Week 37 - End of the Semester and Special report

Apr. 29, 2015

    Well the end of the semester has arrived, and it was a doozy. Tests, projects and goodbye dinner to be had by everyone. I will be heading into a two month break, I will mostly be working and self studying for Chinese. I am going to continue to travel to the areas around Chengdu, but otherwise it will be a pretty relaxed summer. Today I though I would talk about something that was neglected the last month — preparation for Sports Day. This entry is the lead up to the wonderful event.
    The whole idea of USAC students attending a Sports Day began on our way to Emei Shan. On the bus ride Wentao made several announcements. One of them was a call for dancers to preform during the Sports day parade. The initial reaction was not particularly excited, no one volunteered. So in true Jenn fashion I volunteered to help organize the dance and get people together for meetings. (I also volunteered Jesse without his permission, but no worries.) Slowly people fell in line for it a we had 12 dancers. Our first meeting was a brief one, we created a Wechat group called Traditional America Folk Dance and we were off. The first real practice was very small, one of the many one day holidays that occurred over the semester. Evalie came with a dance already made for a particularly up beat song and we were off. The first practice ended well, and I was genuinely excited for the first time since volunteering to organize the whole production.
    After that we had several practices, switching of dancers, and last minute ideas. The dance was ready. Our dance crew was Jesse, Nigel, Josh, Evelie, Tanya, Raphi(former USAC student), Sean, Jack, Connor, and myself. The last independent practice was done out on the field and it was blast. Lots of laughing and enjoying ourselves, and teaching the last minute joiners how to do the dance. We did preform the day before when we had a group practice, and it went really well. Our dance was to be combined with a singing number, these two things would make up our entire performance. At times it was a little bit frustrating organizing everything, but it really worked out in the end. I have uploaded the video, please enjoy the performance. We were not the best dancers there, but we had a great time and that was truly all that mattered.

This is Lynn, one of the USAC interns. He was our cheerleader

Chengdu Week 37 - Home again

Apr. 19, 2015

    The next was a much slower morning. We got everything squared away with the couple that would be taking us back to Chengdu. Then we went to one last scenic spot, Forget worry Valley. It was lovely waterfall area with lots and lots of bamboo. It was rainy this morning so we ended up a little bit wet, but it was totally worth it. I am happy we decided to go this area, it was truly beautiful. I did almost fall flat on my face at one point but these things happen. We finished in that area and them headed back into town, town a spot for lunch where we could sit for a while. Then we intended to go back to the first viewing platform, but the Gabriel and Xiaofeng (小冯）called and we had to get our butts to the west gate to meet them. Once they picked us up it was an interesting ride back to Chengdu. We talked with them about their lives and learned quite about Chinese work ethic (Gabriel owned a business). It was an awesome car ride. About half through it Jesse and I realized that we had been Europed. It is common practice to pick up traveling students and take them to where you are going, instead of them paying for public transportation. I wholeheartedly agree with this practice. We arrived back in Chengdu quicker than any bus, said good bye to our lovely hosts and took the subway the rest of the way. What an adventure! It was such a fun time!the Bamboo Sea was amazing and the ride home also quite entertaining. This will be Jesse’s  last big trip in China, he is heading back to the States soon. Our last hurrah as Chinese travel buddies was a good one!

Chengdu Week 36 - Nine Hours in the Bamboo Sea

A pollution sun rises, coal has been burned this night

Apr. 18, 2015

    Jesse and I rose the next morning and greeted the very very smoggy day. This was a bummer, but this beautiful national scenic area is surrounded by factories so there is quite a bit of air pollution. Well done China… We got started as early as possible and walked to the closest scenic spot. As you will see from the pictures not much to see but the disappointment of Chinese air pollution. The we headed up to the Jade corridor, which turned out to be little more than a parking lot. This is when the day picked up for us. We found a Gondola to the hiking area of the park (before we had be walking on the shoulder of roads). We took a beautiful Gondola ride and then were dropped off in a walking area carved out of a cliff. We walked through there for a good hour and a half, enjoying the different sections.We then hiked up to the upper area were we had to ride two boats to get across. The first on was a cheap boat and very quick. The second one was a bit more interesting, we were trying to get across and this group of Chinese tourists came along and invited us onto their boat. For us the ride was free, which was pretty amazing. From their conversations they were just happy to have two foreigners sitting with them. Then at the end I revealed that we did in fact speak Chinese and they were all embarrassed that we could understand.

Roadside flower

Water running down the cliff would be a common sight throughout the day

A famous view totally obstructed by air pollution.

To the Battlements!

Battlements constructed on the side of a cliff

I sadly did not get to lay down with this Buddha

New Chinese Friends!

    The second half of the day was a bit more slow paced, it involved a lot of road walking. There are not paths that connect the sites in the park. Instead you are expected to hire a car wherever you want to go. This gets expensive quickly, so Jesse and I just did road walking which confused people. They believed that everything was extremely far away and it would take far too long to reach things. Most things in the park were only a few kilometers away and about 30 minute walk. We went to the temple in the park, which also had a scenic viewing platform. The temple was fairly large and looked like it had living quarters. Jesse and I ate lunch there and enjoyed the calm atmosphere. We were there around an hour then head down the road. We made it back to the Jade corridor, and we took the other scenic Gondola. The Gondola gave us and idea of how large the park is. Most of it is inaccessible to people but for the air I could see the rolling hills of green. For the first time, the name made sense. We then headed out of the station into the next hiking area. The area was beautiful, following a small creek back into the mountains. On the hike we met this older German gentleman and his wife. We spoke to them for a short while (He immediately knew I studied in Taiwan) and then they offered us a ride back to Chengdu in their car! Which was amazing, it made our lives so much easier for the following day. We parted ways after the hike, after exchanging numbers, and head back down the road. By this point it was getting fairly close to dinner time, so we meandered our way back to the hotel. Marveling, once more, about the short distances between areas. We arrived back at our hotel, and then showered, fed ourselves. We had been hiking for about 9 hours. It was a great time and much easier to express in pictures than in words. We ended falling asleep around 8pm (we are hard core college students…).

Viewing platform in the temple

Bamboo Sea...