Spring Picnics and Holidays
How time flies! It has been almost 2 months since the last chapter of my book and the snow is now long behind me and spring is turning into summer. Spring is probably the nicest time of year in China; the weather is warmish but not hot, the grass is green and the flowers blooming. Unfortunately, the spring season is too short. And in Huaian, the temperature is still a little cool, requiring the continued use of layers. The weather here in Spring can sometimes be like Melbourne weather – 4 seasons in one day!
There is a park near my school called “Peach Blossom Park”. Obviously, it is famous for the peach (and other) trees which blossom in spring. I had been to this park twice before during late autumn and winter when the trees were bare and the park bereft of people because of the cold weather. In early April, Betty suggested we go on a picnic to the park. The Chinese “picnic” is quite different to the Australian picnic.
It was a little overcast and humid on the Sunday we had settled on for the picnic, but we thought the rain would hold out. Early Sunday morning we headed to the supermarket to buy the essentials – marinated chicken wings, beef and pork shish kebabs, sausages (but not like our bbq sausages – more like processed hotdog sausages!), eggplant, cauliflower, mushroom, cucumber, fruit, potato chips, peanuts, drinks, etc. Betty was in charge; I just followed her around with the trolley.
Then we went back to my place where we met with the other guests – Bill, Mark, Colleen, Jeff, Betty’s friend, Rain and Betty’s boyfriend. Apparently the eggplant, cauliflower and mushroom were all for barbecuing so these had to be washed and chopped and made ready to be skewered. The cucumber was also washed and chopped and put into a bowl with garlic to be served as a “salad”.
After the preparations were complete, we headed out to catch taxis to the park. Betty’s boyfriend works, in some capacity, for the local government parks and gardens department so he used his guanxi (connections) to get us into the park for free. That saved each of us a whopping 6 yuan (AU$1)! On entering the park, it became plainly obvious that all of Huaian had the same idea as us. Oh, the crowds! Finding a space to throw down the plastic ground sheet (actually a plastic table covering, but everyone else was using the same thing – no such thing as picnic blankets in China) was a bit of a nightmare.
This particular park has BBQs available for use, but no coal or wood or anything. Apparently you have to bring your own. In any event, there were no BBQs available given the crowds of people. There was a little make-shift stall set up where you could rent a mini coal-fired BBQ, but we had to wait for 2 hours before one became available. We tried to skooch in on the BBQ of a group of 30 students, but all they had was naked flame and no coal, so that was unsuccessful. Instead, we ate the snacks and drank some beer until a BBQ became available.
Whilst it was nice to be outdoors and enjoying a picnic, I can’t say that the environment was particularly pleasant. In addition to the masses of people, there were also masses of rubbish, which, in typical Chinese fashion, was dumped anywhere and everywhere with no intention of cleaning it up or removing it when they finished. And there were no soft grassy areas to enjoy your picnic; any grass that may have grown had long ago been trampled into oblivion by the masses.
After lunch, we took a stroll around the park to look at the peach blossoms. However, it appears that the peach blossom season is very short because there were very few blossoms left on the trees. Of course, this wasn’t helped by the fact that the locals were picking the blossoms from the trees!
In the late afternoon we took a raft boat up river to a new park. The journey upstream took about 45 minutes. It was pleasant, but I was over it by about the 15 minute mark. At the next park we played frisbee, badminton and 3-legged races before it started to rain lightly, so we thought it best to pack up and head home.
You can find some pictures of the picnic in the park at www.meginhuaian.blogspot.com
The next weekend Jeff, Colleen and I went to Yangzhou for the weekend. Jeff and Colleen have quickly realised that Huaian is a bit of a hole, and they were keen to get away for the weekend. They asked me for suggestions and invited me to go with them. I suggested Yangzhou. I had been to Yangzhou in Oct/Nov 2004, but it was a very brief trip so I was happy to go again. As Chinese cities go, Yangzhou is quite nice and has a lovely, scenic area called “Slim West Lake” which is really more like a series of canals than a lake.
I managed to use my (still very basic) Chinese to get the bus tickets, take public transport, book a hotel, order food, etc. The only downer was that both Jeff and I came down with a head cold so our night life was a bit lacking.
