with the vegetarian table (we have to sit on a special table) where everyone got a bit annoyed because the meaty tables had nicer veg than us so we shared (stole) some of their veg. This started a 'savage' feeding frenzy because everyone got very excited about the fried spinach and mushrooms and the vegetable stew (which the restaurant is famous for). Everyone really enjoyed the food here and the vegetable stew was divine. 
After food we headed back to our hotel. When we got there we dropped out bags off and headed out to the supermarket for more food, for the rest of our time here. The supermarket has really nice fruit and unusual bread and we all bought a bag of croissants. Dannielle even bought some crazy Oreo cookies which we've never seen before. Everyone's gone Oreo crazy while we've been here. After the supermarket we all walked back to our rooms to relax for the rest of the evening. Tomorrows is our last proper day of lessons and trips - we can't believe how fast it's gone. 

We can't wait to see you all!

Rosie Bennett