Friday 27th September was a strange day.

It started off with me being a guest on a Chinese TV cooking show. Why? Well one of my teacher's friends works for a TV company who wanted to shoot a series of five or so shows where foreigners from different countries teach Jimmy (a 'famous' Chinese TV chef) how to cook a dish from their native country. My teacher put forward me and a few other students/friends to take part. I'd never usually do this kind of thing in the UK… I don't really like being filmed or anything, but in China I kind of enjoy embracing all these weird opportunities, so off I went to the meeting on Thursday, confused and intrigued.

At the meeting they told us a bit more about what it would involve. We were put in pairs with someone of the same nationality (I was paired up with a guy called Jesse who is actually American, but he was fine with pretending to be British haha) and told we'd each have our own 30 minute long programme that would be broadcast every day next week. In the show we'd have to introduce ourselves, teach Jimmy to cook the dish (all in Mandarin) and then do a little performance related to our country. Jesse and I decided on 'Toad in the Hole' as I can't really think of any other British dishes plus it's super easy, and we decided our performance would be a beer-drinking contest, as we couldn't quite bring ourselves to sing or dance haha. We gave them a list of ingredients for them to buy, then were told to come back at 10am the next day to film.

On Friday morning I woke up to find that my skin has had the worst outbreak of spots I've had in about 5 years, and I'd been bitten several times on my face during the night, causing my right eye to swell up slightly- great timing! Haha. Ah well, I hastily smacked on some concealer and headed off to meet Jesse. At 10am, we turned up at the restaurant/kitchen where we were going to film, and met Jimmy and the TV presenter, Yang Yang. Jimmy is a great character - loud and a bit mad, but very friendly and with the most hilarious hair cut - check out his website http://jimmycooking.com/fayecanting/ to have a look. We had a few minutes of being shown around the kitchen and getting the equipment together, and then boom, we went straight into filming.

It was fun, but obviously very bizarre. I'm not a natural on camera so my Chinese came out all weird and wrong, but I don't think that matters too much. It was pretty tricky trying to explain how to make it because Chinese cooking doesn't really use batter…or sausages…or ovens. Hah. The sausage they provided was an absolute monstrosity - it was this fat, slithery, processed, pink, perfectly round thing, and there was only one, so we had to improvise and cut it into strips, urgh. While we waited for it to cook in the oven, we had awkward Chinese banter for a while and then we did our 'performance' of who could drink about half a pint of beer faster - Jesse or me. I won (of course) and they absolutely loved it - the cameraman zoomed in on my face as I was glugging it back (this was at 10.30 in the morning haha) - dread to think what that's going to look like!

When it came out of the oven I couldn't help but laugh… it was recognisably 'Toad in the hole', but the sausages just looked so pathetic and the batter hadn't risen half as high as it does when my Mum cooks it. The best bit was when they filmed us tasting it - Jimmy and Yang Yang both looked at the mouthful on their fork suspiciously, and I could tell they had to work pretty darn hard to force a smile on their face as they ate it. They then turned to the camera and went on about how amazing it was and 'oh what a lovely British dish!' etc but it was obviously all lies, because honestly it was pretty gross. I sat there nibbling away in the background wishing there was a tin of baked beans and some HP brown sauce nearby that I could use to smother it in.

Filming over, Jimmy invited us to eat lunch at the restaurant the kitchen is attached to, on the house. Obviously we accepted his generous offer, and I got pretty excited when he said he'd cook us steak because the restaurant was super fancy, so I thought there was a chance of it being really good. It was silly to get my hopes up really… I should know by now that when you order steak in China, it tends to be a flimsy bit of processed meat, served with a way-too-peppery black pepper sauce, a fried egg and noodles (?!). Still, it was fun as Yang Yang and Jimmy were great company. Jimmy showed me photos of his various food tours around the world - he's filmed in all sorts of places and cooked for loads of important people… I was pretty surprised given the quality of his steak haha. Yang Yang was cool too, and she seemed keen to be friends and hang out sometime, which I'm down for.

