Chengdu - Week 5 Special Holiday Update

Oct. 1, 2014

    Happy National Day! This holiday in China is often spent traveling, either to the home town or to many touristy spots. And for us USAC students it was a day to catch up on sleep, laundry, and homework. Essentially that was the day for most of the hallway. A few people wandered out, but most were inside just enjoying the break from our rather intense school situation. So while I have nothing to report on that front in terms of interest, tomorrow should be more interesting. I am going to be traveling to my friend, Tong’s hometown. It is roughly an hour from Chengdu bus once we get to the bus station. However, the full travel time will be about three hours. It is going to be Kong, Jose, Cassidy, and Brennan making this journey tomorrow, we also will be spending the night and returning on friday. This all should be a fairly crowded experience so we shall see how we get by. I am super excited for the next few days!

Oct. 2, 2014

    The day began at the regular time, but instead of milling about and not really having breakfast, Kong decided that he would do breakfast. We ended up with an egg sandwich of sorts, which was an excellent way to start our journey to Ren Shou. Kong often cooks for us which is pretty great to getting breakfast for free was merely a bonus in the game of life. Those going to Rensho would be Myself, Cassidy, Brennan, Jose, and Kong. The journey had a rather auspicious beginning as we were buying water bottles for the adventure. The shop keeper opened one of the money drawer only to see a spider the size of a human palm inside. Both Cassidy and I jumped at the sight out this large creature but the shopkeeper essentially ignored it and got my change. The only sign he had even seen the spider was the way he slammed the door very quickly. Ah wild life in strange places, I am sort curious about what happened to the spider.

    The first part of our journey was to get to the eastern bus station in Chengdu, this required that we take bus 77 four about 40 minutes and then switch off to Bus 3. However, for whatever reason the bus we got on did not have the sign board that announces the stop, and often the voice that announce where we are going is fairly garbled. When I figured we were getting close, I went to go look at the map, a man saw me looking and took the paper I had written on. He said to go sit down and sure enough when the stop came up he signaled us to get off. We made it to the Bus station at about 10 am. We purchased our tickets and were quickly on the bus with little problems. The ride was about an hour and 15 minutes long, for which most of us slept. When we arrived Tong, was waiting in the bus yard for us. We head out on another bus, on of six in the city and were given a hearty Laowai Nihao (hello foreigners).
    Lunch was first on the list of things we needed to do. as always lunch was spicy and delicious, Andrew took us to a restraint that served fairly common food, he wanted us to get a taste of the local flavor. So spicy chicken (a full chicken head and feet included) and white radish. It was great to chat with everyone, I really got the impression that Tong was very pleased to have us in his home town. After lunch it was off to drop off our stuff at the hotel. The hotel was a tiny place that had only had one other foreigner visitor before our group. The shopkeeper seemed pleased to have us but we had to go register with the local place department before we could stay there. So we got into a taxi and were off to the Renshou police station. This part was funny because the police at the station expressed their dislike at needing to register foreigners. They would rather chat with us and they didn’t even care that Kong hadn't brought his passport with him. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

    After the police station Dora, Tong’s female friend, appeared and we were off to go explore. The first place we went was the old part of town. Much of it has already been destroyed to make way for the new Renshou but Tong remembers going to these streets as a child. They were all but abandoned now. The only thing barely standing was an old church. The place had a different feeling and piece of history that was going to be bulldozed over. The picture got were really sad, this part of China is disappearing to make way for a different type of city. After the old part of the city, we head over to a mountain, Tianti. Many steps for us to climb and interesting carnival games along the way. Halfway up the mountain we stopped at a tea house to rest. It was quiet lovely and division between old and new was even more clear to us. We went up the rest of the mountain to the tower to have a look, it was just a bummer that the pollution blocked a lot of view. After milling about we went back to the tea house and played some games. It’s so much fun to hang out with people and people watch with friends. On our descent off the mountain we stopped and played a shooting game that I ended up being pretty decent at.

I climbed all these steps!!

    Dinner was the next order of business and so Tong took us down an alley way. The food was freaking amazing, I am really happy that Tong gets that all we want is taste and do what the local people do. Often when with foreigners Chinese people only want to have us eat expensive food and see the tourist attractions. That’s all good and fun but it doesn’t really give us a sense of how China is. After dinner it was time to wander the shops. Jose, Kong and Dora all tried some really really spicy food, so spicy Kong actually cried. I was impressed with their ability to swallow the wasabi. We also found a little area and I got to dance with some people. I drew a crowd, since it wasn’t every day people see foreigners in this little town. Not once did we pass another foreigner. Finally at around 10 pm we made it back to the hotel to shower and real. ut 11:30 I am pretty sure everyone was asleep.

Oct. 3, 2014

Poor Kong

    The hotel we stayed at only cost us 45 yuan (about 7.50 USD). We ended up waking up early than planned do to the honking of the horns. After Cassidy and got ready we went to grab the boys for a quick breakfast before heading back to Chengdu. The hotel was right by a little bakery so breakfast was delicious and fresh. After that we followed the shopkeeper to the closest bus stop, and headed back to the train station. Getting tickets was easy and we were able to get a bus fairly quickly. The ride was easy, and we made it to Chengdu without incident. Figuring out which bus to take was a little bit harder as we weren’t sure the protocol for getting on the buses in the yard. After wandering around we called Tong and got some guidance on the matter. Finally we were on our way back. It took another hour and half plus lunch but we all made it back to the University safely.

45 yuan hotel room

    Next thing in order was a long nap. Today is Dee’s birthday and to celebrate we (many many USAC people and some Chinese people) were heading out to Karaoke (called KTV here). Essentially were in this large dark room with a bunch of people and a singing machine. It was marvelous, everyone who came had a blast. Lots of singing and laughing a good merry fun. I think it was a good bonding experience for everyone. Some people ducked out early but most people stayed way late in the night. It was really interesting being the sober one in a crowd of generally tipsy, or lowered inhibitions. After that I managed to get back about 2:15 in the morning. Now I need to sleep otherwise I am going to hate life tomorrow when I tutor.