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

Day 51: Biking around the Wall of Xi'an

Day 51 started out very lazily, as we stayed in the hotel until it was time to check out at noon. Jessica and I had gotten up at nine though, so we ate some leftover pizza from the night before, and waited on the guys. Pablo was sleeping late, and when we went to their room around 11:45...right before we needed to check out, he was still in the shower.

Jessica and I went down to wait in the lobby, and I hoped that the guys would hurry up so we could get our deposit back. Dom came down a few minutes later, and asked us if we had the deposit slip. Jessica told him that Pablo did, and we were mildly panicked. Right as that happened though, Pablo burst around the corner, slip in hand, and all was well.

We went to check in our luggage at the luggage hold right after we checked out. Dom, Jessica and I were planning to explore the Wall of Xi'an together until Dom and Pablo's flight, but Pablo realized that he still had a lot of work left to do for preparing for classes, and he opted to go to a coffee shop (possibly the one that we had gone to the previous night) instead.

Dom, Jessica and I walked down towards the wall, walking through a street that had roadside vendors of all sorts, with their wares out on the streets, from fruit to random clothes. The locals were all amazed at the sight of us, and one of them even said "Hello! Welcome to Xian" to us. In fact, they were so amazed, as Jessica pointed out, they forgot to solicit for business in the usual Chinese manner...instead of screaming out what they were selling, they were absolutely silent.

Dom ended up stopping at a roadside restaurant and getting food for only a few quai (although it may not have been the most sanitary option). I contemplated getting something else for lunch, but I didn't want to carry things all over the place, so I decided against it.

Fruit being sold out of the back of a pickup

We then caught sight of the wall, and walked around it until we got to an intersection.

Guardian dragon

At the intersection, we got thwarted at first, with the fence in the middle, but we found another way across a little bit down the way. When we crossed, I heard a clatter right behind me, and it turned out one of the mirrors on one of the passing motorcycles had fallen off, and was soon to be crushed.

There was a river of sorts near the wall, and we stopped to get a picture of the gorgeous scenery. Upon closer look, I found a homeless guy living underneath the bridge, which shocked me, and saddened me,  because China has much lower tolerance for the homeless loitering than America does.

We saw a garden path, and we made our way through it, trying to find the entrance.

Firmly closed door, perhaps signaling that "You shall not pass", for Lord of the Rings fans

Some signs of spring

When we saw the flags on top of the wall as we got closer to the entrance, we realized how proud the heritage of Xi'an, and the history of the wall, truly was. Apparently, back in the feudal days of China, this wall protected the city and all of its people.

Flags symbolizing a proud heritage

Getting closer to the gate, we still couldn't find the exact entrance, and we were in the middle of a shopping center. We took an underground walkway to the other side of the street, and asked a city worker (using our translator app) how to enter the wall. He pointed to a gate in the middle of the intersection....so, basically, to get in, we had to risk life and limb.

We made it though, obviously, and got in relatively quickly and cheaply. Before entering, we used the restrooms, which were one of the nicest ones we've used in China (despite there still being no toilet paper). We headed up the steps right afterwards, and started our adventure.

The ticket in and of itself is pretty enough to be a good souvenir

The first thing for us to go into at the gate we went into was a museum of sorts, which was an old, slightly refurbished military post on top of the wall. The museum had old dragons made of various types of rock, as well as pictures of old and new Xi'an. None of them had captions, so it was a bit confusing, and some of them repeated, but they were still nice to look at.

Stone dragon inside the palace

Some of the architecture inside

Out on the wall

After exploring the museum, we walked on for a bit, and saw the bike rental station that Pablo's friend had told him about. We all rented bikes, which were 45 quai, but definitely worth it. They also had us give them a 200 quai deposit just in case something happened to the bikes.