So that's my crazy morning for you. Had a chilled afternoon, but the fun continued that evening…

I'd spotted online that a Chinese rock band was going to be playing a gig at a bar in the Creative 100 complex, which I'd been meaning to check out for a while, so I asked Sam if he wanted to go along. The Creative 100 complex is really cool - full of arty little shops, cafes and bars etc, definitely going to go back and explore sometime. We arrived a bit early - the support band was still playing and not many people were there yet, but we got going on the drinks (they did a great long island iced tea for £3, yes please) and the atmosphere gradually warmed up as the numbers grew.

The main act was great fun, a Chinese rock band called Los Crasher (no idea what it's meant to mean or how you're meant to say it). To be honest, their clothes alone were enough to entertain me… the lead singer was in jean flares, a flowery shirt and a patterned cravat, whilst the drummer was wearing leather trousers and was naked on top, apart from a black bowtie, hah. But anyway their music wasn't bad and their energy was great… couldn't tell if they were drunk/high/ just crazy… I think a mixture of all three.

Thankfully the party didn't stop when their set finished; a pretty decent DJ started playing and we got chatting to some of the people there… a few Westerners but mainly Chinese, and really cool and interesting ones too. Several long island ice teas down and I was already fairly merry, but then the main band came out to join us and things just went a bit mental. The drummer bought several bottles of Jaeger (Mum, you'd have loved it!) and was glugging it down at a rapid speed... at one point he went so crazy he grabbed Sam's beer bottle and threw it against the wall, sending glass flying everywhere! So dangerous and yet so amusing.

A while later I left with an American/Chinese girl I'd met and some of her friends and went to this other club, I forget what it was called. This was far less arty and cool… it was huge and extravagant in a typically Chinese/tacky way, with plush sofas, chandeliers etc. She obviously knew the right people though, as we walked in without paying the entry fee, straight over to a table full of obviously very wealthy friends of hers who plied us with yet more alcohol. This place was rammed with people and the atmosphere was great…the music was a little tacky (still not as bad as Cindies) but it was easy to dance too. Spent about half an hour at one point in Welfare-Officer mode looking after a really drunk Korean girl -that wasn't so much fun, but generally it was an awesome night.

Stumbled into a taxi and got back around 4am. Spent a while on the sofa, eating weird Chinese sesame crackers and drinking water in attempt to absorb some of the alcohol, before falling into bed.

My oh my, I am paying the price today. Those of you that know me well know I get the most horrific hangovers, and this is one of them. I woke up for the first time around 6am, still drunk, rolled over and puked in my bin (which I had, rather impressively I think, put there especially knowing that this was likely to happen). I fell asleep again and woke up around 11.30am… I checked my phone and I had a barrage of messages from various people asking if I'd got home ok (which is nice I guess) and 4 missed calls from Yang Yang, the TV presenter I was planning on hanging out with today. She left me a few messages in her cute, chirpy Chinese voice… in my weak state, her energy and enthusiasm annoyed me. She called me again and I had to explain in my very husky and hung-over voice that I 'wasn't feeling very well today' and 'could we please reschedule?'

That sorted, I dragged myself out of bed (falling over a few times in the process) and went to the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and OH MY I looked so horrendous I almost wanted to laugh. I wanted to go out to buy some coca-cola (I thought it might help clear the taste in my mouth and settle my stomach) but I was scared that if anyone saw me they might scream and run away, so I wrapped my face up in a scarf, put on my sunglasses and headed out, which must have looked deeply odd as it was neither cold nor sunny.

Still, I made in back in one piece and have so far spent the rest of today curled up in a ball in bed wanting to die, drinking coca cola out of bowl because I can't face doing the washing up, and occasionally having flash backs to various moments from the past 24 hours and subsequently giggling to myself at the hilarity that is my life in China.