Bulgaria with Noodles

Mountains and blossom, so are we in Japan?   After church, Irena and I went for a very enjoyable walk in the park. Just across the road from our apartment in Sofia, in the district of Lozenets, there is a huge park.  It is rather different to Lianhuacun Park in Shenzhen. Regular readers of my blog (if there are any) will remember that our apartment was on the other side of the road from Lianhuacun Park. That one was so well looked after, manicured and properly maintained. Our park here in Sofia is neglected, run down and generally abandoned. I have never seen anyone who looked like a parken warden or a gardener. It is so strange, the way that the leaves suddenly appear and look such a bright shade of green. The sight of the snow-capped Mount Vitosha and what might have been cherry blossom was almost Japanese.  Some poor trees are half-strangled with martinitsi . You are supposed to wear your martinitsa on your wrist until you see a stork or maybe...

The Redang Island Café in Shenzhen is not really a café. It’s a Malaysian Restaurant in Fumin, close to the Futian Border Checkpoint. Lots of teachers from Green Oasis seem to live in Fumin.  Maybe that it is because rents are a bit cheaper than Futian or perhaps because it is closer to Hong Kong. On the other hand, it might be because there are so many good (and reasonably-priced) restaurants in this district of Shenzhen. Even though we have been going there for nearly five years, Irena and I nearly always have the same main dish: the mango fish. It’s a wonderful spin on the traditional British fish and chips (or chish and fips, if you like silly jokes). The mango gives the fish a special freshness and the spicy sauce certainly makes a change from the usual vinegar. For good measure, we also added some curried vegetables.  Having introduced us to so many restaurants in SZ, it made a nice change for Irena and I to take our dear Chinese friends Bill and Julia to a r...

Last week I had two days off, as I was really very ill. On Monday I was away with a cold, runny nose and a very sore throat. I managed to drag myself into school for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but then on Thursday night I had an awful stomach ache and was vomiting at around midnight. It was pretty nasty and then there were also some problems at the “other end” too. Not surprisingly, I was off school on the Friday as well. The last time I had a day off was in December of 2016, so really I have an excellent record for not taking days off. This Wednesday was my last-ever parents’ day. At Green Oasis, a “parents’ day” consists of lots of 15-minute sessions with all of the parents of the students in my class, 5G. It went okay and in fact Miss Yanee did nearly all of the talking. Normally I prepare a very detailed page of information for each student, but this time I could not be bothered and it did not seem to make much difference. Most of the parents of my students in Class...

There are four seasons here in southern China, but they are rather different to the ones you get in Europe. Most new expats, especially teachers like me, arrive at the end of the summer. It is hot and wet. Either it will be raining or else it is about to rain or actually it does not matter whether it is raining or not because you are already sweating so much that you’re soaked anyway. Then, sometime around the beginning of October, it stops raining and the weather is pleasantly warm and dry. This continues right on into December, but in January you will get a few cold weeks. No snow or frost or anything like that, but it will be a lot colder, especially if your apartment only has single glazing and the windows do not fit properly. Then, around the beginning of March, it warms up and you get some pleasant and fairly dry weather through to the middle of May, when the rain seriously begins and Shenzhen becomes one big sauna. I cannot believe that I have written so much about the ...

Hang on! That is San Francisco, isn't it? Yes, I think so and there was a sentimental song about leaving one of my internal organs somewhere or other. Anyway, Shenzhen is more or less on a bay, although perhaps it would be more precise to say that it is on a muddy delta. There is, however, a rather pleasant park that goes along the seafront (or maybe the mudfront). My dear Irisha insisted on calling it "the Corniche". Memories of the Nile in Egypt or Qatar, I should think. Actually, this waterside public space reminded me of the Aspire Park in Doha, as it was all a bit too new and antiseptic. At least there was no fake birdsong on the loudspeakers and there were no Qataris throwing trash everywhere (and expecting all of the Nepalis to pick it up for them). The waterside park is the foreground for some silly sculpture and some even more silly buildings. These outlandish constructions came First, Second and Third in in the International Crazy Building Competition. This ...

In his wonderful BBC travel series, Around the World in Eighty Days , Michael Palin says that his round-the-world trip could only be interest of interest to other circumnavigators and therefore most ordinary people would find it boring. I have to disagree with Mr Palin, as I must have watched Around the World at least fourteen times.  What has that got to do with blogging? As I have mentioned in a previous post, I used to bore to death all of my poor wife and my colleagues at Green Oasis School by talking endlessly about Bulgaria. (In fact at one point, I had the idea of marketing Bulgarian real estate here in China, but that particular attack of insanity did not last long.) Now I bore everyone to death with the latest news about my blog. “Yesterday I had nearly 200 hits!” and “Expatfocus have done the piece I sent to them and they also mentioned my blog!”  Et cetera, ad infinitum.   It is freezing in our apartment. Yes, southern China is supposed to be ...

Mobike 5.30am. Yes, it’s the alarm. After my usual slow-motion ablutions, dressing and breakfast, I walk through the park. It takes me about twenty-five minutes. Sometimes I am feeling lazy or else I am in a hurry, so I hire an orange and silver Mobike. You scan the bike’s code into your smartphone and the five-minute cycle ride costs 1RMB. Actually, I have to type the number of the bike, as the scanning does not work on my stupidphone. After a few skyscrapers glanced through the palm trees, I arrive at my school. Green Oasis School, aka GOS. My school does not seem to be too interested in the Chinese government’s plans to abolish Christmas. (As students of English History will know well, scrapping the festive season has been tried before, of course, after King Charles lost his head, the UK had a Republican government and Christmas was abolished by Act of Parliament.) Not the Yellow Brick Road Sign in Each morning, “signing in” takes the form of standing...

Yesterday Irisha and I went to Lianhuacun Park, just opposite our apartment in the Bank of China Towers. There are supposed to be 16 or maybe 18 million people here in Shenzhen and most of them seemed to think that going to the park would be a good idea. The temperature must have been in the high 20s and it was a pleasantly sunny day, maybe the last day of the summer. Well, that was how it felt, even though it was the middle of November. (Why do boring Brits always go on about the weather so much?) After a walk up to the pagoda, we looked at some special flower displays and then, like everyone else, we took lots of photos.   Irena was singing in the worship team on Sunday morning, so we had to get to church a bit earlier than usual. Our friends Bill and Julia arrived later. After church, we went back to Futian by bus (I hate the buses in Shenzhen, as all the drivers think they are at Silverstone) and then lunch, followed by writing this blog. Why...