Free time

My study schedule is pretty busy in Kunming, with full time classes from 8:30am to 4pm, and then another 2 hours or so private studying at home in the evenings. So it comes as no surprise that I'm enjoying my afternoons off right now due to Chinese New Year, and probably explains why I am posting so much at the moment :)

I'm currently sitting in a beautiful, extremely Western cafe drinking some beautiful Earl Grey tea. Prague Cafe appears to be something of a Yunnan guilo institution, with branches also in Lijiang and Dali, and it is packed out with us guilos all using the free wireless. There is quite a good book exchange here of both Chinese and English books (Clare - I finally find an Isabella Allende here! After all that time trying to track her books down in South America!), good collection of wines and teas, which almost makes up for the fact that they play Dido non stop.

For lunch, I munched my way through a spaghetti carbonara:

Now, carbonara is one of my comfort foods of choice, but this was really quite hard going. Maybe it's because my body has become so used to the lack of cheese and cream, that even now, 90 minutes afterwards, I can feel it just resting uncomfortably in my tummy. Maybe I should have stuck to the questionable Japanese food they serve here.

The other benefit of free time is that I've been able to wander around a lot, sampling the various street food on offer. Most of it is common to what you will find all over China - stone fried chestnuts, boiled peanuts, tea soaked eggs - and I have been indulging in some of my favourites. Nothing like a roasted sweet potato from the roadside on a cold day:

Although the middles tend to be a little raw (and if you're Chinese, you'll know the consequences :p)! I also like the 年糕 year cake, a cake which is about 80% pure brown sugar, sliced and lightly grilled. It's nothing like my mum's though - she used to make fried pieces of it dipped in egg after we came home from school, and sometimes even wrapped in spring roll wrapping and deep fried - how on earth was I not the size of a house when I was in high school?

The other thing I really like about being here is that no one calls me Connie - yes, that is the extent to which English is spoken!! Everyone calls me by my Chinese name, which is a bit weird (even my folks call me Connie, or Eric when my mum muddles us up), but also quite nice at the same time. Apparently I have quite a pretty name, my homestay mum in particular loves it. So pretty in fact, that I should start charging the number of shops that illegally use it without my permission, such as this one!:

It's just like when we were in Chile and kept seeing Claudia's name everywhere! Appropriately, this is the first time I've felt so happy and elegant in a long time, so long may it last.