The most exciting part of the weekend was my street brawl with a pedicab driver. On the Sunday, I suggested to J&C that we take a pedicab to one of the gardens. So I negotiated with a pedicab driver for two bikes to take us to the gardens. (You can only fit two people in one pedicab, so we needed two). He understood where we wanted to go and that we wanted two bikes. I then said, in Chinese of course, 6 yuan for two bikes. (In other words, 3 yuan each bike). He agreed and told his mate the deal. So we set off on our journey. However, when we got to the destination the driver tried to tell me that I had agreed to pay them 6 yuan each. Now this guy was just trying to rip us off, because there is no way any (Chinese) person would pay 12 yuan for 2 pedicabs when we could all go in a taxi for 7 yuan. Now 6 yuan is AU$1 and 12 yuan is AU$2, so we are not talking about huge sums of money; but that’s not the point! There is no way he misunderstood me; he was just trying to take me for a ride, so to speak.
Anyway, I gave him 10 yuan and wanted the change. He was telling me I had to give him another 2 yuan. I refused. He started yelling at me and I started arguing with him, but my Chinese is pretty limited so all I could say was. “I said this… and you said that...”. I just kept repeating it, getting a little angrier and a little louder each time. I told the guy to keep the 10 yuan and split it between the 2 of them, but he was getting anymore. By this time a crowd was starting to form around us and J&C were just standing around in stunned silence because they didn’t really know what was going on. I walked away from the pedicabs to the ticket office, beckoning J&C to come with me. At this time, the 2nd driver decided to get in on the action, probably because the first guy was keeping my 10 yuan and not giving him any. He followed me to the ticket office and continued to shout at me in Chinese, so I continued to shout back, “I said this, he said that…”.
In the midst of the arguing, a young girl came up to me and offered to be our “guide” in the garden for a fee. She clearly spoke English, as did others, but no-one was making any attempt to help me with the pesky pedicab driver.
I bought the tickets then beckoned J&C, who were still looking on in stunned silence, to follow me in through the gates and into the garden. But the pedicab driver blocked my entry and continued to yell at me. The ticket collectors and gate guards were doing nothing; just watching. I tried to go in through the gates but the man put up his arm and blocked me. At this point, I blew my top. I yelled at him, in English, “Don’t you touch me, don’t you push me, you are just trying to rip me off because I am a tourist”. And then I proceeded to put both hands on his chest and give him an almighty shove so that he was off balance and I pushed past him into the garden. J&C followed me. And that was that. The show was over and the crowd dispersed.
Through much of this, Jeff had left his movie camera rolling although it was pointed at the ground. You can’t see anything, but you can certainly hear the argument. Unfortunately, I am not computer savvy enough to be able to compress the file to attach it to an email, so you will just have to make do with my story.
Photos of the Yangzhou trip can be found at www.meginhuaian.blogspot.com
The following week my mother arrived in China and came to Huaian to visit me. Fortunately, my Uncle and his (Chinese) wife were in Shanghai at the same time, so Rose helped Mum to get a bus in Shanghai and I met her at the other end. She now admits that, without Rose’s help in Shanghai, it is unlikely that she would have been able to get herself to Huaian.
Mum stayed in Huaian for 2 nights. On the night of her arrival, around 8pm, I brought her back to my apartment where Betty was cooking dinner. After dinner, we went to one of the upmarket public shower places. Given it was a week night, and quite late by the time we arrived at the shower place, it was not very crowded. In fact, apart from the staff members, there were only a few other women in the showers. We had a shower and a scrub/massage. Mum also had a milk bath in an individual wood bath. Then we put on the pyjamas and went upstairs to the recreation room for half an hour or so. Mum says she really enjoyed the experience. Colleen came with us too and she said it was the best shower she had ever had. You certainly feel very clean when you leave the shower place, but the dirt and grime quickly attaches itself to you again once you are out in the open air!
I had rearranged my classes so that I only had 1 class in the afternoon on the Thursday. So, on Thursday morning, I put Mum on my neighbour’s bike and we went for a bike ride around the town. Unfortunately, there was a small accident. It was nearing peak hour (lunch time) and we were riding down the main road to the city centre. The traffic was starting to get quite thick and a lady on a 3 wheeled trailer-bike was riding in the wrong direction towards Mum. Apparently, Mum tried to move in behind me, but the trailer-bike clipped her back wheel, pushing her front wheel into my back wheel and causing Mum to lose her balance and fall of f the bike. She bruised her hip and her hand, but she was generally alright. I, of course, felt terribly guilty for putting my 61 year old mother on a bike in China!
