User Comments - helzcurrah
helzcurrah
Posted on: Hostel Curfew
September 2, 2012 at 10:34 AMThis reminds me a of a trip to Putuoshan last year, when we arrived and the only free rooms were in a Bhuddist monastry. They closed the door at 8pm!!!!
Posted on: Commuting Options
August 24, 2012 at 4:48 AMCan I use 挤 to describe any crowded situation? Like in a packed nightclub, concert, or trying to walk through the streets in Shanghai?
Posted on: Commuting Options
August 24, 2012 at 4:41 AMFrom my colleagues in the North of China (Tianjin, Hebei province) I usually just hear 汽车.
Posted on: Visiting Taiwan
August 21, 2012 at 4:26 AMI used to get confused by the names of my Taiwanese friends (when written in Anglicised form). Now I know that Chiang = Jiang, etc and it's quite fun to match up the characters to both Pinyin and Wade-Giles.
Posted on: I'm gonna be Late
August 3, 2012 at 11:17 AMFor me (speaking British English), pissed means drunk and is a fairly mild swearword, but still a swearword so I was surprised to hear it. However I let it go because I realise the meaning in American English of being angry is not so strong, and lessons are mainly hosted by Americans and Chinese. If we want to say someone's angry, we'll use "P###ED OFF"!
Posted on: Volunteering in China
July 27, 2012 at 4:14 AMThe best one I know is BEAN: http://shanghai.beanonline.org/
They hold activities every weekend, and you can sign up to each event on an ad hoc basis with no long term commitment,.
Posted on: Taking Transportation
June 30, 2012 at 11:15 AMI can't get the audio to load from the in-site player.
Posted on: Buying a Book
June 18, 2012 at 4:40 AMLooking at the last expansion sentence.....tablet computers get a special measure word?!
So when a new item (and hence new word) is invented, who decides what the measure word will be? Is it possible that different groups of people choose different measure words for new items, and have a kind of "measure word war"? :D
Posted on: Need a Sofa?
June 7, 2012 at 2:15 AMVery easy if you have a VPN.......:D
By the way, the Skritter writing practice web app often doesn't work for me unless I ｏｐｅｎ ｍｙ ＶＰＮ． Any way this can be fixed?
Posted on: Hostel Curfew
September 3, 2012 at 6:24 AMI didn't really find it. We turned up on the island without having made any accommodation bookings and found all the hotels were full. One of my friends who was arranging the trip happened to have an aunt and uncle staying in the monastery, and they hooked us up with the rooms. I supposed you could say I found them by "guanxi".
I've heard that staying in a monastery is really popular, but not for me. I am not the least bit religious or spiritual, I like to get up late and go to bed late, I love technology and hate meditating!
There wasn't a TV, radio or wifi, so we ended up buying bags full of food and beer at 7:45 to bring back to the room, and we played poker until we were ready to go to sleep. We also had a debate about whether it was "proper" to kill the cockroach we found in our room given where we were staying! In the end we didn't.