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Published: July 19th 2008
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New changes are happening everywhere I look; within myself, my city and my friends. The semester ending has left parts of the city, especially those near the university empty and almost unused. Many of the thousands of students have returned home to their local city far from here. Like the students, many of the foreign teachers have taken this summer holiday as a chance to travel. I, myself just came back from a two week trip up north. It started with a very early morning train ride to Beijing with a friend of mine, Dusty. We didn’t stay long in Beijing, just seven hours, enough time for us to stretch our feet from the previous train ride of ten hours and to meet up with Dusty’s friend Sophia, a fellow Canadian. A quick walk around Tiananmen Square and a glance at the famous Mao photo and it was time for the three of us to board the next train headed to Hohhot, in Inner Mongolia. This train ride I will remember as a good realization that it is possible for me to get motion sickness. I blame the couple beers we all shared in the waiting room before boarding,
Inner Mongolia
One of the many temples the top bunk which allows you to lie like you’re in your coffin and the steadiness of the train itself. All in all, it was not a very fun ride and I was more than glad to arrive. Getting off the train we discovered two Europeans who would be staying at the one and only hostel in the town and soon we would become fast friends with them. The two girls, one from Germany the other from France would prove to be good travel buddies, although the number five is definitely harder to travel with than that of three. Spending the day in Hohhot of sight seeing of glamorous temples and mosques I finally felt like a tourist. Pulling out my camera every chance I had, and walking around with a map we all stuck out in the small town. The town itself was interesting; I will remember it as an oddly empty town filled with brightly coloured buildings and a place where the best shao kao is served. With our hostel with found a tour that would take us on a short bus ride out to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia where we would drink salty milk tea and
sleep in a yurt. Bringing my Frisbee along with me everywhere we went, the grassland was an excellent spot for us to throw the “flying plate” around.
Skipping ahead another few days on the road, more grassland, sight seeing and train rides we found ourselves in the desert. Another tourist place which I found a little disappointing but the beauty of the desert made it worth being there. I found myself loving the desert for about ten minutes and then wishing for it to rain, or an ocean or anything to cool off in. Needless to say I was the first to run to the only bush in the desert and attempt to sit in the little shade it provided. In my opinion sand dunes are magnificent to look at and not so great to climb, the vase openness of the desert and the slowness of the life it provided were eerie for me. After the desert the three originals said goodbye to our new comers and headed towards home making a one night stop in the city of Xi’an.
Xi’an a hot spot for many laowai’s, was a place where we were greeted by hello’s instead of
ni hao’s. After sleeping, resting and checking our emails it was time to check out the city. We decided not to go visit the famous Terra-cotta warriors and ventured instead to the city walls where we rode tandem bikes and after only a few minutes promised ourselves we would never ride them again. It only takes one ride on a tandem bike to make you wish you hadn’t. And then it was time to go back home to Xuzhou.
Xuzhou, the place where I just happened to land in China and where I thought would be a pit stop for me actually became a home. A solid group of friend, both Chinese and foreign and a part of a community unlike those of which I has previously visited. I found myself longing for the “thousand knife meat” dish and the people who make it. It really didn’t take much twisting of my arm for me to sign a one year contract with my current employer, Web International. So, I’ll stay for another 6 months to a year. I like it here, so why not? It’s time for the new semester, full of new students, new studies and in my
case a new place to live with new roommates and a new job. Always changing, always growing.
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anonymous
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nangrrl lucas
thanks for more news and photos - love the camel ride video !!! laowai lucas keep shooting - love the boats !! love mum