China – Tone & Travel

Day 52 in China during the Coronavirus

March 16, 2020July 9, 2020 Emily Short

Well, what an infuriating day! First of all, I have to get this off of my chest… I am a Western Amazonian woman living in China. I get many stares, and the stares I can deal with. Yes, I am a foot taller than you but to me you’re a toddler, holding your actual toddler so maybe I’ll just stare right back! But, wow, the shops, it’s like I get emotionally attacked every time I go into a store… Here are some examples: 1: Clothing Stores, okay for my height I would say I’m quite a small width resulting in me fitting into size small clothing… would the Chinese shop assistants believe me? Nope, they questioned me and basically forced a LARGE into my face… not a medium but a large! How insulting! I went to the till still enraged and purchased my size SMALL top, pffft just because I don’t wear 6 month baby grows… okay a little too far, but as you can tell, it hurt my feelings. 2: Hair Salon, okay, I don’t know if anyone has noticed but Chinese hair is very different to western, it naturally has a very sleek, straight and shiny look. Well good for them, because for me, I naturally have fluffy wavy hair, a lot of westerners do… I go to get my hair cut in the salon and what do they say to me… they say ‘your hair is boring and dull, it is ugly’. Okay, you hold up there, you’re only saying that because we don’t have the same hair and you’ve never cut a western girl’s hair before. I said fine, fix it… the guy put serum on it and that was it, well done, all of my problems have been fixed. I was mucho offendido. 3: Shoe Shop, now, this is the worst one. All around the world Adidas go up to a Size UK 8 in female sneaks which is perfect because I’m a size 7 (I’m tall, that’s appropriate feet size so I don’t fall over)… well not in China, apparently they only go up to a size 5 for women. I was unaware of this until today, I asked for a Size 7 in a female trainer and the guy comes back out and says, ‘oh size 7s are for men only’ 😵 okay, I couldn’t, I just had to hold on before a tear fell out of my eye. This man was the height of a 10 year old and he is telling me this. Right, I don’t have a problem with heights BUT don’t tell me my shoe size is for a man and I basically have man feet. I have vowed to never shop in Adidas in China again… unless I like the clothing or a men’s shoe, meaning there is a large chance I will shop there again.

So that’s that. As you can tell, China aren’t very catering towards my height, and I know it’s not personal but it’s quite a shock to the system when you actually are the real life BFG. Anyway, rant over. What else, ohh yes, Zac was sick because he ate too much as we had an Indian! The first Indian in Guiyang!! How exciting, it was lovely, a very nice change from Chinese food. Although, I have realised that whenever I order food, I end up just saying ok ok ok as I have no idea what they’re saying to me, for all I know I could be saying Ok to something I definitely should not be saying Ok to! ALSO, I accidentally paid for someone’s shopping today. It’s so tough to know how to use self-checkout machines here as it’s all in Chinese, they ask me to use my barcode on the app as I’m thinking it’ll start scanning my items through but no. I paid for someone else’s shopping as they just left the till without paying. Only £6 but still! I could have used that £6!

Last thing, we went to decathlon today and bought LOADS of gym equipment so circuits are going to be out life now people. Our gym is still closed. At the start of this quarantine we were on a roll, that roll stopped, now we have rolls, and we have to get rolling again. The roll starts tomorrow and it will be circuits and boxing everyday/most days. This is what happens when you’re stuck in isolation for weeks and weeks and there’s no end and you see your summer body turning into your sofa 🙃 that’s all.

China Coronavirus Life

Day 51 in China during the Coronavirus

March 15, 2020July 9, 2020 Emily Short

🎵Guess who’s back, back again, Emily’s back Emily’s back Emily’s back Na Na, Na Na Naa Naa 🎵Just thrown in a remake of Eminem’s song for ya, enjoy.

