The next post on my endeavours – well, I had 3 free days (but no going outside the city for now) – but I did visit some of the places I had not visited before. So as you have read from the previous post, there was Chinese Paralympic Games held, and our hotel was hosting all the athletes. So even if the days got a little bit busy, we found one day to go to KTV or just karaoke, I was just watching, as I tried out an song in English, but nobody knew it most likely, so I sang alone – my singing voice is not of the best!
Anyhow, on the first day of the weekend, it was Chunxi Road that I, my fellow German intern Melissa and my colleague from the hotel , visited. It was very crowded, no doubt about it – but we had one plan that day – I really wanted to try out some hot-pot again, so we did manage to find where the big pots are served, and my oh my, after I was done, my face was most likely all flushed and my nose was runny from all the spiciness. Day Nr.2 – went to Chengdu Textile College with my restaurant colleagues, who had a day off as well. So, of course we had lunch, which was very satisfying again and as I said to my colleagues, that I am completely okay with everything, except being too spicy. In college, there were a lot of buildings that represented different part of the world (even a pyramid – I had a photo of me scaling it too, but don’t have it yet, but nonetheless, my feet is too wide – getting up was easy, now coming down was a bit tricky, as you could fall down 15 meters and break something, so I did not climb to the top, only first 7 meters). You do not even need to visit Easter Island to see those giant heads, they were the same size in the college park too. But at the end of the day, we also went inside a library, and why not, just started reading a bit for one hour till we prepared ourselves to get back to our home. On 3rd day, since everyone was working, I went alone to the biggest building (in terms of floor area) Global Centre, which was pretty noticeable and would not be able to miss it by a longshot. Soooo, this mall consisted of shops (obviously) and even Water Park, Ice Skating Rink, Huge Cinema and a lot of restaurants – since I was a bit of hungry, I did eat something, and I sat down at one of the tables near the bridge which overlooked the water-park. Was sitting there and passing my time, as a young man came to my table, by the name of Bob, who recently graduated (and he was studying Psychology), 3 years older than me, but I could have sure tell that he was studying psychology, as as some discussions went more philosophical. But atleast a new friend in the city was made. Each of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.12/9/2015 I know that a weekend has not passed, but I have caught a small cold I need to deal with it (or atleast try to bring it down a bit tomorrow – as today I really wanted to go to the city to have lunch and meet other interns), as this week will be very busy (even now it is – dinner time, which is usually 4 hours we have around 800 guests in our restaurant), but every cloud has a silver lining, am I right? Turns out, all of these guests are for Disabled People Chinese (from different cities in China) Olympics and my hotel is the one they are staying at.
I can't be a help all the time (especially talking about helping to put food on the plate, as my Chinese is not so advanced, but I try my best and half of them (I do not want to be wrong, of course) – might also represent China in World Paralympics, so there are athletes who also speak English – ranging from teenagers to elderly people. If I have a possibility to bring a smile to them, why not – kinda one thing that got stuck in my mind, was when my colleagues asked if I could just have a conversation with one girl in English, as she is learning it, and of course I had a small chat, with mingling some phrases in Chinese in the middle too. Some even thought I am from Germany – mostly because of the fact that I try to have an harmony in the restaurant and keep my posture and coolness, very pedantic like, if I might say. 1st picture – forgot to tell, but when preparing the tables, and of course, we have been taught not to play with our food, but this surely made me and my colleagues laugh – a nice happy face :) But speaking of my colleagues – I kinda think, that half of my internship is over already and when I start speaking about it – they say they will not let me go anywhere and would rather chain me down to a chair, so I could just stay in China – I kinda have the same feeling, that I will be heartbroken to leave the hotel – everyone is so friendly and having these English-Chinese and Chinese-English lessons are fun and entertaining, always giving a possibility to learn something new (but thank God my language has sounds which are similar to Chinese, so it is easier at some point). One golden rule I have learned to integrate better here – try to