Phone Korean

I set the language on my phone to Korean, just to practise:

메시지              Messages
카카오톡          Kakao Talk
연락처              Contacts
계산기              Calculator
녹음기              Voice recorder

알림                   Notifications
통화 기록          Call History          

새 메시지           New Message
받는 사람           Recipient
눌러서 작성       Type Message
붙여넣기            Paste
입력 방법           Input Method

삭제                    Delete
확인                    Confirm
취소                    Cancel

보기                    View
회신                    Reply
전달                    Forward
전화 걸기           Call
연락처 열기       Open Contact
모두 선택           Select All
잘라내기            Cut
복사                    Copy

설정                     Settings
개인 설정            Personalize Settings
기본 벨소리        Default Ringtone
비행 모드            Flight Mode
언어 선택            Select Language

Chinese Translation: Ginger Shampoo

I love all things ginger, so I bought this delicious smelling shampoo from Watsons. (Made from ginger, not for gingers! Although I do have red dyed hair at the moment ...)

Here's the Chinese:

生姜 shēngjiāng - ginger (Korean: 生薑 생강)
精华 jīnghuá - essence

洗发水  xǐfàshuǐ -shampoo (洗 wash 发 hair 水 water)

小麦 xiǎomài - wheat
蛋白 dànbái - egg white

I always look out for the character '姜', because I love ginger things! This is a simplified character. As you can see in the Korean word for ginger, the traditional character '薑' looks quite different. In Korean, '생강' is always the word for ginger. But in Chinese, '姜' is not always preceded by '生'. Often it's just '姜'.

青城山 (Mount Qingcheng)

For a day trip out of Chengdu, we went to Qingcheng Shan! It was supposed to be a hiking trip ... but 'mountain' in China often means an touristy, enclosed scenic area with an entrance fee and steps all the way up, rather than just ... a mountain. Disappointing in that respect, but still an amazingly beautiful place! And there are so many temples and sights along the way.

Read from right to left!

Qingcheng Shan is a little over an hour away from Chengdu by bus or train. We went there by bus, but had trouble getting back to Chengdu again later in the day, so I would recommed taking the train instead! When you arrive at Qingcheng Mountain station (青城山站), you can take a local bus to the mountain. The bus stop is a short walk from the main entrance.

Chinese sleeper trains

I used to think that a train journey over 3 hours was a long ride. That was before I came to China ...

Lying back on the bottom bunk, enjoying a whole compartment to myself!

China is BIG, so oviously it takes a little longer to get to places. Yes, you could take a plane, but then that would be missing out on all the fun of the awesome sleeper trains!

There are 3 options: soft sleeper （软卧）, hard sleeper （硬卧）, or seat （座）. To take the seat option on a 20 to 30 hour journey I think you'd have to be mad. Soft sleepers are compartments with doors, and only four bunks (2 on each side). But hard sleeper is my choice! Each compartment has six bunks (3 on each side), and there are no doors on the compartments so it's just rows of bunks all the way down the carriage. At the ends of each carriage are toilets (standard train toilets, not very nice, but I haven't encountered any seriously bad ones yet),  a little row of sinks and mirrors for washing, and a place to get hot drinking water (essential for on-train tea and cup noodles!).

茶 이야기 - Chengdu Tea Menu #2

A new Cha time! just opened round the corner from my apartment. It's awesome. Here's the menu:

茶 이야기 - Chengdu Tea Menu #1

Milk Tea section of a menu from a take-away tea place. Pinyin and translation below the picture.

茶 이야기 - Green Tea

lǜ chá

Welcome to China!

My new city is famous for ...

Hiatus

Blog update: I'm moving to China, and won't be posting anything for a while. Back later!

Goodbye, Camera

My camera has been through a lot. It's been knocked, bashed, rained on, snowed on, dented, dropped, used and abused for almost three years. It's been all over the world with me, from Korea to China to Japan to Italy to England, and it's taken thousands upon thousands of photographs.

But now it seems my trusty old camera has finally bitten the dust. It's been knocked one too many times, and has decided to give up the ghost. Time to say an emotional farewell to all our happy snappy memories together. Goodbye, clunky old camera! (I'll be trading you in for a newer, smarter, model!)