We started biking, which was a bit of a trouble with my long coat, but tucking it underneath itself, and having help from Jessica and Dom with carrying stuff, I managed pretty well after that. The bikes themselves were pretty good, and the cobblestones on the walls weren't too uneven overall, but the real attraction of it was being able to see the entirety of the city as you biked. There were lots of couples on tandem bikes too, which I thought was a romantic idea. There were lanes for different types of traffic, which no one actually followed, to no one's surprise.

At the next building, which was closed, we stopped and looked around. I realized that the river that we had seen before was actually a moat, and we admired the view from many different angles.

Moat around the wall

Looking out upon the city

As we continued to bike on, we saw lots of decorations. We realized that they were for the Lantern Festival, which had just concluded in China, and that at night, the view would be spectacular. However, in the day, they were still pretty impressive, and we stopped to take lots of pictures.

We also ended up riding our bikes very slowly, or walking them, through much of these parts as to not cause further traffic.

Chinese characters engraved in the stones (maybe names?)

When I stopped to get pictures with the heart, an elderly couple came up to us, observing, and even taking pictures of Jessica taking pictures of me! After we were done, the lady came up to us, dragging me away to another place, and putting her arm around me as if we were best friends, also getting Jessica in the picture.

Afterwards, the couple tried to talk to us in Chinese, and we tried to respond, but didn't do well. We wished them a Happy New Year in Chinese though, and they seemed very happy with that. Heading back, Dom said that he had gotten it on video, and sent the video below as proof.

The old buildings contrasted with the new

This just struck me as a unexpected piece of art, with the mixture of manmade and natural

About halfway through our ride, we ran into lots of temporary stands, both for souvenirs and food. I got a few bookmarks that were 3 for 10 quai, and Dom stopped to get a snack. He saw an Indian guy making crepes, and he decided to try it as a show of solidarity to a fellow foreigner working in China. They were pineapple and chocolate crepes, which were better than you would expect, and he made them in front of you. Once we tried them, lots of people started noticing him, and a crowd formed. I was glad that we had gotten him some more business. As customer (and their children) started coming up to him, asking questions, he responded in fluent Chinese. It surprised me (although it shouldn't have), especially hearing Chinese in his thick Indian accent. He was a very friendly guy though, and he said that he was going to return to India in a few more months.

Ancient Chinese bike

We continued walking, seeing more statues, and my phone kept running out of storage space, so I had to keep deleting things to have room to take more pictures.

As a result, I kept lagging behind the others. A lady saw me, and took advantage of the fact that I was temporarily alone. She started gesturing at me that she wanted pictures. I obliged, calling to the others that I would be there in a moment. She dragged me over to a statue, and took pictures with her arm wrapped around me. Then, to my surprise, her entire family started alternating taking pictures with me, for at least 6 pictures. They even tried to get the little kid to take a picture with me, but he was too nervous. One lady also took a selfie while another picture was being taken! In the midst of this, my patience was waning, but I kept the smile on my face, and didn't leave (as much as I wanted to) until they were done. I felt a bit like a zoo animal, and decided that wearing my blonde, curly hair down that day was a small mistake on my part....

At the south gate, we weren't allowed to have bikes, so they gave us wristbands to redeem for bikes once we got to the next section, and we continued walking.

"When you're supposed to be a rooster, but you're born as a horse"- Dom

Me and the phoenix

Around this time, it was 3 o clock, and Dom had to go back to the hotel in order to meet Pablo so they could get on their plane together and on time. I reminded him to get his bike deposit back, and we wished him safe travels.

There were absolutely spectacular attractions down below where Dom left us though, the most spectacular being a huge peacock. There was also a lantern shop. I couldn't pass up the chance to get a lantern (although it was mass produced), and I haggled the guy down from 10 quai to 5 quai. It was a cute Chinese cat, and came with a light to illuminate it.

Roomie pic with the peacock

Soon after this, we were able to get our bikes back, which took a bit of finagling, but soon we were cruising again, enjoying the sights.