That afternoon, Mum attended my class and spoke to my students for awhile. They asked her all sorts of questions. As usual, they asked her to sing. She refused. They asked quite a few questions about me, particularly about why I wasn’t married yet. One boy said, “We all know Meagan is still single, are you going to force her to marry?”
On Friday, we met with Betty, her boyfriend, her mother and her aunt for lunch. It was a bit awkward given that none of them (except Betty) can speak English. They had bought some duck and offered it to Mum and I. We just ate a wing each and left the stomachs for them!
After lunch we got on a bus and headed back to Shanghai where we met up with my grandmother. My friends, Anthony & Sue, were also in Shanghai for a law conference at that time, so we spent the next few days in and around Shanghai.
On the Monday, Anthony & Sue, Mum & I decided to go on a day trip to Suzhou, which is famous for its gardens. Suzhou is about 45 minutes by train from Shanghai. Getting soft seat tickets on the train from Shanghai to Suzhou was quite easy. However, getting the return tickets at Suzhou was not so easy. I have told you before, there is virtually no such thing as buying a return ticket in China. So, once you get to your destination, the first thing you need to do is buy the return ticket. The crowds at the train station in Suzhou were huge. Surprisingly, the people seemed to be forming reasonably orderly queues. So, I waited in line to buy the return tickets. At one point I started to get a bit concerned that I might not be in the right queue to buy tickets to Shanghai, but, as it turned out, I was. I was quite proud of myself to have been able to successfully get my Mum and friends to and from Suzhou. The only hitch was that I bought hard seat tickets instead of soft seat tickets on the way back. Oh well; it didn’t really matter for a 45 minute journey.
On Tuesday evening, Anthony & Sue left Shanghai to return to Australia and Mum, Nana & I boarded an overnight train (soft sleeper) to Beijing. We spent 5 nights in Beijing and saw all of the sights – the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Lama Temple, the Summer Palace, the Giant Panda zoo, a Peking duck dinner and acrobatic show.
We saw all of these sights on guided day tours which, unfortunately, involved a lot of travel time going from hotel to hotel to pick up passengers and also many stops at shops and factories where the tour company could pick up a commission if we purchased.
On the two free days we had, I took Mum and Nana to the Silk Street markets, the hutong areas and Beihai park. On the Sunday, when we were walking around, Mum and Nana took up an offer for a street massage as they both had sore backs from the hard beds. I asked the massage guy “How much?” and he said 20 yuan. I asked him “How long?” and he said 20 minutes. So Mum and Nana sat on stools next to a small lake and had a street massage. I didn’t have one, despite being constantly pestered by other people offering massages.
They had their neck massaged, then their arms, then their head, then their back. I did not have a watch, but I was starting to think that this was an extraordinarily long 20 minutes. When the guy started on Mum’s leg, I asked her how long it had been and she said 40 minutes. I started to get worried that we were about to be ripped off, so I said to the guy, “You said 20 yuan”. He nodded his head and kept massaging, so I said, “How long?”. He said “20 minutes” and kept massaging. So I said, “You said 20 yuan for 20 minutes but it has been 40 minutes. We are only going to give you 20 yuan”. He muttered something indecipherable, as did the guy massaging Nana. I asked again but could not understand the words. However, they pointed at the neck and said 20, then pointed at the arms and said 20 and so on. I realised they were going to try to charge 20 yuan for each body part so I told them, “don’t want; no more” and told Mum and Nana to stand up. I held out a 50 yuan note to the first guy but he wouldn’t take it and they were both blabbering at me in a slightly raised voice. I went into the same routine that I had used in Yangzhou of “I said this, you said that…” but they just kept blabbering at me. So I put the 50 yuan note on the chair and said, in English, “take it or leave it” and walked off with Mum & Nana following me. The two guys and their cronies were still blabbering at me when we walked off but they didn’t try to follow us.
Anyway, Mum and Nana said it was a great massage, even if they only got half of one leg done!
Mum left China from Beijing on labour day. The 5 days in Beijing were very enjoyable. The crowds at the places of interest were reasonably large, but not too bad. Thankfully, on the weekend before Labour Day, many people were still working or studying to "make-up" for the 7 day holiday which officially started on the Monday. However, come the Monday, it was a different story.
Mum left for the airport in the wee hours of the morning. Nana and I did not leave on our train for Hangzhou until 3:50 that afternoon. So we decided to brave Tiananmen Square for the May Day festivities. Once we got there, however, we changed our mind. Instead we walked up to Wangfujing (pedestrian shopping street) where the crowds were also huge, had a beer and some very ordinary food and headed back to the hotel. The beer, at least, was very cold and went down well. It was quite warm, even hot, in Beijing, particularly on labour day.
The train trip to Hangzhou was overnight and was uneventful. We were met at the train station the next morning by our local guide and got straight into the sight seeing. The west lake in Hangzhou is very beautiful but our enjoyment of it, unfortunately, was marred by the hordes of people. We saw some other sights that day which were equally overrun with Chinese tourists. Not surprisingly, there were very few foreign tourists. (They had heeded the warnings not to travel during the golden weeks in China - May day holiday and October national day holiday). The next day we visited the water town of Wuzhen. From what we could see of Wuzhen it was very pleasant, quaint and full of character. Just don't visit during golden week or your view will mostly be of the backs and heads of Chinese tourists.
On Thursday the 4th Nana and I headed back to Shanghai on the train. We met with Rose (my Uncle's wife) and, after a quick lunch, I handed Nana over to Rose and made my way to the bus station for my bus back to Huaian, arriving home around 8pm that night.
You can find photos of the May holiday trip with Mum & Nana at www.megsmayholiday.blogspot.com
I spent the weekend unpacking, washing and sleeping and then got back into the swing of classes on Monday. Just 7 weeks of teaching to go!
So, that pretty much puts you up to date with my life and adventures. For those of you who don’t know, I will be heading back to Australia after my contract here expires at the end of June. It has been a very rewarding, although sometimes extremely challenging, (almost) 2 years in China, but I am ready to go home. At least, for now!
I have been applying for jobs in Australia but there is nothing definite yet. I will let you know if and when something happens on the job front. I don’t know whether there will be another chapter of my book between now and then. I guess it depends on what happens and whether there are any other interesting stories to tell.
Take Care
Meagan
How time flies! It has been almost 2 months since the last chapter of my book and the snow is now long behind me and spring is turning into summer. Spring is probably the nicest time of year in China; the weather is warmish but not hot, the grass is green and the flowers blooming. Unfortunately, the spring season is too short. And in Huaian, the temperature is still a little cool, requiring the continued use of layers. The weather here in Spring can sometimes be like Melbourne weather – 4 seasons in one day!
There is a park near my school called “Peach Blossom Park”. Obviously, it is famous for the peach (and other) trees which blossom in spring. I had been to this park twice before during late autumn and winter when the trees were bare and the park bereft of people because of the cold weather. In early April, Betty suggested we go on a picnic to the park. The Chinese “picnic” is quite different to the Australian picnic.
It was a little overcast and humid on the Sunday we had settled on for the picnic, but we thought the rain would hold out. Early Sunday morning we headed to the supermarket to buy the essentials – marinated chicken wings, beef and pork shish kebabs, sausages (but not like our bbq sausages – more like processed hotdog sausages!), eggplant, cauliflower, mushroom, cucumber, fruit, potato chips, peanuts, drinks, etc. Betty was in charge; I just followed her around with the trolley.
Then we went back to my place where we met with the other guests – Bill, Mark, Colleen, Jeff, Betty’s friend, Rain and Betty’s boyfriend. Apparently the eggplant, cauliflower and mushroom were all for barbecuing so these had to be washed and chopped and made ready to be skewered. The cucumber was also washed and chopped and put into a bowl with garlic to be served as a “salad”.
After the preparations were complete, we headed out to catch taxis to the park. Betty’s boyfriend works, in some capacity, for the local government parks and gardens department so he used his guanxi (connections) to get us into the park for free. That saved each of us a whopping 6 yuan (AU$1)! On entering the park, it became plainly obvious that all of Huaian had the same idea as us. Oh, the crowds! Finding a space to throw down the plastic ground sheet (actually a plastic table covering, but everyone else was using the same thing – no such thing as picnic blankets in China) was a bit of a nightmare.
