Make a circle with your thumb and index finger. That is the size of the fly that bit my ankle Monday morning. No exaggeration.
Sunday morning a Chinese man who calls himself House met us at the apartment to take us to Jin Xian. They had told us that a nice car would be hired for the two hour trip. We ended up in a Tianjin taxi. Not a particularly horrible thing, just not quite what we had been told. We drove for a long time, then we stopped and switched cars on the expressway. We sent the taxi back to TJ and headed off with the headmaster of the school and one of the teachers. We still had House. By that time we realized that he was an overgrown kid. I was cracking up.
House
Upon our arrival in Jin Xian we stopped for a Chinese breakfast, then we continued to a public square and met the students. There were about 50 of them, ranging in age from 5 to 18. They were so adorable! Jin Xian doesn’t see many foreigners, so we drew quite a crowd! We went from there to a farm to pick apples, but there were no apples. The kids picked peaches. We were only there a few minutes before we all headed up into the local mountains. Mountains!!!
It was so beautiful up there. A bit odd seeing cornfields on the slopes, but hey, whatever. We got to talk to the kids and hang out a bit. It was a good time, and the whole thing was very low pressure. Cindy, the teacher, had us do a few things, but nothing big. The whole day was really fun.
Me and Snow, and the whole group
At the end of the day we were taken to our hotel that was supposed to be ok for westerners. Becki said it was probably a hotel that is only for Chinese. There are two kinds of hotel, you see. There’s the kind for Chinese only. These are cheap but not very good. Then there are the hotels that allow foreigners. They require passports. These have various levels of quality. The hotel we stayed at did not take our passports or our names. They put us in a room that we shared with at least a dozen live mosquitoes. The sheets on one of the beds were dirty. There was no water in the bathroom sink, and the shower only worked a little.
Monday morning we stumbled out of the hotel having not slept well with the hard rice pillows. As soon as the hotel lady saw us in the courtyard, she told us to sit down at this table that had at least fifty dead mosquitoes on it. Then she proceeded to bring us breakfast after she wiped off the table. The breakfast was immediately located and explored by an ant. The lady told Becki to just take it out with her chopsticks. We didn’t eat much breakfast.
Cindy and her cousin arrived about that time to take us to see the famous places. We walked up the road a little way to where the Great Wall cuts through town. In the parking lot there were people selling camel rides and renting out horses. Cindy decided that Becki and I would ride the camels. That was so fun! Becki was freaked out by it. Cindy chased us around the parking lot as the guides led the camels. I think she took maybe a dozen pictures of me on the camel. No sooner were we off the camels than they brought four horses. Four guides led the horses (with us on them) up a mountain trail to the top of the local section of the Wall. The trail was heavily wooded. Green everywhere. It was amazing. The flies were also amazing. They were gigantic. My horse’s lead was walking behind us swatting the flies off of the horse but not off of me. I kept seeing these things land on my legs. One got my left ankle. I didn’t see him in time. Another landed on my right ankle and I knocked him off. Next thing I knew my ankle was bleeding.
On horseback at the Great Wall of China
The view from the top of the Wall was breathtaking. We got some pictures up there then headed down while the guides walked the horses back down the trail. Then we wandered through a temple to one of the emperors. There were old ladies bowing to the statue of the emperor. There was a pretty extensive museum of the Great Wall, which was pretty cool. The whole morning was great! Even the temple part was ok. While the Chinese girls were inside, I sat outside listening to the wind and watching the mountains and thinking.
By the time we left there we were so ready for lunch. No breakfast and an active morning meant very hungry girls. We went to a hot pot restaurant and ate like there was no tomorrow. We had yang/ rou\ (lamb), nu/ rou\ (beef), ji- rou\ (chicken), tu dou\ (potato), jian- dou\ (green beans- YUM!), hua- sheng- (peanuts), and fen(v), which is noodles. And I learned a bunch of words. Can you tell? Hee hee. After lunch and a brief stop at the school, we got a taxi and headed back to Tianjin. All four of us fell asleep on the way. We were so tired! Cindy and her cousin went back to Jin Xian with the taxi driver after we finally got home.
After a long two days, we were ready to kick back, but it turned out that Becki’s friend Grace invited us over for dinner. Grace is Uighur, one of the Chinese minorities from the western reaches of the country. Her parents and sister were out for a visit and we met them. Uighurs are typically Muslim, so we weren’t sure what to expect with Grace’s parents, but they were both so sweet. Her dad was all smiles. The parents do not speak Mandarin, so that made things interesting. Grace has a great story. I hope I can get to know her some before I leave.
Now we are waiting for the internet guys to come and fix the internet. It’s han huai le – very broken.
edit: I wrote this this morning…it is now 6pm. Obviously the internet is fixed.