I’ve just realised I basically took an 11 day break from writing, apologies. Honestly, I just didn’t want to write because in the first week, a lot was going on and I was sad… yes I was sad BUT now I’m not and I haven’t been for the past 4 days, I’ve just been lazy… when I say lazy, I mean L.A.Z.Y. The only thing I have been actively involved in are my online classes because it’s my job. Oh and my first and second sesh of boxing with Zac. I’m a natural… at not being a boxer. So let me catch you up…

Obviously on 11th March it was a very special day which is why my mood changed due to the treatment from my darling husband-to-be… still so strange to say! I’m so young! 23 years young actually! Happy Birthday to me for 4 days ago if anyone didn’t know. You should’ve known, and I’m very disappointed you didn’t do your research if you didn’t know. What are the odds that you share your birthday with your Fiancée’s Nan AND your best friend’s Nan… Coincidence? I think not.

What else… about a 10 days ago (note the correlation in the mood change) Zac and I were discussing and making plans to come home in the weeks just gone and we were going back and fourth on the best way to go to the UK and back without leaving the dogs for too long, without missing any work AND being there together. Many options came up and we ended up becoming set on one. BUT THEN just before we were going to book the flights, we were informed that if we came back to China we would have to pay £2800 EACH just to stay in a mandatory quarantine hotel for 2 weeks… that would be more than the trip to the UK alone. We’re not that rich so that made our mind up for us. Obviously it was sad because we wanted to go home, but wasn’t a possibility. Although, when looking at it, the quarantine price that stopped us was kind of a life-saver as now the rest of the world is blowing up with CORONAVIRUS and actually China is now looking like the safest place to be. I’m really sorry for what is about to happen in your country if you don’t all start washing your hands/seeing no other human being.

Zac and I were talking the other day (yes, we do that sometimes) that obviously we are pros at being in quarantine now and have hit Level 51 today! Of course, we’re hoping that the rest of the world doesn’t go into lockdown like China has and how Italy recently has, and we just want to reassure people that the Coronavirus doesn’t give you the poops so you can put down your extra 100 toilet rolls back on the shelf. China still had all the toilet paper in their supermarkets so I think you can relax… personal opinion.

Some insight on the home life… I think Zac and I have given up on forcing our love for home workouts… we did it for 6 weeks and we just can’t do it anymore… we want to hump a barbel. For those that don’t know, it’s the long metal pole in the gym. Also, I’ve become a ‘pro’ boxer… I’m not a pro but if I call myself a pro then I don’t feel like a baffoon when I smack my gloves together (it’s quite aesthetically pleasing). Oh and here’s a timeline of what happened the other morning at 5am to be exact…

5am: Lola pooped by the front door (She is house trained but she had a bad belly and couldn’t hold it. She was crying while pooping, bless her!
5:10am: Zac takes her outside and I clean the poop… Yay.
5:20am: We all go back to bed.
5:30am: Lola starts gagging/heaving, Zac picked her up off of the bed and onto the floor and she vomits all over the floor. I clean it up… Yay.
5:35am: We get back in bed
6:00am: Lola starts gagging/heaving AGAIN! Zac repeats putting her on the floor. She’s sick again. I clean, AGAIN! yay.
6:20am: Zeus the dick pees and poops on our Sofa Cushion 🙃 Zac volunteers as tribute to clean it.
6:30am: We all go back to bed… Bella pees on the floor because she’s only young. I cleaned it up whenever I got up…

H.O.W. D.E.L.I.G.H.T.F.U.L. The lesson from this story is to make sure you DO NOT turn your house into a zoo. I do STILL love them all. My head was so so SO close to exploding. It would have if Zac didn’t volunteer… he saved the animal’s heads, some would call him a hero.

So, that’s it really. I hope all of you have as much fun in isolation as I’m having 🥳🙃 Oh and I know my previous posts have been food obsessed sooo here is visual proof of how much I love cake (Zac bought me 7 full sized birthday cakes in total, if I have diabetes, it was worth it)

