Graduation time! Not for me unfortunately.

03/07/2014 - Today I had an exam, and in the afternoon a friend of my boyfriend had his graduation. Please, even if it is summer, a graduation is a graduation, so NO SHORTS. My boyfriend and his friends obviously were all wearing shorts. Anyway, it was cool and another chance to try my camera. Nice weather, nice pics. Good luck Milo!
P.s: and the award for the best thesis goes to...the one who has done it on squirrels' ass.

New life to my Chinese stove & trying my new camera around.

19/06/2014 - My father really wanted an induction stove to cook smelly food outside, so I brought back mine from China (kinda cheaper than in Europe). So, as reward I wanted some Fritto Misto. And I got it. So yummy! And, for my birthday I got a new camera, a NX2000 from Samsung. That's very cool. I have been using it the whole time since I got it. And it was an offer, so I also had a Galaxy Tab 3 for free. I am wondering how I could survive without it.

Roadhouse and Grom. Why sometimes I'd rather go in chain restaurants.

I am NOT vegetarian.

28/06/2014 - Food, food and again food. Roadhouse is an America style steak house, even if the food and the steak are very Italian. I love this place, and I like the fact that is a chain, so if I go there in Milan or in Rome, I'm sure I can find the same quality. A lot of people don't like it, but to me the meat is delicious. The price are kinda expensive (20 € per person) but you can have the fidelity card, so once every 50 points you can gat 5 € off. After dinner, Alessio and I went to Grom, a new ice-cream place that opened in Varese while I was in China. As Road House, it is a chain shop. I love their ice-cream. The taste is amazing, and probably it's my favourite ice-cream (I'm not sure, I love the Buosi one as well). So, I think I will go on eating more and more food for the next few weeks. At least.

Lobster sandwich 

First day back home.

26/06/2014 - First day at home, and my father's birthday! Today I woke up at 7 a.m. because of the jetlag. Then my boyfriend and I went to one of the best pastry shop ever, near my house. The name is Buosi and their sweets are something special. We ate two croissant and I drunk their home-made peach juice ( I love peach juice, I missed it so much in China, they just have flavored water).

We bought a cake for after lunch, a delicious Tris di Cioccolati, which is made of three different layers of different kinds of chocolate, and each layer has it's own texture. Yummy! We also chose a cake for the evening, because we had to go to my uncles' house for dinner. This time I chose a kind of sponge cake/cheese cake with fruits on top. This was even better. So delicious. I have already gained two of the four kilos I lost in China. And this is just the beginning.

Coming back Home.

25/06/2014 - Here we areeeeeee! We slept just two hours last night, and now we are ready to fly away from this place! We checked out at the gate of the dorms, and we wait a little bit for the taxi to come. The taxi driver was a woman with a 10-cm-high shoes, but she drove very well. We reach Xiamen airport exactly two hours before our flight. While Sam had our bag packed in the security plastic, I went to the information desk asking them where to check in. They told me the place, but while we were queuing, I came back to ask them again, because it was the queue for the Shangdong Airlines check in, but they told me "no problem". So we reached the desk and the girl there looked at us and very kindly said "this flight has been cancelled". WHAT THE HELL. No no no Xiamen, I have to come back home. She told us to go to another desk to have our tickets changed, and the girl there took my ticket, changed it and said "you have 3 minues to check in". I was quite shocked and I asked "Scuse me, I didn't understand, 3 or 30?" and she replied "Now you have 2 minutes". I was not upset, not at all. I just wanted to kill them ALL. Then she realised that maybe the flight at 8.00 was better, so she put us together on that flight. We went back to the check in (same queue) and once ther the girl told us that she couldn't find the ticket, so after few minutes another woman came with our passports and our tickets already printed. Now, time for the luggage. Mine was 46.7 kilos instead of 46, but she didn't say anything. Problems, again: we had the mobile power bank in the lugguge, but it had to be in the carry-on luggage. So we had to cut the plastic, open the luggage, find it, remove it and repack (for free) our luggage. Finally, we manage to get on the ariplane. We slept the whole time, except for ten minutes when they gave us breakfast (a chinese sausage with eggs, tomatoes and spinach). In Beijing, we had 3 hours of time to collect our luggage, check it in again and go through the security check. It seems to be a lot of time, but it's not. We had to wait a lot for our luggage to come, then we didn't actually know what to do. So, while I changed my money (wasted 20 € out of 300) Sam asked for it. We had to go to the fourth floor, we checked in (luckly there were no people there queuing, actualy there wasn't the hostess either) and we took the train/metro that connects one terminal to the other. We still had a little bit of time, and then we got on our flight back home. The airplane this time was really old, the food sucked and there were no interesting movies. 
Ten hours later, we arrived at Malpensa airport. As soon as I could I called my boyfriend to tell him that I landed, but he didn't answer (as usual) so I called my mum, who told me that Alessio was on the way to the airport. We went through the passport check in one minute, as we were the only two European citizens of the flight and the luggage came out quite fast. So in less than half an hour we were outside. I looked at Samora and I told her "I don't know what your boyfrend looks like, but mine is not here". Both of our boyfriend were still on the way. So I called mine and I told him not to park (parking at Malpensa Airport is so expensive) that I was already outside. So happy to be home. My cousins wrote "welcome back Lau" on a sheet, and my boyfriend brought me flowers. I ate a risotto alla milanese and I almost went straight to bed. Damn jetlag.

