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Published: September 23rd 2008
As a pre-warning, I am going to set my blog to private. Currently, anyone and everyone can see it, so I’m going to switch it to private. I will add everyone to the private list that is signed up as a subscriber. If you are not signed up and want access, let me know so I can add you. I won’t add anyone who doesn’t ask because it will send an email with every new post
Last weekend I went to a place called Foreigner’s Street. I plan to take everyone who visits there! It was very interesting. It is basically a huge amusement park. Something you would never see in the US is that you don’t have to pay to get in. All you pay for is the rides you chose to go on. Some attractions are Land of a Thousand Toilets (you have to climb a tree house and cross a bridge to arrive at this fantastical place), a miniature Great Wall of China and parades of giant shoes and double decker buses. There are tons of foreign restaurants and shopping. We went to a 4-D movie that was cool. I shot a bow and arrow with Luke and won a tea-box (juice box, but with tea). They have ceramics there to paint, so you all know I will be going back! Another thing I want to do on a later visit is they have giant (human sized) hamster balls on the water that you run around inside of to move across the lake. I took lots of pictures of signs/bulletin boards posted all over the area….some of them are hilarious!
Last week I got my first haircut. I heard haircuts take upwards of two hours so I asked them to go quickly…one hour (haha I know! This is not quick!). Didn’t happen….it took two hours! Most salons here have two levels to choose from when you get your haircut. You pay more for a more experienced hairdresser. I heard horror stories about how they thin out hair when they cut it because Asians have such think hair. I have thin hair so I was worried about them thinning it….therefore I opted for an experienced barber and also had a paper written in Chinese demanding no thinning!
So, first I am off to get a shampoo. They asked if I want a dry one in my seat (I’ve never seen this before) so I opted for a wet one in the shampooing room. I’m fairly certain this salon was one of the nicer ones. The shampoo room had waterfalls for walls so it was very relaxing. The guy massaged my head for like forty-five minutes. I considered telling him to hurry along, but it felt sooooo good! (Oh also before going to the shampoo room, you put all of your stuff in a locker to keep it safe. When you go shopping here, all of the stores have this locker system because you can’t take stuff with you into the store. Free bags with purchases have been outlawed here to help the environment. If you want a bag from the store you have to buy it now.) Anyways after my head massage I get taken to my barber. He is a friendly young guy, but speaks about as much English as I speak Chinese! I had a picture of what I wanted though that I handed him. Also all of the barbers and shampooers were men….it seems that this is the trend here. My haircut was 80 rmb…a little over ten dollars. The cheap one was forty. I hear from most people that haircuts normally are fifteen to thirty so like I said I think this was a more expensive place. All of the barbers were dressed in white dress shirts and black slacks. After he cut it he decided to style it, which was definitely not working with his technique of twirling my hair around his finger and blow drying. At first I thought I’d let him finish and then leave and fix it later myself. However, he was not satisfied with it and kept staring at it trying to find a solution. Meanwhile, other barbers came by to inspect the situation. Finally, when I saw no end in sight, I motioned with my hand that he should use a curling iron. I don’t think they had one of these, but he did have a round brush. But then he didn’t know how to use that right, so I had to show him. He got so happy because then it finally worked. They are so concerned about you liking their work here! I think I will go back to him because I think he did a good job! Another thing is that you can’t find hairspray in the stores. He had normal hairspray for my hair so I asked if I could buy it and how much. 125 RMB! This is over twenty dollars for a can of hairsprays! He asked me if I wanted it, but I said no way! Too expensive!
