Day 2: Seeing Chong Qing University for the First Time

Our first full day in Chong Qing was action packed once we got into the swing of things.

View from my bedroom window

Getting out the door at 10 am, we walked down the street toward Chong Qing University Campus D, which used to be its own technical campus before it was absorbed by CQU.

First, me and the other TAs, Jessica, Domenic, and Nicholas, along with our boss Greg Brown, and a professor traveling with us named Will Wong, went to the Joint Co-op Institute (JCI) office on campus and met some of the student workers, named Summer, Zoe (yes, another Zoe), Abby, and Jasmine, as well as their supervisor with a nickname of Tree (because her real name was pronounced sway...and trees sway.... get it?)

After getting our keys to the 2 TA offices, one on Campus A and one on Campus D, we went around campus on a campus tour led by Abby. She was very enthusiastic and showed us around campus with the other worker. We discovered that the TA office was very hard to unlock for some reason as well. There were also bottles of water in the office, which was great because one thing I forgot to mention was that you can't drink water straight out of the faucet here. You have to drink bottled water or water straight from a restaurant's cooking supply. In our apartment, we have a large bottle of water, which is kind of like a water cooler at an office.

As we were walking away, a CQU student ran up to us and introduced himself. He wanted to practice his English, and we were more than happy to help him out. He said his English name was Curry, which amused all of us, and after talking a bit, we exchanged WeChat contacts and went our separate ways.

Around this time, Summer came to join us, and we headed toward the dining hall. Now, when I pictured the dining hall, I pictured something like a cafeteria, with maybe 2 or 3 options, a salad bar, etc. The reality was much, much different. It was more like a food court at a shopping mall with so many different options.

Ordering at the Food court with Abby's help (me and Jessica in bottom picture)

Abby helped Jessica and me order some non-spicy noodles, and Professor Wong helped me order mango juice with it. It was delicious, although a very large portion.

After eating, Summer took us around campus a bit more. We discovered that there were lots of stores on campus, including a phone store, a mini grocery store, a bookstore, etc.
We went inside the grocery store and looked around. I got a toothbrush and a small sparkly rug with the UC colors (red and black).

Then, Summer took all of us down to the shopping district, called Sunny Block.
We walked around the neighboring Sichuan Art Institute, which had mosaics covering all of their buildings and lots of steps with mosaics as well, and a gorgeous park with a traditional Chinese theme behind it. We couldn't go inside the institute today, because it cost a bit of money, but perhaps another day...

The 5 of us at the art institute (left to right, Dom, Nick, Summer, Jessica and myself)

Back at Sunny Block, we went into a little dessert shop, where we all tried a different dessert and shared among ourselves. All in all, we had a peanut butter milkshake, black pearl jelly with snow mountain ice cream and durian topping, mango jelly with grass jelly on top of snow mountain ice cream, a type of ginger soup I believe, and a type of sweet dumpling.

Pictured: black pearl jelly with durian topping and mango jelly with grass jelly

After dessert, we had to head back to campus to get access to the wifi...and we were informed that we had to get a Chinese phone number first... so that had to wait until we made it to the phone store on Campus A, according to Summer.

Done with everything we needed to do, we headed back to our apartment to take a nap. Walking off of campus, we saw this huge pond, with the most gorgeous black geese. Now, when most Americans think of geese, they think of the obnoxious geese that yell "HONK, HONK" at any one who dares to go within 2 miles of them. But these geese were much more polite, only saying a slight "nee". I kid you not....the same "nee" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but a lot quieter.

Peaceful geese on the campus lake

Once back to our interim home, we made plans to go back to Sunny Block later that night, but all four of us passed out inadvertently. My nap turned into 8 hours of sleep. By the time I had woken up, Jessica had already accepted orange juice from Greg, who was a bit concerned we had all missed dinner, and gone back to sleep. I decided to stay up a bit and get some work done, and then go back to sleep. I vowed that I would try to stay awake longer the next night to try to beat the jet lag and make the most of my day.

Until next post!
Zoe