This particular park has BBQs available for use, but no coal or wood or anything. Apparently you have to bring your own. In any event, there were no BBQs available given the crowds of people. There was a little make-shift stall set up where you could rent a mini coal-fired BBQ, but we had to wait for 2 hours before one became available. We tried to skooch in on the BBQ of a group of 30 students, but all they had was naked flame and no coal, so that was unsuccessful. Instead, we ate the snacks and drank some beer until a BBQ became available.
Whilst it was nice to be outdoors and enjoying a picnic, I can’t say that the environment was particularly pleasant. In addition to the masses of people, there were also masses of rubbish, which, in typical Chinese fashion, was dumped anywhere and everywhere with no intention of cleaning it up or removing it when they finished. And there were no soft grassy areas to enjoy your picnic; any grass that may have grown had long ago been trampled into oblivion by the masses.
After lunch, we took a stroll around the park to look at the peach blossoms. However, it appears that the peach blossom season is very short because there were very few blossoms left on the trees. Of course, this wasn’t helped by the fact that the locals were picking the blossoms from the trees!
In the late afternoon we took a raft boat up river to a new park. The journey upstream took about 45 minutes. It was pleasant, but I was over it by about the 15 minute mark. At the next park we played frisbee, badminton and 3-legged races before it started to rain lightly, so we thought it best to pack up and head home.
You can find some pictures of the picnic in the park at www.meginhuaian.blogspot.com
The next weekend Jeff, Colleen and I went to Yangzhou for the weekend. Jeff and Colleen have quickly realised that Huaian is a bit of a hole, and they were keen to get away for the weekend. They asked me for suggestions and invited me to go with them. I suggested Yangzhou. I had been to Yangzhou in Oct/Nov 2004, but it was a very brief trip so I was happy to go again. As Chinese cities go, Yangzhou is quite nice and has a lovely, scenic area called “Slim West Lake” which is really more like a series of canals than a lake.
I managed to use my (still very basic) Chinese to get the bus tickets, take public transport, book a hotel, order food, etc. The only downer was that both Jeff and I came down with a head cold so our night life was a bit lacking.
The most exciting part of the weekend was my street brawl with a pedicab driver. On the Sunday, I suggested to J&C that we take a pedicab to one of the gardens. So I negotiated with a pedicab driver for two bikes to take us to the gardens. (You can only fit two people in one pedicab, so we needed two). He understood where we wanted to go and that we wanted two bikes. I then said, in Chinese of course, 6 yuan for two bikes. (In other words, 3 yuan each bike). He agreed and told his mate the deal. So we set off on our journey. However, when we got to the destination the driver tried to tell me that I had agreed to pay them 6 yuan each. Now this guy was just trying to rip us off, because there is no way any (Chinese) person would pay 12 yuan for 2 pedicabs when we could all go in a taxi for 7 yuan. Now 6 yuan is AU$1 and 12 yuan is AU$2, so we are not talking about huge sums of money; but that’s not the point! There is no way he misunderstood me; he was just trying to take me for a ride, so to speak.
Anyway, I gave him 10 yuan and wanted the change. He was telling me I had to give him another 2 yuan. I refused. He started yelling at me and I started arguing with him, but my Chinese is pretty limited so all I could say was. “I said this… and you said that...”. I just kept repeating it, getting a little angrier and a little louder each time. I told the guy to keep the 10 yuan and split it between the 2 of them, but he was getting anymore. By this time a crowd was starting to form around us and J&C were just standing around in stunned silence because they didn’t really know what was going on. I walked away from the pedicabs to the ticket office, beckoning J&C to come with me. At this time, the 2nd driver decided to get in on the action, probably because the first guy was keeping my 10 yuan and not giving him any. He followed me to the ticket office and continued to shout at me in Chinese, so I continued to shout back, “I said this, he said that…”.
In the midst of the arguing, a young girl came up to me and offered to be our “guide” in the garden for a fee. She clearly spoke English, as did others, but no-one was making any attempt to help me with the pesky pedicab driver.
I bought the tickets then beckoned J&C, who were still looking on in stunned silence, to follow me in through the gates and into the garden. But the pedicab driver blocked my entry and continued to yell at me. The ticket collectors and gate guards were doing nothing; just watching. I tried to go in through the gates but the man put up his arm and blocked me. At this point, I blew my top. I yelled at him, in English, “Don’t you touch me, don’t you push me, you are just trying to rip me off because I am a tourist”. And then I proceeded to put both hands on his chest and give him an almighty shove so that he was off balance and I pushed past him into the garden. J&C followed me. And that was that. The show was over and the crowd dispersed.