do everything they do – even go with them to the staff canteen (where they serve traditional Chinese food, and for foreigners it might seems different and spicy too) – but if you show that you are okay with that, they will open to you more (lets not also mention that I arrived here to experience something else, and not only try things I know and am comfortable with) and will always almost fight for you on where you should sit at. Yesterday I sat down with one of my chef friends Mick not my restaurant colleagues (who were a bit disappointed - and later just to have some laughter here and there in the dialogue – even asking if I want to come with others and work in a different restaurant of the hotel). One another thing I am trying to do, is to memorize their Chinese names (because I think it is fun, and since they are calling me Rui Rui anyways, I show the same treatment to them). But getting down to what happened today – I went to Jinli street – (a very popular street for tourists) and was even busier today, as there was different events taking place regarding the culture. So we were a group of foreigners, so we sure did attract a lot of attention from the locals, and a lot of pictures were taken too – because not every day you will see something like that happening here. Sichuan Opera was being showcased, where even the shop clerks dressed up (also painted) themselves to look like the characters from the play. As promised, here is the updated blog of my travels around Sichuan province – this last weekends destination – Qingcheng mountain. So I went there with my colleagues, who served as a „tour guides” around the villages in the mountain and also showed me an college they had attended, and it just seemed AMAZING. So we went to Qingcheng Mt. around 15, and we were there in the eve. We had a guesthouse, where we stayed for a night – and even though the weather outside was very rainy and windy (reminded me of Denmark for a moment) – it was very pleasant to have a cool wind blowing into your face for a change. We went out for a dinner and ate some nice food, again – and went back, but there was a bit of a problem – the streets were lit very poorly (more like - none at all). The buildings did not had any lights or whatsoever too, so we couldn’t tell which was our guesthouse – I kinda laughed and thought of an idea to perhaps stay in the restaurant we were dining for a night, but in the end, we did find it – so it was nice.
After some sleep – we went to the main attraction – Qingcheng mountain, but oh my gosh, the mountain was very steep, so it was a nice workout (we went for like 2 hours, but still did not reach the top) and the best thing about this is, that after every 10-12 minutes, you could find a small stall which would sell some beverage or snacks so it would be easier to continue upwards. I still have no idea how they got all the products up the mountain, as not in all places was the cable car (to which we were going when we reached the half of the mountain) – and found a stick insect on the way, which was trying to avoid us and trying to hide, of course, by swaying in the wind and moving slowly, but it is not like you can’t see a huge insect on a concrete stairs. It wasn’t the tourist season, which I liked, as the city was not crowded and I could check out the temples and stores too (but the most diverse variety of stores I found when I went with a Tuk-Tuk to a market district) – which was very well structured and could find anything your heart desired, from luxurious shops, to more „tourist” shops selling traditional Chinese souvenirs, and not very expensive. Tried out the tofu (which is cheap here, but expensive in Europe, but it is actually good, when cooked right, of course – the taste is similar to fish). From picture nr. 15 starts the sights of the college, and I actually came at right time, as semester starts today but yesterday everyone was preparing for study start. The college once was in my Pixian area, but it moved to another place completely 4 years ago – and the campus looks like a small village. If you want to eat – no problem, you can get full just for 7RMB, which is like 1 euro, or if you are in need for something refreshing (and made from real fruits straight away) – a HUGE smoothie for just 1,10 euro. There was like 50 different restaurants and cafes – ranging from dumplings, noodles, dim-sums, hotpots, western food. You want activities – sure, no problem, on campus there is one huge football stadium where you can play football with your buddies or just sit on the grass and enjoy the weather (I did it as well, couldn’t refuse), 10 basketball courts, boxing, you want to learn to play golf? No problem – since they have a golf course nearby, they rent the place and you can study it there. |
AuthorOn a self-discovery in a country down under-ish! New Zealand! Archives
May 2020
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