If you haven't been to China yourself and haven't eaten in various Chinese restaurants yet, you might be thinking now - well, yeah, knowing a bathroom within reach is not a bad thing, but I am able to hold that for a little longer. Oh, haha, lucky you I say, but wait til you come here and eat something that will make your stomach go crazy. No, you will not be able to hold that even only a second longer. You will need that bathroom, in that VERY SAME second! And if you are lucky it has toilet paper :-D
I have to say so far I never had a problem with street food. That stuff goes easy on my stomach. I can also always be sure that I get a freshly prepared meal, I mean, I can actually see them preparing the dish infront of my eyes. The restaurant food is where you should be carefully picking what goes into your mouth. As their dishes are more complex, they are often premade and then just reheated when needed. This gives those nice little animals aka bacteria plenty of time to get comfy on the food that I am later on shuffling into my mouth. Especially meat should be approached with a skeptical attitude. But you can be as careful as you want, sooner or later it will find you, that grumbling down there, followed by the urge to hit that toilet within the next 5 seconds. Not any later, trust me! Now you might think - okay, I can manage that for once, I mean, once it's all out, that issue is done. Oooooooh noooooo! Misunderstanding! Those are serious salmonella, folks! This takes me DAYS to recover. Literally 3 days of not being able to hold food in longer than 3 hours. And constant stomach pain. Some people also get hit by this diarrhea by eating dished that got spoiled with a generous amount of 辣椒 lajiao - hot Chinese peppers. Already went through that too. That's actually even worse, as for days your stomach feels like there is still a fire burning inside (2 days after eating Sichuan Hotpot I still felt the fire!) - and everytime you dissapear to get releave from the pain you feel the chili seeds making their way out of your body. Which expands the burning feeling from your stomach into your butt. I wouldn't even wish for my biggest enemy to experience that. It's really that nasty.
This should get better though after like 2 days, and really helpful is a lot of rice and bread. Yes, let those carbohydrates soak up either all the hotness or the salmonella so there will be peace again in your stomach. If that still doesn't stop the flow, get to the closest pharmacy and point to your stomach with a painful face. Or take a friend with you that can actually speak medical in Chinese. They will hook you up with tons of pills, I was literally taking 8 pills a day! But, after 2 extra days, my stomach returned to it's normal peacefulness. So eitherway, give it some time and you will be fine. While I had my last visit from this unwelcomed friend, I searched online for other suffers and actually found reports from people that were one day away from literally dying from lacking salt and water, so the only way they could be helped was by a hospital visit getting tons of saline solution pumped into their venes. Glad it didn't get that far with me yet haha. But what I say is, if you aren't careful, it can hit you anytime, anywhere. And so many Chinese told me, once you went through it, your stomach sort of gets immune to it. LIE!!! I'm in my 4th month here now, and my stomach still constantly gets put upside down.
But please don't let my story now stop you from going out there and trying the truly delicious food that China has to offer. Enjoy your stay in China! And I do count the diarrhea to my experiences here as a Cultural Ambassador. It truly let's you feel the culture and the food to your deep inside. Which makes it even more memorable. And there we even found a little positive part about this s***. And it gives you a true body cleansing. Which from time to time is also needed :->

So last week came faster than expected and with this my birthday. Earlier that week I made my first experience with Chinese medicine, as I was knocked out by a fever and a strong cold. Gosh, is that stuff sweet! It's a pulver you have to dissolve in hot water and then just get it down. Like 5 times a day. But to my surprise it did get better pretty soon, so that after 2 days in bed I was already back to normal - just in time for my birthday here in China. As for the day itself, I took our two Ayis out for lunch, and I think they might have been happier than I was that day ;-) so we had some yummie lunch together and a nice little stroll through the mall the restaurant was placed. I hooked myself up with some gloves, as I will be heading to a freezing cold Beijing in 2 weeks to renew my Visa. And our Ayi got me a nice sweater. And the other one nice earings. I felt so bad, knowing that they spend their own money, which they don't have alot themselves (or have to send 90% to their families back home) to buy me gifts. That was really sweet. Those two ladies really feel like family to me!
The afternoon was spent together with my hostkids, as usual, and for dinner our Ayi prepared my favorite curry as well as tons of other delicious dishes. But for sure, the exciting part was what came after dinner - yes folks, BIRTHDAY CAKE! And how crazy big! My hostmom really exaggerated with its size! That evening we maybe ate a quarter of that fat boy. But it was truly yummie! Lots of whipped cream and fruits, just how I like it ;-) Amy helped me blow the candles (probably more suliva on the cake than candles blown out in her case) and Rex helped me cut the first piece. They were both adorable, also making me crafts and drawings.
I have to say though that birthdays for Chinese are not really a big deal. Yes, they have birthday cake, yes, the family tries to have a dinner together that day, but that's basically it. No presents, no birthday cards, no hugs, no looking-in-your-eyes when congratulating. Text messages come but rarely anyone really tries to call you on the phone or meet you in person. But hey, why hugging people if I can hug the huge Pringle's reduced fat sour cream and onion can that I treated myself to that night?!
So I really had a great day that last Friday and liked it just the way it was. Though I do admit that I am looking forward to spending my 21st birthday in Germany again, together with family and good old friends. That just has something so warming and safe - and something so yummie as my mom's currant cake ;-)

Last Wednesday I felt like right in the middle of a dream. An over the top Fashionshow dream. Such ones that have aftershow parties and models and designers partying togehter and never getting any sleep. Where people drink too much expensive alcohol and consume even more outragious hors d'heuvres. Where bosses of important companies begin chatting with me and handing me their phone numbers and people wondering why I am not working as a model yet. Where I get my hair done by the most well known hair stylist in whole China and pay not even the slightest bit for it. And where I get driven around by my personal driver in a fancy limousine. Where everybody stares at me like I am the reason we are having this whole party.
The fun part of this dream is, IT WAS REALITY!!!! MY REALITY!
Thanks to the opening of my hostmom's new beauty hospital I got the most incredible experience ever in my life. And I am not kidding!
I would never be able to tell you every detail of this crazy evening/night/morning, I'll hook you guys up with some pictures so you get an idea. Let me just tell you I had a blast and will not forget that day! Here goes out a big Thanks to my hostmom who made this experience possible for me! And who know's, maybe you can soon see me on various runways here in Asia, thinking back of GNTM's Jorge's words...