So I have finally caught up! This entry is part 1 covering the last week. Sorry for the lack of detail; I just wanted to get this caught up. Make sure to catch the gallery after the break!
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Tuesday, February 15th was our first full day on campus. I have been here about a week and I will just summarize our experience so I can be fully caught up with this blog.
So yeah, Tuesday was our first day and Stone, our English speaking liaison took us out for ‘brunch.’ Every since we have been here it has been chilly and Tuesday was especially cold. Since it was colder than normal, the restaurant that we ate at did something cool. Or warm I should say. It seems that the tables in this area of China have areas to put hot coals under the table. They did this and it sure was amazing how it did keep us warm.
Stone ordered a bunch of different items of both the vegetable and meat varieties. The highlight of the meal was the hot pot that had the chicken’s head floating at the top. It was awesome! After that, Stone showed us a shortcut to getting into town. He told us where to go shopping and we bought some food and water. We also got credit for the cell phones that were given us and we headed back to the school.
Tuesday evening was kind of hard for me. I don’t know why but it seemed the reality of our situation hit me. Up to this point we hadn’t had internet and as such no communication with the outside world for a while. Plus there was no one at our school so it felt that we were in the movie I Am Legend.
The thing about our town is that is huge (to us at least) but very small in Chinese standards. Plus our town is impossible to find on a map and we are least seven hours away from anyone in our China Horizons group. I dunno, for some reason that feeling of loneliness overcame me.
Anyway, I got over it the following day. On Wednesday we were able to borrow the internet from our neighbor and that lifted our spirit. So we spent most of the day chatting and emailing family. Our neighbor is a English (like from England :)) chap that has been living here in China for several years. He is really nice and seems to know the area fairly well.
On Thursday the clouds cleared and the sun came out. After being house bound it seemed fit for us to go outside and explore and that is what we did. We were walking around the town for about 2.5 hours and barely hit all of it. We also spent some more time exploring a certain area. Jordan saw a hill that he wanted to go to that had some cool cemetery stone looking thing. We went up there and were treated to some really cool views of city on side and the country side on the other.
We noticed some cool things while we were out. They have a truck that comes by at different points of the day and sprays water on the road. While it is out it plays ice cream truck music so people know it is there. Also we saw a group of guys carrying cinderblocks up a hill with that wooden bar with two hooks carried on their shoulders. It looked intense and I felt like I was in Mulan. 🙂 Lastly, I was able to get over a 1000 firecrackers for about 4 US dollars. 🙂
Thursday night was also the last day of the Chinese New Year festival celebration and there was lots of fireworks going off. People also lit lanterns and sent them off floating in the sky. It was a really cool night.
Click below to check out a bunch of pictures!
Gallery: