Ok I feel unbelievably tired hence very few posts lately. I did take a video this morning but don't see myself uploading it tonight.

This coming week is Chinese National Week Holiday - which means there are 3 days public holiday (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). Thursday and Friday are also a holiday for most people but... you have to work the Saturday before the holiday and the Sunday after... your fee for a 5 day holiday is two 6-day working weeks!

So... yesterday was Friday, and last night felt like friday night... looking forward to the weekend... and then..... wake up and its Monday (well Saturday but we had to work to a Monday schedule). Someone stole my weekend!!!! So now its Saturday night but it feels like Monday night and when I wake up tomorrow we're going to be on the backend of the weekend but the beginning of a holiday week.......


Anyone confused?????

Sorry the picture is a little unclear. I took this with my mobile phone on my way to work.

These guys are standing at the top of that little building/gate house with sledge hammers, demolishing it from the top down. Every now and then they knock off a big bit of concrete which they hurl down to the ground below - just missing the guy casually sitting there in his cane chair. Maybe he's the foreman - hopefully not the workplace health and safety inspector!!!!

I know its hard to imagine that with all the yummy chinese food here we would ever want to eat anything else - but - there is the odd evening when neither my house mate or I want to cook and we just don't feel like facing the chinese food at the place across the road. Its then that we decide to brave one of the restaurants selling 'Western food'. If you have ever been to China you will know what an interesting experience that is. What is sometimes even stranger than some of the food is the menus - I took a picture of part of the menu we were faced with the other week....


#1 - Ham and egg sandwich - ok so far so good
#2 - France many private - what the?? no idea.... something French presumably
#3 - An eggs of ham - hmm confusing.... possibly ham and eggs??
#4 - Many privates of peach - hmmmm......
#5 - The milk fries the banana/pick the silk banana - ????? anyone game to try this one????


That particularly night I ordered something called "The pastoral salad of many vegetables" - turned out to be something resembling a coleslaw and wasn't too bad.

On Friday night some workmates invited us (me, my housemate and another co-worker) to a surprise dinner. Turns out they had cooked a feast in honour of my housemate's upcoming birthday. Look at all those dishes! Yummmm... Funny thing is they know foreigners often don't like eating lots of chilli so there's not a spicy one in sight. Also, that plate of carrot is raw - usually it would be cooked but everytime they have come over to our house we have had a salad along with the hot meals. We haven't yet convinced them that 'raw food' ie. salad is good to eat - but they know we like it and so the carrot was a "special dish" just for us. It was a really fun night - we have a tradition amongst our department of combining our dinner get togethers with lots of silly games - and they had organised a few of those as well. A fun night!

Finally! A pic from Changsha :)

Changsha is a city that's constantly changing, there are always new things to discover and many things look better at night. This is a picture looking down on the main road and the Gold Source Hotel from the giant ferris-wheel across the road. This is an area of town that is continually being developed. Next to the ferris-wheel there is a large public square area in front of the city's stadium. At night the area gets transformed into a large community gathering where hundreds of people come out to dance and there are lots of activities and rides for the kids.

The one thing this photo does do however, is make the traffic on the road look very orderly. Would not like to give you a false impression so take a look at the photo below which is more along the lines of what things look like. Even after a year, the casual approach people take to some pretty crazy traffic still amazes me. You can see a pedestrian crossing in the photo. People are beginning to see these as areas to cross the road but don't think that means the traffic is going to stop or slow down at all.

Changing a tire and possibly fixing some engine trouble in the middle of the road down at busy Dong Tang.

I've had quite a few comments about the picture from Yangshuo so I'd thought I'd post one more pic from there with the beautiful scenery.

One day we hired electric bikes that look a bit like moped's (all for the cost of about A$6 for the day) and went out riding in the coutryside and along the river. There were lots of bumpy dirt roads and we did wonder what we would do if we got a puncture or our batteries ran out but it was all fine and lots of fun and the scenery was amazing!

I just returned from a few days break in Guangxi Province. I spent about 4 days in Yangshuo which is absolutely gorgeous surrounded by mountains and beautiful country side and bordered by rivers. Definately worth a visit if you're ever in China, be warned though, the town itself is very geared for foreign tourists so be prepared as you walk past the various shops and stalls for the inevitable "hello....hello.... looky looky.... tshirt? pashmina? .... good price for you....!!".

This photo is of a local fisherman on his bamboo raft on the Li River.

Well this is my first adventure into Blogging.... we will see how it all works out.

I thought I would start a blog about life in Changsha, China where I live. This city is famous for its spicy food packed with chilli peppers, hence the title.

You can't go anywhere without seeing chilli peppers being sold, layed out in the sun drying or smelling the choking fumes of them being cooked in someone's kitchen!