Wednesday, 6^th February, 2019 1400

I went for that dinner last night with Jody, it was not without its difficulties. For some reason she thought that after spending a couple of years here I would know place names. I don't, nor did I in Chizhou. I know landmarks such as large shops or hotels.

Eventually she told me how many stops on the 15 bus (13) and thankfully the bus had the flashing row of lights telling you which stop you were approaching. It was the first time nobody really had to stand on the bus and with sparse traffic I arrived early. The problem there was that there were various locations for the same stop, depending on which bus you took – and it seemed there were about 20 different buses using the area.

Eventually Jody found me and took me to a very large shopping centre I never knew existed. The restaurants were on the seventh floor. We took a look to choose which cuisine to have. Well I didn't want Chinese so she said there would be Korean or Japanese. As it was new years day some restaurants were closed and we were left with a simple choice between hotpot, fish hotpot or Korean.

No contest. Not quite like the little Korean barbecue place I loved in Chizhou and they still had the awful propensity to drizzle cream on the sushi, but it was nice, under ¥200 including two small Buds for me and she paid. Having intended to do so myself (apparently she always pays with foreign teachers, probably because I'm the only non Peace Corps she knows) I made a deal. She is flying to Auckland for a fortnight on Sunday so she will now be coming here on Friday and I shall cook for her. She requested fish and chips. Quite aside from the fact I don't have a fryer to do the fish (or any fish for that matter), I can however still make chips in my dry fryer so we settled on fish fingers, chips and peas with real malt vinegar! Malt vinegar is not something available in the shops but I like to keep some handy. An apple pie will complete the meal and when she is back I have to make chilli enchiladas – can't do those at present as I have no kidney beans.

Afterwards she took me to Starbucks, the second time in my life I have set foot in one. She had some ridiculously expensive tea concoction for ¥25 and I contented myself with the “ice tea” I always carry. During that time she told me she was “trying” to quit teaching at her university. In stark contrast to the plight of foreign teachers who can be disposed of at will, Chinese ones are notoriously difficult to sack and find it equally hard to actually pack it in! All sorts of meetings are held before the decision is made to allow the teacher to quit. And then they must decide on how many years it must be before they will be allowed back. She has no intention of returning to teaching (even though she was earning a decent salary, albeit nothing like what she may do soon).

Given that her uncle wants her to work for him and currently she has her finger in another pie, I hope she can give up teaching soon. She tells me a compulsory programme has been introduced for primary, middle and high schools where all students must attend either a winter or summer camp (so much for their school holidays!), preferably abroad. She is now involved and was looking for suggestions. The first one that came to mind was Outward Bound (I have now found another couple of options today) and considering if she sets up co-operations the organisation dealing with the entire province will pay her almost half a million yuan for four months work a year, I said it sounded far better than her uncle's job and also offered the chance to see the world. I never got given such choices when I was her age!

Oh, and Janet has now been elected a full professor so congratulations to her. I have though advised her that when she flies she should specify Prof rather than Dr in case there's a mid-air medical emergency and they want her to save a patient.

I am hoping the worst of winter is now behind us, the short-term forecast is now with daytime highs above zero. According to the web our coldest overnight has been -20C this year, they will be the days when I was taken back to childhood when there was ice on the inside of my kitchen windows.