Today I went on a day trip out of Qingdao with my flatmate, Chengyuan. She took to me to a city about 90mins drive away from Qingdao called Pingdu, where they grow the best grapes in Shandong province, and some may say the best in China!

We got up early to get to the long distance bus station. After a disgusting and overpriced McDonald's breakfast, we hopped on the bus and 90mins of napping later, we had arrived. Her boyfriend picked us up from the station in his swanky car, and we drove to the centre of town to pick up Chengyuan's cousin and his wife, who had driven in from their little village nearby. They were pretty surprised to see me - Chengyuan's cousin's wife was sitting next to me in the car and she kept stroking my hair and asking 'is it really naturally that colour?!' haha.

We drove away from the city for a while until we came to the grape growing area. Grape vines stretched out as far as the eye could see, and the road was lined with little old men and women selling freshly picked grapes and grape wine. At one point we were stuck in a traffic jam on one of these roads, so we stopped the engine and wound down the windows. The people on the streets were so surprised to a see a '外国人' (foreigner) that all the old ladies ran over clutching bunches of grapes, which they proceeded to shove through the window onto my lap and force me to eat, bless them. It was really sweet of them, so I thanked them profusely before shoving as many grapes in my mouth as I could, while nodding and smiling, before spitting the pips out of the window in the most unladylike manner. Thankfully they didn't seem to mind!

Eventually we parked the car and wandered through some of the grape vines. A family who lived there offered us some free grapes so we sat down and ate SO MANY GRAPES. They were delicious: fresh, juicy and free of any chemicals…unusual in China. We ordered some lunch then while it was cooking went for a wander up the mountain to get a view of the beautiful countryside. At the top, there were some fat old Chinese guys with 3 buckets of scorpions, alive and squirming around. Naturally curious, I had to go over and have a look - but then they started saying that as I was their 'foreign friend' they would give me some to eat, for free. I felt it would have been wrong to have refused their kindness! Having eaten insects several times before in China, I wasn't as freaked out as I could have been - Chengyuan was definitely squirming more than me! They were fine in the end, although when my sister sent me a photo later in the day of her drinking a hot chocolate with cream on top and eating shortbread, I couldn't help but think that I'd prefer that as a snack next time…

Lunch was awesome: more insects, the usual cucumber garlic dish and loads more. We stuffed ourselves and drank some grape wine (which basically tasted like sherry) along with it. Then we picked some grapes ourselves, paid, got back in the car and drove back to Pingdu. We said farewell to Chengyuan's family, then headed to the bus station, where I got the bus back to Qingdao. Made a friend on the way back too, a cute 17-year-old aspiring male model/flight attendant who, being really into fashion, was just in awe of the fact I lived in London!

It was a lovely day in the end - nice to do something a bit different and to meet Chengyuan's family (even though I could barely understand a word they said - they talked so fast and in their dialect). Now for some chill time - got to get up early tomorrow morning for my first tutoring session with Coco (the name makes me cringe every time…!)

Xxxx

p.s. Yesterday, I almost burnt the flat down when attempting to cook, and had a massage that was essentially a hench Chinese man beating me up for an hour. All in all, a good day I would say!