We have just landed in my professor’s hometown area.

But first, let me explain why I haven’t blogged the entire time I have been in China. The College of Engineering was hacked and I lost access to my account. I finally found a phone number to call about resetting my password a few days ago, but I was on a boat and the WiFi was almost non-existent. It did not work for more than 3 minutes at a time, so I was finally able to get access to my account back. I am going to blog from my current location and then post the blogs I have written from earlier in the trip once I get back to America.

I have been to Beijing, Dalian, Xian, Lintong, Yichang, Fengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Tuangxi, and now Huangshan. We will be heading to Shanghai in a few days for our last stop of the program.

On Tuesday morning we woke up at 5:30 a.m. to catch our flight to Hangzhou. We boarded the plane on time, but we had to sit on the tarmac for an hour waiting for the plane to leave. We ended up getting to Hangzhou late, because besides our plan being delayed, some luggage and passports were left behind. By the time we got everyone to the bus we were 2 hours late. We still got to visit the West Lake, but it was a brief stay. We took a boat out on the lake and rode around the lake for 30 minutes. Since we knew we wouldn’t be staying long we didn’t get a tour guide, but I was in luck! There was a group on the boat with us that had a tour guide. He was speaking Chinese, but I could understand it enough to get the jist of what he was saying. He explained that there were temples for prayer alongside the lake and that the pedestrian bridge is always very crowded throughout the day. The West Lake is also featured on the back of 1 yuan bills. There are many pagodas and legend has it that the White Snake came out of the pagoda featured in the picture when it collapsed in the 70’s. There are a lot of legends in China, so I am not sure whether or not I want to believe this one, but it is still a good story. There were two snakes who learned magic that was so powerful they were able to transform themselves into women. The woman then found a husband, but was locked up so her magic would not harm anyone. She was then trapped in the pagoda. The pagoda is standing in the picture because it was rebuilt in 2000.

 

After viewing the West Lake we got on the bus to drive to Huangshan. It took over 3 hours to get to Huangshan, but when we arrived we had a huge dinner. Xinli grew up nearby so his family was able to join us for dinner.

The next morning we went to the mystery caves. They call them the mystery caves because they don’t know why or how they were built. They were built nearly 2,000 years ago and are an incredible feat of engineering for modern times, especially ancient times. There are 2 caves and they are both man-made. They were carved out by hand and the ceiling of the first cave we visited has the same slope as the mountain above it. The cave also runs under a river. There are some parts of the cave that have water dripping from the ceiling. That definitely freaked me out a little bit, but I knew we would be out of there soon enough. When we got out of the first cave we went to a second cave. This cave seemed more protected. You had to walk up 100 steps just to get to it, and once inside, there were so many steps to get down. As we descended into the cave everyone was relieved because the humidity outside was causing us to sweat the instant we stepped outside. The cool temperatures inside the cave came as a relief. They think the second cave may have been used as some sort of tomb.

We left the cave and crossed a long bridge. Since there are so many of us,  it was rocking side to side.

When we crossed the bridge we went to a small bow and arrow shooting range. I shot some arrows and I almost hit the middle bull’s-eye. It was a lot of fun and was something I hadn’t done since high school so I had a good time. In the middle of shooting, a few cows ran through the range. I was caught off guard when this happened and wondered why cows were just running around freely, but I remembered that in China, almost anything is possible.

After visiting the caves we went to visit the Old Street. The Old Street is over 1,000 years old. There are a lot of restaurants and shops on the street. I was able to buy a lot of cool gifts here and have a really good meal. After visiting The Old Street we went to the hotel and got ready for dinner.

At dinner I had a very interesting food: snake. It was really weird to know I was eating snake, but I told myself I would try new things while I was here. It was flaky like fish, but it tasted like chicken and it really wasn’t bad. It was just hard to get meat off of the bones. There are a lot more bones in snake than you would think… We were also served a whole chicken, head, feet, and all.

The next morning we got up a little later than usual. We were allowed to sleep in! We went to The Old Street to grab lunch and then we went to the village that Xinli grew up in to see the house he grew up in. We walked around the village and got to see a cave and some of the people who live in the village. We saw a lot of people farming and we ran in to Xinli’s old elementary school teacher. The farmers and teachers and shopkeepers all live within the village so it is a real sense of community. We were walking along a path and Xinli found some berries he used to eat as a child so I tried some. They were really good and looked like raspberries but they had little spikes attached to them. I got one stuck in my tongue and struggled for a few minutes to remove it, but eating the berries was still worth it.

We stopped at the elementary school last. I talked to a lot of the kids there and we looked in their classrooms. They were not very high tech but looked like a typical school. They had desks and a chalkboard. There were a few kids running around and they posed for pictures for us. I unfortunately wasn’t able to take a good picture because I was further away, but trust me, they were really cute.

After walking around the village, we sat down for dinner. We were sitting in Xinli’s house which wasn’t made for 40 people at one time. There wasn’t a lot of space so we were crowded around a few tables and were sweating a lot, but we still were able to eat and that’s all that matters. They brought out a lot of food, just like always, and it was great. It seemed to come in unlimited quantities. My favorite dishes were green beans with peppers and the shrimp. The food was so fresh it was amazing. SO DELICIOUS!

After dinner, I walked around and talked to some of the neighbors in Chinese. I just asked them what they did, told them where I was from and told a few jokes. We then went to watch fireworks. A lot of the kids in the village found out there were going to be fireworks so they ran to watch them. We set off fireworks for about 10 minutes. After the fireworks finished I talked to a lot of the kids in the village. There was one girl who is 10 years old that had amazing English. I was really impressed because she probably isn’t even able to practice her English that much unless she goes to the city which is about 40 minutes away. She had much better English than my Chinese, but we talked in both languages and were able to communicate. She taught me a few of the games she played with her friends. It was really amazing visiting the village and seeing how much life can vary just 30 miles away from the city in China.

Today we went to the Old Street again for lunch. When we eat lunch we usually sit in big groups of about 8 or 12 people, but today I was just sitting at a table with 4 people and I had to order for everyone. There is usually a native speaker at each table, making it much easier to order food. We all split up for lunch so I found a menu and wrote down what we wanted in Chinese for the owner of the restaurant. It all worked out in the end and we had a very delicious meal and got everything that we wanted, so I guess I didn’t do too badly.

After eating lunch, we went to Xinli’s brother’s house. The house was really cool and even had some architectural features that were the same as his mother’s house even though they differed in construction by 50 years. Living in the house were his brother and his brother’s wife. Their son lived there with his wife and daughter. His wife’s mother also lived in the house. When you walked into the house there was a huge living room. You walked up half a flight of stairs to get to the kitchen and dining room area. There were then 3 more floors. One set of stairs led the way up to these living spaces. There was an open area when first arriving at each floor and then there were 2 bedrooms and a bathroom on each level. It was really cool to see how functional a house could be. The whole extended family is able to live in one space and still have their own separate spaces when they want to.

Tonight we will be celebrating Alejandro’s birthday. Tomorrow we will be attending a wedding and then leaving for Shanghai.

Cheers to my first blog post from China!

再见

Location: Huangshan, China