Through much of this, Jeff had left his movie camera rolling although it was pointed at the ground. You can’t see anything, but you can certainly hear the argument. Unfortunately, I am not computer savvy enough to be able to compress the file to attach it to an email, so you will just have to make do with my story.
Photos of the Yangzhou trip can be found at www.meginhuaian.blogspot.com
The following week my mother arrived in China and came to Huaian to visit me. Fortunately, my Uncle and his (Chinese) wife were in Shanghai at the same time, so Rose helped Mum to get a bus in Shanghai and I met her at the other end. She now admits that, without Rose’s help in Shanghai, it is unlikely that she would have been able to get herself to Huaian.
Mum stayed in Huaian for 2 nights. On the night of her arrival, around 8pm, I brought her back to my apartment where Betty was cooking dinner. After dinner, we went to one of the upmarket public shower places. Given it was a week night, and quite late by the time we arrived at the shower place, it was not very crowded. In fact, apart from the staff members, there were only a few other women in the showers. We had a shower and a scrub/massage. Mum also had a milk bath in an individual wood bath. Then we put on the pyjamas and went upstairs to the recreation room for half an hour or so. Mum says she really enjoyed the experience. Colleen came with us too and she said it was the best shower she had ever had. You certainly feel very clean when you leave the shower place, but the dirt and grime quickly attaches itself to you again once you are out in the open air!
I had rearranged my classes so that I only had 1 class in the afternoon on the Thursday. So, on Thursday morning, I put Mum on my neighbour’s bike and we went for a bike ride around the town. Unfortunately, there was a small accident. It was nearing peak hour (lunch time) and we were riding down the main road to the city centre. The traffic was starting to get quite thick and a lady on a 3 wheeled trailer-bike was riding in the wrong direction towards Mum. Apparently, Mum tried to move in behind me, but the trailer-bike clipped her back wheel, pushing her front wheel into my back wheel and causing Mum to lose her balance and fall of f the bike. She bruised her hip and her hand, but she was generally alright. I, of course, felt terribly guilty for putting my 61 year old mother on a bike in China!
That afternoon, Mum attended my class and spoke to my students for awhile. They asked her all sorts of questions. As usual, they asked her to sing. She refused. They asked quite a few questions about me, particularly about why I wasn’t married yet. One boy said, “We all know Meagan is still single, are you going to force her to marry?”
On Friday, we met with Betty, her boyfriend, her mother and her aunt for lunch. It was a bit awkward given that none of them (except Betty) can speak English. They had bought some duck and offered it to Mum and I. We just ate a wing each and left the stomachs for them!
After lunch we got on a bus and headed back to Shanghai where we met up with my grandmother. My friends, Anthony & Sue, were also in Shanghai for a law conference at that time, so we spent the next few days in and around Shanghai.
On the Monday, Anthony & Sue, Mum & I decided to go on a day trip to Suzhou, which is famous for its gardens. Suzhou is about 45 minutes by train from Shanghai. Getting soft seat tickets on the train from Shanghai to Suzhou was quite easy. However, getting the return tickets at Suzhou was not so easy. I have told you before, there is virtually no such thing as buying a return ticket in China. So, once you get to your destination, the first thing you need to do is buy the return ticket. The crowds at the train station in Suzhou were huge. Surprisingly, the people seemed to be forming reasonably orderly queues. So, I waited in line to buy the return tickets. At one point I started to get a bit concerned that I might not be in the right queue to buy tickets to Shanghai, but, as it turned out, I was. I was quite proud of myself to have been able to successfully get my Mum and friends to and from Suzhou. The only hitch was that I bought hard seat tickets instead of soft seat tickets on the way back. Oh well; it didn’t really matter for a 45 minute journey.
On Tuesday evening, Anthony & Sue left Shanghai to return to Australia and Mum, Nana & I boarded an overnight train (soft sleeper) to Beijing. We spent 5 nights in Beijing and saw all of the sights – the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Lama Temple, the Summer Palace, the Giant Panda zoo, a Peking duck dinner and acrobatic show.
We saw all of these sights on guided day tours which, unfortunately, involved a lot of travel time going from hotel to hotel to pick up passengers and also many stops at shops and factories where the tour company could pick up a commission if we purchased.
