Advertisement
Published: October 15th 2009
Today we left Wuxi to travel ~1 hour southeast to visit the Dongwu Foreign Language School and Foreign Language Teachers College. We had a brief tour of their campus and then spent about 20-30 minutes meeting with their principal. We then traveled another hour to our lunch destination, which was located at the edge of Taihu Lake. We were supposed to have a quick lunch to allow more time for sightseeing. It’s not easy, however, to rush through a meal that has a minimum of 20 dishes. The menu usually includes one or more local specialties. Today’s version had a small crab and three types of fish caught in Taihu Lake. Today’s lunch was the first time we were served Sprite and Coke. Until now, we drank green tea and orange juice. We laughed at the Sprite label. The translated nutrition label measures energy rather than calories.
We toured the Dongshan Taihu Lake House after lunch. This museum was the summer vacation home of a wealthy businessman and this house was built using classical Chinese architecture. I was at the back of the group and got lost wandering through the various rooms so I missed most of the translation of
the museum guide. This place has been one of my favorite of the trip because it looks like what I expected to find in China. The carved woodwork is exceptionally beautiful. The house has multiple courtyards, sitting rooms, dining rooms, formal areas, private areas, secret rooms, etc. Dr. Hua told us that the larger courtyard to the side of the house was were the females spent much of their time; they were not allowed to travel outside of the home.
After spending about an hour at the lake house, we headed back to Nanjing. Suzhou is located approximately halfway between Wuxi and Shanghai (towards southern China) so it took us three hours to return to Nanjing. Dr. Hua told us that we had the evening on our own and everyone was excited. While I have enjoyed the dinners with the various Chinese hosts, they have been lengthy, elaborate, formal affairs. We were definitely ready for American-type food. While en route to our hotel, we passed a McDonald’s around the corner. (Side note: McDonald’s costs the same in China as it does in the US but it is considered expensive by Chinese standards.) We checked into the hotel and took
some time to drop off our baggage and freshen up before heading outside. By this time, I was beat. We walked to the end of the block and decided to eat at a restaurant called Tacos. I had hoped that it would have Mexican-style food but it ended up being “fusion” cuisine. About half of us ordered the cheese pizza and it was a welcome sight. Some of the group members ordered ice cream sundaes , comprised of three scoops of ice cream sitting on top of diced watermelon. They said that it was a good combination.
Half of the group then returned to the hotel while the other half ventured out to the night market along the side street. Unfortunately, the pajamas, sporting apparel, socks, underwear, small electronics, and beauty products failed to interest any of us. We then started to walk back to the hotel and two of us were nearly run over in the dark by a bicycle driver. (The sun sets here at 5:30).
I forgot to mention earlier that whenever we visit a school, they usually provide at least one photographer to follow us. It’s a rather unusual feeling to have someone constantly taking
our photos. I definitely would not enjoy being someone famous and living with the constant attention!
In answer to the questions about gender differences with the students, I haven’t noticed a difference either way. The students seem to be fairly evenly distributed. I haven’t noticed a difference in the make-up of the teachers, either.
The weather the past two days has been sunny and warm. It’s the first time that we have seen the sun. And tonight we saw our first star. Generally it is very hazy in the city and even out in the more rural areas.
Tomorrow we return to JIE so that the teams can present their lessons to the college students. We will visit the main campus in the morning and then the Pukou campus in the afternoon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0613s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.2mb
David
non-member comment
Sunset time
You noted the sun set at 5:30. Because China is declared to be all on a single time zone, the sun sets like 3 hours later on the west side (whereas in the US we use time zones so the sunset occurs about the same "local time" east to west). So to keep the sun from setting too late local time in the west, China time has to be set such that sunset occurs early in the east. European Union guidelines require that food labels list "Energy", in units of both kJ and kcal. (Much smarter than our US version of heat "calories" and food "Calories" (with a Calorie being 1000 calories). It seems it's pretty much a North American thing to not use the word "Energy" on a nutrition label. Your pictures and descriptions continue to be amazing.