And, finally, the last day.

24/06/2014 - The last day. So happy, but so sad at the same time. There are lots of people here that probably I won't ever meet again in my life. Tonight we went to the barbeque (on foot, no more bikes, already sold) to say one last goodbye. Tomorrow Samora, Marcos and I will leave, and all the others are leaving soon. We have already said goodbye to Eunbin (the Korean girl) yesterday, and she gave us cute presents. I will miss her so much. Veronika left on Sunday, and it's a pity I wasn't able to see her for the last time (I would love to give her one of my paintings because she liked it really much). It's very nice knowing people from all over the world, but it's always a struggle to say goodbye. Goodbye guys, see you somewhere. At the end, the world is not so big.

Having fun playing Tetris with your luggage.

23/06/2014 – Today I started packing my stuff, because it is really too much. If I manage to do this, I’m the queen of Packinglandia. We also had to check out, so we decided to meet at 9 a.m. to go to the office, take the form, coming back to the dorms, have our rooms checked and then go to the hospital to get back our deposit. Something has gone wrong, i.e. Samora didn’t wake up. So we went to the office at 11 a.m, then we went to the canteen to meet Eunbin, the Korean girl (so cute, she gave me as a gift a small bear which says “I love you”). Then we came back, had our rooms checked, went to the hospital for the deposit. But they had just 50 RMB banknotes, so I needed to go to the bank to change them into 100 RMB banknotes, because if I have to change them into Euros I need the biggest “size”. I was there waiting, and two people decided to go first, so I shouted “嘿你们好！排队吧！”. I wanted to close my bank account/card, but it was impossible without going to other buildings around the campus to cut the connection between the bank card and the student card. So I asked him “but if I just cut the card with the scissors..?” and he told me that it was fine. My language partner helped me again with the taxi, it will be a little more expensive because it’s at 5 o’clock in the morning. In the last few days I put some notice around the campus to sell some of my stuff, and I have already sold the WIFI router, the bike, the bus card, the kettle, the desk lamp and other small things. At the moment I got 250 RMB, but people are still writing me on we chat. I hope to sell as much stuff as possible, otherwise I will give the dehumidifier as a present to my flatmate (she will really need it). Now it’s midnight, and I think I have already spent three hours on dividing thing in “what to bring back home” and “what to throw away”. Everything that needs to be packed is on the bed now, just have to start playing tetris as well as I can.

What to bring back from China. How to decide if a souvenir is cool or not.

Buying souvenirs in China could be both the easiest thing and the hardest thing ever, especially if you have been in China several times. The first time I’ve been in Hangzhou, which is very famous for the Longjin, a kind of green tea, so I bought green tea for everyone. Then in Xian they had some small “ghosts” to hang out of the door, which were very cheap and very cute. In Xiamen they don’t have anything. I mean, the Fujianese tea to me sucks. It’s called Lapsaong, and it’s a kind of smoked tea, with a very strong smell. So, what to buy? For girls, there is a lot of stuff with pandas, so it’s easy. But if you have to buy serious souvenirs it’s way harder. Tea, again? No, I cannot. So I chose to buy two Chinese mugs for my uncles, very very nice (25 RMB each). I also bought some tiger balm, and I think that it’s a nice present. In China there are also some place where they sell fans, and some of them are very nice, made of silk. Chinese knots are also quite common, and probably one of the most “traditional Chinese” souvenirs to bring back home, but be careful, some of them are very ugly. I bought some chopsticks for relatives and neighboors on Taobao (as I need 72 pairs). To a friend of mine this year I decided to give some beauty stuff as present, so whatever I bought for me, I bought for two. It’s a nice idea to go in a shop and buy some “common” things that you don’t have in your home country. Anyway, the only advice that I have is to look at the quality of thing, it’s always China, the country of cheap (and breakable) stuff.