China Coronavirus Life

Day 40 in China during the Coronavirus

March 4, 2020July 9, 2020 Emily Short

You know when you get the feeling of not being able to move because you’re just waiting for the event that you don’t want to happen, come around? That’s what I experienced today. If you’ve never had it, well you’re very lucky and I hope you never do. The cause of this feeling was due to knowing that I had to hold a live class to 4 year olds over Zoom (video conferencing app). It was despicable. Imagine, you’re on video with a whiteboard whilst talking to the class but you can’t see yourself, so you have no idea if the board is even on the screen! Then, I have the 4 year olds shouting at the screen with the answer which is great BUT the quiet kids get lost. So, to resolve this I mute the rest of the kids and… oh wait, their ID’s don’t have their names on so I have to guess what kid is using what ID. By the way, during all of this, their faces are switching on my FULL screen as the website I was using wouldn’t let me see all of them at once 🤦🏻‍♀️ technology is supposed to be great!? Anyway, I found the quiet student and he would say his answer which was fab but bear in mind, I still have no idea if my board is on the screen… we were learning about emotions (worried, shocked and excited) so I needed to draw the faces on my board. My artistic skills have really improved since becoming a teacher 🙃 so the whole shabang was a battle but the clever little guys were all able to say ‘I am shocked’😵, ‘I am worried😟’ and ‘I am excited🤩’ at the end of the 30 minute Zoom sesh… so kinda mission accomplished.

Next thing, you ever get it when you’ve had a coffee too late and then you’re awake for most of the night? Yeah I’ve had that, it is so inconvenient, I just want to sleep – that’s the feeling at 2am… Well. Imagine that but times it by 50 because ZAC decided to invest in pre-workout. Generally it’s fine, you know a nice little kick before a gym sesh and you smash it up. BUT. 1: We aren’t going to the gym, it’s a tiny home workout that we’ll get into and that’s it. 2: We aren’t eating that much since we have no reason to as we aren’t as active as what we were before this epidemic kicked off and 3 (the most valid point): This pre-workout contains a combination of ingredients that would probably be able to set off a heart attack! This product is called ‘Pathogen’ VERY apt for this virus situation BUT it literally is a pathogen being inserted into your body… well, in Zac’s case anyway.

Zac has taken this pre-workout a couple of times but for the past week he hasn’t been able to sleep and he’s felt a bit rough, initially we thought it was just a little illness and it will pass. No that wasn’t the case, the next time he took the pre-workout (last night) the symptoms worsened. I decided to take it upon myself to turn into Sherlock Holmes and figure out what the cause would be. Yep, you’ve guessed it, PATHOGEN. I looked up the ingredients and it contains some serious head-blowing caffeine (4 different types)! No wonder he couldn’t sleep, all the caffeine is sitting in his body waiting to be used up… I can assure you, it would probably take a 4 hour long gym sesh to be all sucked up. So, I solved the mystery of why he was staying up and we figured that because the product has such strong contents it’s probably disagreeing with Zac’s digestive system so that’s why he’s feeling so rough. WOW I’m good, such a detective… also slight common sense. In conclusion, there you go, we found out that this pre-workout is literally a deadly pathogen – Coronavirus, you have some competition… sorry too soon.

Last thing, you know when you get the feeling that you just NEED to help someone because you’ve experienced the same thing as what they’re going through now. Yes, I’ve felt that, I feel like I would do anything to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to them because when it happened to me it was awful. Anyway, I experienced that today, I listed down every way possible that I could try and help to stop the same thing happening to them and I thought I had a breakthrough but no. It just isn’t possible. It would be if this STUPID virus wasn’t a thing but it is. I am so mad at this Coronavirus, it’s spread around the whole world and it’s stopping people from living how they want to live, and for some, stop living all together! It’s just frustrating because I don’t want to stay in my house and tidy everyday… I know I said in my post yesterday that it’s a nice feeling, it is, but cmon I need to appreciate the feeling, let me have at least one day of mess! I want to go to the gym, I miss it so much, I will never take advantage of it again and miss a day when I was actually supposed to go. I want to teach face to face and not over a Zoom app that has so many inconveniences! I want to be able to freely fly around the world to see our families if we need to without having to be in isolation for 14 days before seeing anyone we actually want to see. Finally, I want to be able to eat out, I don’t want to cook anymore, someone cook for us! I think we deserve that!

