The Chinese don't sell cream, but they do sell black fungus!

On Saturday the Grandmother arrived, she's been in their hometown up in the north east province, looking after her other grandkids. So I looked after Leo by myself for the first time! Wasn't particularly hard, we watched Shrek and The Croods, as I said not particularly challenging. I did get him to eat his breakfast of rice though. Such unbelievable skills. 

When they got back we went to this university where Helen's, brother in law's, brother's daughter is starting university. They typically eat Lunch early here, between 11 & 12:30 ish. So when we ordered at 1 Helen apologised to me for eating late. I'm not sure what she'd think about our 3 o'clock lunches, practically dinner! After that we went to visit her halls, which are all single sex, and for good reason. They share bathrooms like we do, but they also sleep in 6 person dorms. Which are tiny, space for 3 beds along each side, and the middle bit is wide enough for one person to walk down. It's crazy, they have those bunks where the bed is on top, and the desks underneath, with all the wardrobe space and everything under each bed. The campus is quite cramped, with the buildings really close together, and no particular design just concrete cuboids. It had some pretty features, like a little waterfall and stream. 

Saturday is my night to cook dinner. I tried to make carbonara, but I couldn't find any single cream - or any cream to be honest - or Parmesan, so didn't really turn out to be carbonara. I had to improvise so I made a Philadelphia, bacon, mushroom, and pea sauce. I added a bit of milk, but it was still dry... So dry that the grandmother put ketchup in it. Apparently she prefers tomato based sauces. Not such a big hit for my first meal. I've decided I'm going to go to Walmart next Friday in advance, so I'm not going to be stuck in the tiny Chinese supermarket. Just hope Walmart isn't too stocked with marshmallow fluff and Betty Crocker that it doesn't have real food...