This past Thursday, I went out with Helen, one of the architects of our school. She is going to grad school in Australia next year so she has been sitting in on our classes to improve her English. She must be an amazing architect because she is a manager of her firm and her firm is one of the top ten best known firms in the world. They have offices in many different countries. Anyways she took me to a place called Old Town near where she lives. It was lovely. There were lots of little shops along the river. We ended up eating at a restaurant overlooking the river. As we were walking, she mentioned that pig’s blood is a specialty here. I said oh my! So then she orders pig blood soup…of course I do not know this because everything is done in Chinese. Whenever you go out to eat here, only one or two people in the group will order everything and then everyone shares. You just pluck what you want off the dishes with your chopsticks. So she did the ordering. She asked me if I liked fish and I said not really, but I like shrimp. So she ordered shrimp. This did not come as I would have expected! It came complete with legs and eyes. I was like um how do you eat this? She laughed and said what do you mean, with your mouth! Then she ate the whole thing except the tail. So I followed suit. I only ate one though! So then there is this red soup that comes that she says is pig’s blood soup. At first I thought the broth was pig’s blood. She explained that they harden the pig’s blood so it is the big rectangular blocks in the soup, not the broth. Then she dishes some up for me. I ate this as well (I know some of you are probably shocked!). It honestly wasn’t so bad, it had the texture of tofu and the flavor was not bad, just spicy! Chongqing people love spicy food!
This past Friday, the parents all took us out to dinner at a famous restaurant near me called Chongqing Mansion. It was the other new teacher with whom I co-teach, my three main students (one moved last week and the other is only partly my student) and all of their parents except for my half Russian student’s father because he is in Russia. We had a private room upstairs….the restaurant is gorgeous. The food was also really good. The families at our school are all awesome!
Saturday I had to work; we had a professional development day for all faculty. Our lawyer came and talked about our rights in China, which I thought would be far more interesting than it actually was. It was such a long day! Saturday night we went to see Julia sing at her other bar called the music house. This place was much larger than her salsa bar and absolutely gorgeous!
Sunday I went to church for the first time. I met up with a friend of a friend who goes every week (unless he has to work). There is a large Catholic church in the main district here Jei Feng Bei. It is called St. Josephs…although they spelt Josephs wrong. It looks like an old traditional catholic church. It is made of stone and has wooden pews. The walls have the stations of the cross and there are statues up by the altar. I think the central statue is of Joseph and baby Jesus. It is packed on Sundays. There are so many people! I don’t think I will go every week because the whole experience was exhausting! First off we had to squeeze in and then it was so hot. The mass lasted an hour and a half and I had no idea what was going on. I took my own bible so I took to reading it during the homily to occupy myself. It follows the same basic order, but they sing everything and nothing has the same tune as back home. I don’t know if they do the Lord’s Prayer or not…no one held hands. For the peace be with you, they put their hands together and bow to one another….the don’t say anything. The people at the church are very nice and try to help-sometimes a little too much! When I went to communion, the lady next to me insisted I carry my bible up with me….I don’t know why, but I did it. Lots of other people left their books in the pew. The worse was kneeling; their kneelers are made of wood and have absolutely no cushioning. Communion took forever; my knees were raw by the time we could stand up! Mainly there were older women at the mass. There were few men and few young people. One funny thing is that we were near the back of the church, but my view was not obstructed at all. The other big cultural difference is that cell phones went off throughout the mass. One woman sitting in the front had her cell phone go off and then she leisurely walked out with her cell phone ringing the whole way down the aisle. I couldn’t believe it!
One of my student’s mother invited me to play tennis on Sunday afternoon. I was under the impression that her and I would play while her daughter had lessons. Turns out all three of us had lessons! Our instructor was seventy plus! He looked liked he was only maybe fifty! He went for over an hour straight! I had a good time, although it was so hot! It was 34 degrees Celsius with high humidity. After this we went to a mountain/park. You could climb steps to get to a temple at the top. We only went part way though because we were all tired from tennis, but even from part way up, the view of the city was amazing. I will definitely have to go back.
Sunday night I went back to the thai food place. All of the singers speak English so it is rather fun! I went for a walk afterwards and then ran into them getting off work on my way back home. We exchanged contact info so maybe we’ll hang out some time. Other exciting news is that Avril Lavigne is coming to Chongqing! Lol This was all my students could talk about for a couple of days.
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Helen
non-member comment
You sure are taking it all in and what fun you seem to be having. Wonderful that you are taking advantage of all there is and trying new things. Hope you will keep me on your list as I enjoy reading about your adventures. I have a webcam to give you parents so you can see them. I just have to remember to take it to church. Enjoy:) Helen Russell