I just had to let all my wants out, I really want to lose my ‘Tina the talking tummy’ and my ‘cellulite sally’ and my ‘Kimmy Cankles’. Sorry, that was my last one. Anyway, you get the point, I want this virus to be over because at the moment it seems that there’s no means to an end by the rate the rest of the world’s numbers are going up! Hopefully it stops before everyone starts writing blogs about Day X in the Coronavirus world!! 😟

China Coronavirus Life

Day 39 in China during the Coronavirus

March 3, 2020July 9, 2020 Emily Short

My largest apologies as I skipped yesterday’s post, I had other matters to attend to… I was watching a movie, The Hunger Games actually, as Zac had never seen it before and he’s supposed to be teaching a class on it this semester. As I am a Good Samaritan, I thought I’d educate him, I did an excellent job… found the website, clicked play on the movie and it played! There ya go, educated! I will maybe never not do it again, very sorry not sorry.

Anyway, so I’ve been reflecting recently on the little things I enjoy as the big things I enjoy are currently on hold, some sort of virus going around, I dunno. The things I’ve thought about actually do make such an impact on my mood throughout the day and I’ve only thought about this because I mostly do nothing within the day. So, I’m just going to relay some things that I reflected on and you may have the same effect from them but you’ve just never thought about it until now… okay… ready… 1: having a bowl of any cereal I want in the morning, I mix all my cereals because it’s a way more enjoyable experience. I love cereal and I love the aesthetics of crunching on cornflakes or Cheerios, just so relaxing! In the morning, after taking the dogs out, I just sit there looking like a scruff, put on my current favourite TV show (Grey’s Anatomy) with a Coffee, I LOVE coffee (that’s another thing) and I’m just so content for about 20 minutes, eating my cereal in silence apart for the crunch and the TV background and drinking a steaming coffee… isn’t that so peaceful! No disturbances, I’m not thinking about anything else, I’m not bored and I love it! Next thing, 2: Tidying/cleaning, when I start, I don’t really stop – people who know me personally won’t believe it but it’s true. Zac always says ‘you were on a roll so I didn’t want to stop you’ and of course I can stop at anytime but it does look like I’m on a mission (I defo got it from my mum). It’s just so satisfying going around the house, perfecting the way things look and smell and you’re not just sat there sedentary, kinda feels like I’m being active, using my arm muscles to lift dishes to wash… okay not that extreme but you get the drift. After I spend so long cleaning everything, I turn around and my house is so sparkly, I even go ahead to wash the dogs at the same time because then EVERYTHING is pretty again! Very satisfying! 3: Wearing slumpy clothes but I think about what I’m wearing and whether it goes well. For example; leggings and a hoody, but I make sure the shape of both compliment each other and myself, it just makes me feel like I could go out if I want to but I have no reason to… that’s also a nice feeling of content. That’s only 3 things but I have way more, I’m not going to bore you with them though…

You’re probably thinking, wow, this girl needs to get out because even I’m thinking I sound nuts, but those little things really do put me in a better mood. Obviously, there’s loads of other things, Zac and the dogs, the main things! I was just pointing out the tiny happenings in our day to day lives which have an impact. Speaking of Zac, yesterday was our 1 year anniversary! Huge anniversary! We survived the first year and that’s usually a very good sign… we forgot. We forgot it was a 1 year anniversary and got on with our lives in isolation like we usually do… that’s how much we notice each other… just kiddin! It’s just so easy to lose track of time when you do the same thing day in and day out in this situation. I reminded Zac today that we forgot about our anniversary yesterday so we congratulated each other today. Yes, I said ‘congratulated’ because that is what is necessary for an anniversary… congratulations for putting up with me for a year straight! You’re a real warrior! Joking, I’m not that hard to be with. I don’t think… 😅 So yes, our first anniversary was forgotten about but it’s okay, we’ll have another next year (hopefully!)

Last thing to mention, I went to Walmart today to buy some ingredients for Zac to make brownies, that was nice, it got me out the house. Although, I came back with all of the ingredients apart from the main thing, Nutella (out of stock) which meant he couldn’t make his glorious brownies. Due to this loss, I took it into my own hands and attempted to make cookies… I failed. Miserably. I never knew you could get light brown sugar and dark brown sugar… I thought brown sugar was brown sugar and it was easy for simpletons to handle. No no, these very very dark sugared cookies are very very dark tasting and sugary… they’re quite yum with milk but on their own they’re disastrous! I told Zac about my ‘misinterpretation of brown sugar’ situation and I was in fact guilty of wasting all ingredients that he was going to use for his brownies… I apologised to myself profusely for even thinking that would be the right ingredient… I mean have you seen the colour of dark brown sugar… it’s definitely not light brown! So yes 0 points for me.