On the two free days we had, I took Mum and Nana to the Silk Street markets, the hutong areas and Beihai park. On the Sunday, when we were walking around, Mum and Nana took up an offer for a street massage as they both had sore backs from the hard beds. I asked the massage guy “How much?” and he said 20 yuan. I asked him “How long?” and he said 20 minutes. So Mum and Nana sat on stools next to a small lake and had a street massage. I didn’t have one, despite being constantly pestered by other people offering massages.
They had their neck massaged, then their arms, then their head, then their back. I did not have a watch, but I was starting to think that this was an extraordinarily long 20 minutes. When the guy started on Mum’s leg, I asked her how long it had been and she said 40 minutes. I started to get worried that we were about to be ripped off, so I said to the guy, “You said 20 yuan”. He nodded his head and kept massaging, so I said, “How long?”. He said “20 minutes” and kept massaging. So I said, “You said 20 yuan for 20 minutes but it has been 40 minutes. We are only going to give you 20 yuan”. He muttered something indecipherable, as did the guy massaging Nana. I asked again but could not understand the words. However, they pointed at the neck and said 20, then pointed at the arms and said 20 and so on. I realised they were going to try to charge 20 yuan for each body part so I told them, “don’t want; no more” and told Mum and Nana to stand up. I held out a 50 yuan note to the first guy but he wouldn’t take it and they were both blabbering at me in a slightly raised voice. I went into the same routine that I had used in Yangzhou of “I said this, you said that…” but they just kept blabbering at me. So I put the 50 yuan note on the chair and said, in English, “take it or leave it” and walked off with Mum & Nana following me. The two guys and their cronies were still blabbering at me when we walked off but they didn’t try to follow us.
Anyway, Mum and Nana said it was a great massage, even if they only got half of one leg done!
Mum left China from Beijing on labour day. The 5 days in Beijing were very enjoyable. The crowds at the places of interest were reasonably large, but not too bad. Thankfully, on the weekend before Labour Day, many people were still working or studying to "make-up" for the 7 day holiday which officially started on the Monday. However, come the Monday, it was a different story.
Mum left for the airport in the wee hours of the morning. Nana and I did not leave on our train for Hangzhou until 3:50 that afternoon. So we decided to brave Tiananmen Square for the May Day festivities. Once we got there, however, we changed our mind. Instead we walked up to Wangfujing (pedestrian shopping street) where the crowds were also huge, had a beer and some very ordinary food and headed back to the hotel. The beer, at least, was very cold and went down well. It was quite warm, even hot, in Beijing, particularly on labour day.
The train trip to Hangzhou was overnight and was uneventful. We were met at the train station the next morning by our local guide and got straight into the sight seeing. The west lake in Hangzhou is very beautiful but our enjoyment of it, unfortunately, was marred by the hordes of people. We saw some other sights that day which were equally overrun with Chinese tourists. Not surprisingly, there were very few foreign tourists. (They had heeded the warnings not to travel during the golden weeks in China - May day holiday and October national day holiday). The next day we visited the water town of Wuzhen. From what we could see of Wuzhen it was very pleasant, quaint and full of character. Just don't visit during golden week or your view will mostly be of the backs and heads of Chinese tourists.
On Thursday the 4th Nana and I headed back to Shanghai on the train. We met with Rose (my Uncle's wife) and, after a quick lunch, I handed Nana over to Rose and made my way to the bus station for my bus back to Huaian, arriving home around 8pm that night.
You can find photos of the May holiday trip with Mum & Nana at www.megsmayholiday.blogspot.com
I spent the weekend unpacking, washing and sleeping and then got back into the swing of classes on Monday. Just 7 weeks of teaching to go!
So, that pretty much puts you up to date with my life and adventures. For those of you who don’t know, I will be heading back to Australia after my contract here expires at the end of June. It has been a very rewarding, although sometimes extremely challenging, (almost) 2 years in China, but I am ready to go home. At least, for now!
I have been applying for jobs in Australia but there is nothing definite yet. I will let you know if and when something happens on the job front. I don’t know whether there will be another chapter of my book between now and then. I guess it depends on what happens and whether there are any other interesting stories to tell.
Take Care
Meagan
posted by Travelling1972 | 12:25 AM
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