On November the 8 th , early in the morning (despite being Sunday!) several students and teachers from TLI-CIIC met at the school to spend one day all together at Yang Cheng Lake and Zhu Jia Jiao.

In the bus, everybody had to introduce himself in order to start meeting each other. It was a good idea – especially if we ignore the fact that my Chinese is quite bad – because now we say hello to other students in the school.

We took the opportunity of being autumn (best season to do it) to go and eat hairy crabs and other delicious Chinese specialities, such us jelly fish, eggplants, tofu, etc. Everything was accompanied by cold beer, coke and special liquor for the crabs (as crabs are considered to be cold food, they must be accompanied by any strong spirit drink!)

Teachers were as nice as they always are, and they were patience enough to teach the beginners, I mean western people – also known as laowai –, how to eat crabs.

As far as new dishes are concerned, I must recognise I am a little bit suspicious, but I have to say crabs were delicious!!! It was fun because waiters served two crabs, one male and one female, in order to maintain the balance (so considerate…).

In the afternoon, we went to Zhu Jia Jiao. It is a village which looks like Venice since there are many canals instead of ordinary roads.

First of all, we visited a garden, KeZhi Garden similar to Yu Yuàn. I love this kind of places because Spain mèi you, and they seem to be such a quite place, meant to be made to spend some hours reading a good book or chatting with friends.

After that, we got on a wood boat which moved thanks to a man who was rowing to go around the village. We could see some very beautiful bridges, which reminds me of the Venice ones.

The thing I liked the less is the fact that there were many tourists in the streets. I think that villages are more beautiful when are emptier, but we can do nothing!

I am glad to have been to this trip, not only because the places we visited were very nice but also because the people are extremely nice! If there are more trips I am in!

Sofía González Santamarta （索菲）