There you go, in conclusion, I’ve started consciously enjoying the tiny things in life, I’m going to try not to forget our next anniversary, and remember, dark brown sugar is NOT light brown sugar.

China Coronavirus Life

Day 37 in China during the Coronavirus

March 1, 2020July 9, 2020 Emily Short

Happy birth month to me!!! Yes, birth month is a thing and my birthday is on 11th March (note that down people). I take birth months very seriously after Zac and I made a deal (coincidently) just before his birth month. The deal was ‘the person who’s birth month it is, does not lift a finger, doesn’t do anything and basically gets waited on the whole month’. Initially, I thought this was an excellent idea as I couldn’t wait for it to be my birth month, which is now here. However, this deal was made and then it was October, Zac’s birth month. Day to day, I do most of the house work and stuff like that just because I’m quite particular about how things are done and Zac does an ‘above satisfactory’ job, he has definitely improved though… due to this, I proactively sort things before Zac gets a chance, although, he is the chef in the house which is great for me! So in October, I didn’t think it was a big deal for him to not lift a finger and me wait on him, but then, things started to change throughout the month… I got him a cat for his birthday… then we got ourselves a very needy dog 3 days later… and it was still the deal of ‘Zac doesn’t lift a finger’ because of his birth month. I was not ready! I needed his assistance but cmon, I wasn’t ready to be a mum to these animals by myself! Obviously, I needed Zac to start helping out, unfortunately it was (only) 2 days before his birth month ended and he will never drop it… I mean I did a pretty good job for the rest of the month!

So, now it’s the first day of my birth month and the deal, but guess what I did all day… CLEAN AND TIDY!! To be fair, Zac didn’t get any sleep last night so I’ll let it slide as he also made me a yummy yummy shrimp pasta for dinner. BUT aside from this anomaly we should have an easy month ahead of us people. I get to just sit back, do nothing as Zac becomes my butler… in the buff 😂 How exciting! So, yes I thought I’d share the update of this yearly event with you all.

Okay so onto the day, well after a very nice, sunny yesterday, we found ourselves back inside today. Yesterday was a one off but a good sign, as there are more local shops opening and malls are starting to open up again and it’s looking positive. We’re slowly getting back to normality – Just waiting on the most important place to open up, the gym! We’ve decided that if the gym doesn’t open then we have no choice but to fly to Thailand and go to the AKA Thailand MMA gym… its the only way we could think of to stay sane 💁🏻‍♀️

Yes, so even though we’re back to being trapped inside I was still very proactive and got myself a very accurate picture of Zeus just for visual proof of his sneaky dickness, during this time he was using his paw to pull my bowl away from me and closer to him (basically tug o’ war with a cereal bowl!)…

“If I stare long enough, human will have to give me some” Mr Zeusykins France

I was also proactive as I went for a run… I know I had a break but a niggle just made me run today, probably had something to do with the whole packet of cookies, 2 dinners, 2 chocolate bars and the ice cream I ate last night, whoops! I also did an hour HIIT class from a YouTube video, never done one before so thought I’d try it out since I needed more than a run to work of those mega kcals I consumed last night. The video was tough actually, a little boring but tough, only boring because there were a lot of repetitive body weight moves and it would be better if they switched it up but hey, it’s their class and I stuck through the whole thing! Man I had a sweat on! It felt good, I mean it won’t get me ripped or anything but a nice little home sweat is more rewarding than doing nothing!

Annnd that’s all I think. Nothing else happened today… see what happens when I’m back trapped inside the house, there’s only a certain amount of things I can talk about, very restricting, I’m not a fan. Well, there is one more thing, Lola and Bella have basically been asleep all day because of their busy day yesterday, just look at this!

Hopefully there’s more to tell you tomorrow! I also hope that the person who lives above us stops constantly playing their piano from 9am to 9pm!?!? Who even plays a piano for that long…?