Langkawi Festivities

So it appears the stresses and strains of the beach proved too taxing to fit in a blog entry, so instead we're writing this from the warmth of our apartment back in Shanghai, where the outside temp is a cool 30 degrees lower than we were enjoying this time last week!

Langkawi was a lovely respite from what has been a pretty hectic couple of months - moving to a new country, finding/starting new jobs and settling into a very different way of life is very tiring! We had a beachside villa, private beach and cocktails on tap - what more do you need?! Well, actually a lot more to make it a proper Christmas.... we really missed sharing all the traditions and excitement with our families and Skyping them from the beach after they had just opened stockings/were about to sit down for lunch just didn't cut it...


The place where we stayed was run by a German couple, so on Christmas Eve Santa Claus arrived with a sack full of presents. We were also delivered a Weihnachtsteller (Christmas plate full of nuts, fruit and sweet treats) in the middle of the night, which is a tradition often upheld at home in Chandler's Ford too - a little bit of home from home. Our Christmas meal consisted of fish/steak, with a side of brussel sprouts - didn't want to miss out on those treats!


I won't pretend that our days were particularly active while we were away, but we did do a bit of exploring by way of a trek in the jungle. Seeing a flying lemur was apparently 100% guaranteed - a pretty big claim... but on arrival at the 'base camp' there was one clinging to a tree. Not 'flying', but a flying lemur none the less. We also saw brown and black monkeys, a monitor lizard, a tree lizard, a frog, a giant flying squirrel, some fish and a millipede! 

The rest of our days were spent eating foot long tiger prawns, having massages and swimming in the sea. Langkawi isn't the prettiest of the south east Asian islands, but for a bit of Christmas sun that was easily accessible from Shanghai, it definitely served its purpose. 

Now, we're really excited to be back in Shanghai and ready to explore more of the city. The weather is very similar to home at the moment (in temperature, not rainfall), but as soon as it warms up we have a long list of places to visit outside of the city too. Plus, there's a trip home and Chinese New Year (another week long holiday) coming up in the next six weeks too.


Xin Nian Kuai Le! (Chinese lessons are also progressing well..!)

It's Christmas!

Despite it not being a national holiday in China, we thought we should still do the obligatory Christmas post. This year, is certainly going to be a different experience…

We did consider going back home to England to celebrate, like every other year, with our family and friends, but having only been here for two and a half months thought it might be a bit too soon. There’s already a trip back planned in 2013, and having so recently moved to this new place that we now call ‘home’, we thought it might stir up some serious homesick feelings, which so far we’ve managed to keep (nearly) at bay!

It’s definitely a decision that we’ve questioned over the last few weeks… From the 1^st December, when our entire Facebook feeds were filled with pictures of friends' completed Christmas trees, through to the last week of customary post Christmas party hangover statuses, we’ve felt like we’ve been missing out. There’s been the odd heavily branded Christmas tree go up outside some of the most luxurious plazas here (complete with ‘Mini’ decorations (see pic) and Moet branding) but even these are few and far between – and feel more like a token acknowledgement/brand advertisement rather than anything more festive. It’s only really started to feel a small bit Christmass-y over the last week, when we’ve seen Christmas trees go up in the western restaurants, our apartment building and in the office. Oh, and the small flurry of ‘snow’ (read: melted ice) on Wednesday helped too.

Happy Mini Christmas

Some festive cheer...

There’s still a distinct lack of Christmas drinks, songs and chocolate (a box of Lindt balls was on sale in the supermarket for £10!), so rather than feeling the cold of Christmas without any of the additional benefits, we’ve decided to book a beach hut on an island off Malaysia. It will be the first time that either of us has spent Christmas away, but at least we will be amongst other people who will also be celebrating!

Plus, we have a complete Christmas in a box that my sister Nicola sent us this week. Inside, there was a santa hat, tinsel, hanging decorations, fake snow, handmade paper snowflakes, a Miracle on 34^th St DVD (the best Christmas film, ever!), a Christmas CD, chocolate coins and… some Lindt balls! It caused a great deal of excitement and will be packed into our suitcases so we can decorate our room while we’re away.

Holding as many of the Christmas treats as possible...

We’re back in Shanghai to see in the New Year, having originally been told that there were no public holidays over the whole festive period. However, in true Chinese style, the Government released three days of official holidays last week. Since then, there’s been an endless amount of confusion, speculation and deciphering to work out what they were saying – eventually found to be that the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd are holidays, on the proviso that you work the 5^th/6^th weekend. It was quite a funny few days while everyone tried to work this out, and the upshot is that everyone is ignoring the Government anyway, because they don’t want to work the weekend!

We’ll write our next post from the beach, but in the meantime – Happy Christmas!!