Minecraft world

Our two hours were almost up though, and we didn't want to risk a late fee, so Jessica and I returned our bikes, opting to walk the rest of the way on the wall. It took a bit to realize that we needed to return our bikes on the opposite side of the booth, but we got it eventually. Before walking further, we stopped at one of the shops on the wall, getting ice cream. Although it looked like it was vanilla with chocolate in the middle, it wasn't very chocolatey, but it still satisfied our sweet tooths.

We had a while to go, so to pass the time, we started talking about our lives, and where we saw ourselves in the future. In accordance with Murphy's Law, this indeed filled up the time that we were walking for. While we wandered, we were looking for gates to exit from. We found several staircases, but none of them were ones we could exit through, so we continued on.

We also saw many interesting buildings on our way, both old (see the historic buildings below) and new (including the Children's Hospital of Xi'an).

Historic buildings within the wall

As we headed out, we discovered there were no restrooms, but it was ok, because the hotel wasn't too far away. It was also about sunset, and I got a fitting picture to round out our daytrip. We had to dash across traffic again. Then we were at a crosswalk without a light, and we weren't sure when to try to cross the 10 lanes of traffic. Eventually a group of people started to cross, and using the old adage that there's safety in numbers, we decided to cross too. Our boss, Greg, had told us the same thing....cars will hit an individual here, but stop for a group.

sunset over the wall

Xi'an intersection

Safely getting across the street, we had to make our wall down the wall on the outside of it. Jessica and I continued our conversations about our possible futures as we walked. Several taxis tried to get us to take them, but we ignored them. While walking, we passed a line of people waiting for something, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I also noticed that the trees had a line of orange in addition to the white paint that protected them from insects. I found it interesting, and wondered what the orange paint was additional protection from.

We walked back to the hotel, picking up our luggage. Then we stopped by the convenience store to get some drinks, I bought a meat stick and a mutton sandwich for dinner, and Jessica bought 3 mutton sandwiches. We got through security. I was wondering why so many people were sitting outside of the train station rather than just going in, but going inside, we got our answer. The station was entirely packed with people, in every single waiting room. It took a few minutes, but we managed to find our waiting room, and finagled some seats. We sat down to wait, commenting on the guy's appearances across from us, since he looked like he had a lot of life experience, and deciding to stand up to get in line when other people started doing so. We tried to connect to wifi, having partial success, and settled in.

However, people started lining up an hour and a half before the train left. We waited about 30 more minutes, and then managed to squeeze into the line by the bathrooms. About 25 minutes before departure time, they started boarding the train. Jessica and I were on different cars, but we stuck together as long as possible. We were nervous that we didn't get a sleeper car, but once we hit the 10th car (we were in 11 and 13), the seating became beds. We said our goodbyes for now, and headed into the car.

Getting in there, I discovered that there were 3 beds to an assigned row, and it was basically first come, first serve. However, for a while, people sat on the bottom row, including me, reading for a while. After a bit, I decided to go to sleep, but the bottom bunk wouldn't be available for a bit, since people were still sitting. To my chagrin, the second bunk was already claimed, so I had to get the top one. There were bars to hold people in, which relieved me, because I toss and turn in my sleep, so I wouldn't want any unfortunate accidents happening from it.

However, to get to the top, I had to drag my backpack and coat up the ladder, which sounds easy, but when your backpack's overloaded, it's no easy task coordinating yourself up a tiny ladder. I managed ok though, and settled in. I put the backpack towards the wall, so it wouldn't accidentally fall on someone in the night, and got an apple out to eat while I read. I decided to save my mutton sandwich for breakfast the next day.

About 10:20 pm, they turned the lights off, but I continued reading (one of the perks of having an e reader), only stopping for a bathroom break.

Around 11 pm, I finally felt tired enough to head to sleep, and tried my best to get comfortable on the train bed, situating myself and all of my things.
-Zoe