Days 52, 53, and 54: Back in Chong Qing

Day 52 started on the train, still in the sleeper car. Around 7 am, they turned on the lights. Not surprisingly, I still wanted to sleep, and I turned over, ignoring the photons trying to get into my eyes.

About 30 minutes later, as people kept clambering out of bed, I resigned myself to my fate, and did the same. Another 40 minutes later, after turning my phone on, and remembering that Jessica and I had messaged each other to meet up outside the second ticket check, we pulled into the station.

I had already grabbed my stuff, so I went with the crowd through the terminal gates, stopping to resituate myself before continuing. Outside the gates, I didn't see another ticket check, which was abnormal compared to the high speed trains. However, I looked around for Jessica, and not seeing her, I decided that this would probably be the place she would want me to wait. Ten minutes later, she came bursting out of the gates, cheerful after the restful night.

We then made our way to the subway station, and caught two consecutive subways back to our apartments, followed by the three wheeled, 10 quai taxi. Around noon, we went to the grocery store to buy some groceries for the upcoming week.

I also needed to film a short video while I was there. I was invited by the lady from UC International who had let me do the Snapchat takeover to film a short video inviting UC's new president, President Trent Pinto to UC, and this clip would be put into a larger video to welcome him.

Video in question

After we got back with all of our groceries, neither of us were feeling very talkative, so I worked on an award application that I had put off until the last second, as well as some philosophy homework and grading some Heat Transfer homework.

Saturday started out with reviewing the award application I had written the previous night, a video chat, and then my usual work on the weekend, catching up on paperwork, my blog, etc, and finishing up the last of the Heat Transfer grading.

In the middle of the day, Nick came around with the snacks that his mom had brought from America with her. She had brought a whole suitcase full of snacks for Nick, and a few thrown in for the rest of us as well. Jessica got three cans of Skyline, and I got various chocolates and Doritos.

He also said that his mom was interested in going for hotpot later that night, and we decided to go with Sean as well, the new professor for Models 2 who had just gotten in. We asked the Chinese TAs if they wanted to go as well, but only Alexandra was back. Apollo was also willing to go, and he suggested a hotpot place on Sunny Block. We agreed to meet outside a bar named "The Little Frog", but that was changed to the Starbucks on Sunny Block.

When Jessica and I walked in, Alexandra and Dom were already there. Alexandra had gotten blonde streaks in her hair, so I didn't recognize her for a second. While we waited on the others, we chatted about what we had done over the break, and she was interested in the fact that we had gone to Shanghai Disney as well. She expressed interest in going to Disney when she went to America in her fifth year of study, and I directed her to Dom, who had been to Disneys in America as well. As we waited, Apollo showed up first, and then, around 10 minutes later, Nick and his mom came in.

We headed over to the hotpot place, which was one of the places that I had walked by several times, but never knew what it was. Going up a set of stairs to get it, we were led into a private room (as always, it seems), and Apollo and Alexandra ordered the ingredients for the hotpot. We opted out of getting brain this time (thankfully) but they ended up getting duck's blood in addition to the more familiar things. If you were wondering, the duck's blood was like a gelatin. Me and the other Americans expected it to melt into the hotpot once put in, but it just shriveled up. I tried a bit, and it wasn't awful, but it wasn't my favorite thing either. It had a metallic meaty taste (which makes sense, considering the iron content of blood). Blueberry juice was also ordered, and it was delicious, although reminiscent of syrup, and had pulp in it as well.

When I was trying to put ingredients into the hotpot, I accidentally left one of the dishes on the pot too long, and to my surprise, it started burning! We realized that the plate was made of plastic, and took care to make sure it didn't happen again.

The edges of the burnt plate

We continued joking while we ate for a while. Nick's mom was very welcoming, and loved spicy food, and Sean was similar. One of the things talked about was the guys' incessant Starbucks habit (because white girl jokes were made, and me and Jessica decided to joke back). It was my first time hanging out with Sean, and he was a great character, with a similar personality to Dom and Nick. He joked around about how he was adjusting to the food and culture here in the past day (since his flight had just touched down). We also found out that he could do great accents, loved poking fun at himself and others without mercy, and his fiancée was Indonesian, which I found very interesting. I was mainly glad that he was just an open person, and he seemed like he would be a great professor to work with for Models 2.

Towards the end of the meal, Alexandra suggested that we have one of the traditional desserts that was normally eaten during the Lantern Festival. It was outside by where we fixed our oil for our hotpot, and she got up to get us bowls of it. It was called tang yuan, and seemed like a rice milk pudding, with bits of fruit pulp in it.

Tang yuan (the white substance)

After hotpot, Nick's mom generously paid the bill, and the others wanted to go get some dessert. However, Alexandra headed home because she had to catch the bus back to Campus A.  Most of them were thinking to get McDonalds ice cream, but Apollo suggested a good dessert place he knew. I decided to get some, although the others passed (and Dom had already had it before).

It was a type of pudding with a sort of bread crumbs on top, and a hard frozen yogurt substance underneath. Apollo told me that the type I got was called "moch-a" (rhymes with broach-a), so I thought it was like mocha, that is, chocolate and coffee flavored. It turned out it was an entirely different thing. It was green yogurt, and tasted like a strange fruity flavor.

