下雪，下学 (Xiàxuě, Xiàxué)

As you can see from the title of my post, I'm now good enough at Chinese to make my wit international. The literal meaning of the title is 'Snowing, Finish school', which, conveniently enough, is what I want to talk about. Oh, and for those of you still in awe: that's right, I punned in Mandarin.

So Dalian is 冻死了【Dongsile, essentially 'cold enough to kill a person'】at the moment, to the extent that my teacher actually thanked us for coming into class today. The Belarussians just nodded gravely - they're used to this sh*t. But not me, and certainly not at this time of the year. You can all see the date, right? On Tuesday [the 22nd, depending on when I post this] it started snowing. S-n-o-w-i-n-g. It's f***ing November! As Serrena would say "Are you sh*tting on my face?!" Today I was actually raped by the wind on my way to school, to the extent that a normally 15-20 minute walk took just over half an hour. They wouldn't call a snow day, not even in the UK [the snow will not settle with these gale force winds] but it's already -3 degrees. But that's ok, it won't stay like this. It will get colder and colder every month reaching [declining to?] a peak [how do you say this?!] of -15. Excuse me? People actually live like this? Until APRIL?! Needless to say, I'm not 一直 [yizhi, continuously, always] staying here.

I'm planning to 回国 [huiguo, return to the motherland] for a few weeks between Jan and mid-Feb, but besides that I've decided that Dalian is just too... anyway, I can't stay here. Holly and Serrena are going travelling and so am I. Having complained about cold for this long, I feel now is the right time to tell you that I'm going to Harbin for a few days to see the Ice festival at the northern-most region of China during the coldest part of the year... ^-^! In my defence, being an Ice festival it only takes place in winter, and I'm only going to be around at the beginning of the holidays [when it will be all nice and fresh] or at the end [when it would have been trampled down into slushy brown puddles of something-that-used-to-be-a-statue-of-Mao-but-now-looks-like-something-my-dog-threw-up-ness]. And look how pretty and extravagant and Asian everything is:

And look how nice my Hostel of Choice sounds.

I also wanted to go Dandong to wave at some North Koreans from across the border, but I was informed that Winter may not be the best time for that. 'That' being going outside. I may also squeeze Beijing in there somewhere before I return to the UK. In February, I may take a trip down south to Hainan Dao [Dao = Island] a place in China where there is no winter [why am I in the North again?] or somewhere else warm and fun. We'll see what the funds are saying.

Sorry about all the Chinglish today guys! I'd just finished doing my homework - you're lucky I didn't write this in Chinese first then google translate yo' ass. 

Comments & Questions  ^.^     Xx

P.S. I was recently informed that the URL for my blog was incorrect, as I do speak Chinese, and that my blog was, indeed, not as witty nor as entertaining as I thought [or think] it was [is]. Well, to that person, 1. I do not speak Chinese, and you know this! And 2. Find something better to do with your time then, and stop wasting it reading boring things. Hmph.