The Magic World of TaoBao.

Taobao, this magic website when you can buy whatever you want. Really, everything, even a new partner. No, I’m just kidding. Or maybe not. Anyway, for us, students living in Xiangan campus, away from everything, it’s the best choice. It’s very easy to create a new account and then I could use my prepaid Visa to buy stuff (you have to pay 3 RMB of commission usually, but sometimes it’s less). What did I buy? I told you, everything. Chopsticks for relatives and friends, a dehumidifier, some jewels, tiger balm, camera case, phone case, nailpolish display, handmade paper cut, panda cookies cutters, sandwich shaper, sleeping mask, ribbons, rubber ducks, Christmas biscuits bags,  stickers, more stickers, an windmill card, HSK books, hair bands, nail art stuff, coloured iron wire, phone charger, a router and a mouse pad. This is pretty amazing. When you buy things on TaoBao, they usually deliver through Kuaidi, and we have an office in the camps where you can go and collect your parcel. It’s next to the supermarket in the main canteen complex, and it’s open till 6 p.m. You receive a message on the number you gave when you buy something, and in this message there is written the kind of Kuaidi and the number of the shelf. Going there and find your parcel it’s very funny. Sometimes the guys there help you, sometimes not. Another place where sometimes you have to collect your parcel is outside the DongMen (don’t worry, on the message they send you they tell you where to go), where there are a lot of vans with parcels on them. Here it’s more complicated, but just because you have just an hour of time to collect it (from 11.30 till 12.30). it could also happen that you have to go to the EMS van next to the post office. The other website where you can buy stuff without any problem is Amazon.cn. You can use your European credit card as well (a guy told me that you can even pay in cash at the delivery) and they deliver outside the Dongmen. For examples, on Amazon.cn I bought two MicroSD card and a Olay pro brush system. So, here we are! Just enjoy buying stuff for few cents!

The week of last times.

When you move to a place, everything is so beautiful: discovering nice places, meeting new people, sharing experiences. Then, after few weeks you start to see just the bad part of everything. And, at the end, when you are just about to leave, you think that “come on, it was not that bad”. Actually, my first phase in Xiamen was “oh my God someone helps me to find a way out of here”, but now I’m really in the third phase: everything looks kinda nicer and prettier, also because it’s summer time. So, this is the week of last times. Last trip on the island, last time to Xindian, last dinner, last shower, last occasion to say goodbye to all the people out there. Now, I’m not saying that I would love to stay here longer, not at all. Just wondering why everything at the end it’s fucking beautiful.

Just one last time.

20/06/2014 - Today last time on the island, so Samora, Fabiola and I decided to go back to where everything started: Cengcuoan. We took the 751 (very empty, no one is still here) and we reached Cengcuoan for lunch. We ate in a small restaurant (nothing special, we ate mushrooms and a fish soup, the fish was good but it was too small). The we tried the Frozen banana, a frozen banana on a stick covered with chocolate and almonds or coconut. We bought just two in three, and they were very nice, so I decided to do them at home too! 
The frozen banana has the same texture of an ice cream, but it’s still fruit! Cool. They very quite expensive, though (18 RMB the almond one and 16 RMB the coconut one). Then, we had to buy the last souvenirs to bring back home, and I think that Cengcuoan is the right place. Later on, we had to go on the Siming Campus because Yola and Sam had to buy some books. As it was a very sunny day, we went on the lake in the campus to take pictures of the main building.
 It was so nice, the weather was perfect, the campus was amazing, and we were so sad not to have spent here six months of our lives. We walked out of the west gate of the campus, heading towards a place where they make the best waffle of Xiamen (this is just my opinion, no awards or stuff like these). It is in the same street of the Phoebe’s, the famous pub where I’ve never been. 

But first, we stopped in a shop to buy some stuff for calligraphy and painting, which was very close to the waffle place. I ate a waffle with ice cream, then we went to McDonald’s for dinner. We ate junk food the whole day, I know. after dinner, we went to Nanputuo bus stop (the last stop of 751) to take the bus back to Xiang’an. Bye bye Island, see you on Wednesday. In the evening, we went to the Lion’s bar outside the Dongmen to see the football match, such a bad idea. Very boring, and obviously we lost.