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Published: January 17th 2011
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Ming Yue Hu, Yangzhou
Bright Moon Lake, the Rainbow Bridge …..it should be an easy thing to buy a train ticket from Nanjing to Guiyang from the ticket office at the Da Run Fa. I go down on the earliest day that tickets are available for the 20th of January, ie: ten days prior to that date. No hard sleeper tickets available. How about the more expensive soft sleepers. No, nothing. They open at 8am tomorrow. I'll try for a ticket on the 21st of January. Travelling around holiday times is always a stressful experience.....
…..the more stressful because we have to have our testing finished before we leave. Actually not a problem in my case as I'll be around next week while Greg & Linda are here from Sydney. I don't want to be finishing the testing next week though, just because so many students need 2 minutes to answer a question like, “What's the weather in summer?” It is a time of despair. Pointing at a map of a small section of a town with cartoon figures dotted around it, one that has been practised in class several times. “Where is he?” (pointing to a figure standing outside the supermarket)? “He is at the superhero....” He has to
Shou Xi Hu, Yangzhou
Greg and Linda at Slender West Lake Park get a point for trying & another for being one of the few to remember the word “at”. Others often say, “He is the supermarket” & only realise what they've said when I translate it back to Chinese.....
…..it's below freezing on these clear but very crisp days. The teachers office is heated, not to the level that is usual in western countries but the classrooms are not & they are, literally, freezing. Kids & teachers dress in multiple layers of clothing, hoods, hats, ear muffs, gloves. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.....
…..Class 3/9, by far the worst class, possibly in the entire school, appears to have got the better of Gao Dong. This morning my neighbour from across the landing, Mr. Ding, is now my neighbour in the office. Gao Dong comes in to collect her things later. It's all spoken in hushed tones & I'm not entirely clear yet but it appears she's moving out of the school rather than transferring to another class. In some ways a relief I imagine. Her husband is a lecturer in electronics at the Polytechnic College so they should be able to manage while she finds a new
Shou Xi Hu, Yangzhou
Gazebo ceiling, Slender West Lake Park job.....
…..exactly ten days before the intended travel date I go to the Da Run Fa ticket office to buy a trip to Guiyang. By three pm there are none available! The rush for Spring Festival tickets is underway. I ask what time they open in the morning. I am determined to go in at eight a.m to make sure I travel on the following day, (January 21st).....
…..on my bike, on a freezing cold morning straight after breakfast, wearing the motorbike gauntlets I bought especially for Harbin, I arrive at the ticket office a minute after eight. The tickets are not available yet! When can I buy one? Not until ten a.m! Right in the middle of a class & I can't get there until lunchtime when they'll probably all be sold again.....
…..it pays to have friends. I call Shen Yue who, luckily, has time to go to the ticket office. Even at ten a.m. there are no hard sleeper tickets available. These are the pairs of three tiered hard bunks in compartments of six which would cost around ¥450, depending on the level, (the top bunk is the cheapest & requires the most gymnastic
& contortional skills to access). However I do now have a soft sleeper ticket, (4 soft beds in a compartment with a door - luxury). These cost over ¥600, or a little less than Au$100 to travel about 1400 kilometres, as the crow flies, probably closer to 1700 kilometres actual distance travelled. On the slow train it will take around thirty hours. I am happy to have a ticket & the soft sleeper will be a new experience for me. At least I should be able to make it for the wedding.....
…..actually no, there has been a misunderstanding regarding dates, either on my part or Miss Piggy's, maybe both. The wedding is on the eighth of MARCH, not February! Still, they are still keen for me to visit & I have a wedding present. After asking Miss Piggy whether they had a camera, to take some pictures of her boyfriend to send to me, I discovered they have not a so I have a nice little Fuji 12 Megapixel digital camera to give them. Plans will go ahead to get to Guiyang by the end of next week.....
…..in an amazing experiment in anthropology the English test
Dinner at Ming Ming
Foreign teachers and guests at the "Duck restaurant" has accidentally recreated the conditions at the dawn of human history, when our distant ancestors made their first attempts at verbal communication. Simple questions, rehearsed many times in class, such as, “What is the weather in summer?” or, (showing a picture of a clock), “What time is it?”, produces sounds that could be the precursors of human speech, from the short, “Uh”, “Ah” or “Huh”, to the more expressive, “Wahhh”, “Errruhh” or “Uuumaaah”. Think positive, two students have more than tripled their scores from the last test, from 3% to 10%.....
…..when introducing the topic of sickness & injury in recent lessons the Grade four students, with help, were asked to suggest remedies or actions. Headache; drink water, lie down. Cut finger; use a Bandaid. Broken leg; go to the doctor or the hospital. Bellyache; go to the toilet. There is scope for questions & answers to get crossed. “At the station I lost my bag. What should I do?”. “Go to the toilet”. OK, maybe I left it there.....
…..despite leaving behind the instructions in Chinese characters I sent to smooth the passage from airport to Shanghai station, the hotel & also catch a bus to Yangzhou,
Power Station, Yangzhou
On a clear day in winter our intrepid visitors managed to get to Yangzhou on a combination of fast train from Shanghai to Nanjing then getting to the bus station to complete the trip. Good effort, Greg & Linda. For a first trip to China with no knowledge of Chinese that's well done.....
....after some initial problems Linda is now coping well with chopsticks. I think they're getting a good taste of China & will be ready for more before too long.....
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