After that, we headed home. Apollo made his way back to the dorm, and Nick walked around with his mom on campus after we thanked her again for her generosity. The other 4 of us made our way back to Sunny Block, and we gladly went to sleep afterwards.

On Sunday, I skyped with a friend that I hadn't talked to in months for a few hours. Then I fixed lunch and started working on the next week's philosophy homework. After staring at the computer for that long, I decided that I would go for a bike ride to get some fresh air. And boy, was it a beautiful day for a bike ride!

I biked around campus D, enjoying the warm weather, and seeing all of the people who had come onto campus with their children and loved ones to enjoy it too.

I decided to make a full circle, and made my way around to the pond across from the library. The crowd was at least double of the most crowded I had ever seen it, and I realized two things. One, the campus was truly gorgeous compared to much of the surrounding area, and two, the sheer number of people in China is staggering..... (Not that I hadn't realized those things before, but that moment made me realize it again.)

I decided to bike around the other way, and saw bursts of color surrounded by swarms of people at the top of a small hill. Getting closer, I saw that there were rows and rows of tulips in every color planted in a small grove, and people had brought their families to see them. There really are no flower gardens in China (since everyone lives in apartment buildings due to space), so it was more uncommon for them than for me. I grew up tending my mom's garden, so I definitely appreciated the garden for both its beauty and the work it must have taken to tend it. I walked around, taking pictures when I could get through the crowd to remember this perfect springtime moment.

Afterwards, I decided to just go around campus, getting exercise, singing to myself along the way, and making it a photowalk/bike (basically stopping to take pictures of whatever I found pretty, which is a lot of things. I tend to find aesthetic beauty in lots of places, even when others don't see it).

I stopped at the library to buy wifi, and try to reload my card with money for the cafeteria. It took a bit of time to get the wifi together, and I had to buy the same plan (7 GB a month) as I had bought for January, which seemed like a waste for February, but I just resigned myself to it, and bought the plan for the next three months. The place to reload my card was closed, so I wasn't sure if I even had enough money to pay for the wifi, but it went through without a problem. I almost walked away prematurely though. The man helping me had to take a phone call, and another lady walked up to me. I asked her when the reloading desk would be open again, and as I was walking away, the guy ushered me back and finished the transaction.

I ended up getting a bit lost, cycling through the dorm area, which was extremely large (and I was told later in the week that they were trying to build room for a million students on campus...although the person that told me wasn't sure). Realizing I was lost, I just decided to make a turn to get back to where I had gone in, and I found my way back easily.

Once I got my bearings, I headed in to the building across from the main dining hall to pay my phone bill for the next couple months. I went into the store where we had gotten our SIM cards with my needs translated on my phone. Doing so, the man pointed to his left and said something about China Unicom, the service I had. I thought he was pointing to the sign on his left, and I translated that it was indeed a China Unicom phone. He pointed to his left again, and I realized he was pointing to the store across the hall. I went across, repeating the process, and they put the money on my account. However, this process took off 4 quai from my account....I suppose it was a service fee, but it's still a pain.

After this, I needed to buy a pen, so I went back into the convenience store I went into the first time and bought a middle grade black ink pen for the next couple months for 2.5 quai (about 50 cents, not nearly as expensive as the US). The lady at the register tried to start a conversation with me in Chinese, but I apologized for not being able to understand her.

Lotus food....not sure if it's made of lotus roots, but it still reminds me of Greek mythology

I didn't think I had enough money on my card to buy lunch on campus, so I biked down to Sunny Block to get some food at the restaurants inside the grocery store complex. I pointed to a bowl of noodles that looked really good, and waited for it to come out. Looking at the bowl when I got it, I wasn't sure if I had made a good choice. The pieces of meat on the top were curling, and textured, in a way reminiscent of tentacles. Despairing, I wished I had gone to the vendor next to it, that had omelet rice, and was popular with other customers sitting around me. (And I found out later some of the vendors in the food court do take cash...)

Biting into it, it tasted familiar in a tough, thick sort of way, and I knew it probably wasn't tentacles. Taking another bite, I realized it was tripe, and I decided to take my time eating the unfavored food as to not make myself sick. About halfway through, I decided to take the rest home and eat it later. But as I went to leave, I decided to reward myself with a piece of cake from the bakery next door to have after I finish it.

After getting home, I ran into Sean, Dom, and Nick in the hallway. They had messaged to say that they were going to eat about 30 minutes prior, so I was surprised to see them there. I invited them to bible study, at which Sean and Nick both cringed, but I had made a promise to myself and Jessica to invite the others every time in case they changed their mind. But, that's besides the story here.

They went to dinner, and I went into bible study with Jessica. Her friend who led a Christian small group had sent her another lesson, and we went through it together, using the oversized notebook that many TAs before us had used (judging by the notes we had found in it a couple weeks prior, and the dates on some of the notes).

Afterwards, we talked about our own lives for a bit, before going into our rooms and working on our respective projects. A bit later, Jessica came to talk to me for a bit longer, and afterwards, I called another friend I hadn't called yet while in China for about two hours before being too exhausted to keep my eyes open. I headed to sleep to ensure I would be awake in the morning for classes.
-Zoe