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Published: November 20th 2012
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Gaurd Dragon
I'd like a dragon guarding my house too please... I'm so sorry! I've neglected my blog much more than I meant to. >_< It really was laziness at first, but then I discovered I had no internet. Ok, fine. It's happened before, so I waited a day. Then I waited another day. And then it was next week! So finally I was reminded that, hey, we have someone we can complain about our broken stuff to and they actually help get it fixed! So I finally asked for help and then guess what? Yep. That night it was working again. Sigh... am I surprised? Not really.
So anyway, last week I actually got a few days off. Did I do anything with them? Not really... in fact it took me a while to even remember what I did Monday when Wednesday hit. The week of the 12th was a bit of a struggle anyway. As usual I went away for the weekend on Friday and spent the night over with my friend Esmeralda. When I left there was (surpise!) no water. I got back on Sunday afternoon and again there was no water. This is rather normal and I figured I just wasn't hitting the times when the water
Bridge of Flowers
I don't know how much I'd trust a bridge made up of flowers. WAS being turned back on, so I didn't think much of it and was grateful I had no school the next day since I had no clean clothes. Well Monday rolls around and I go about my business, use up all the stored water in my fridge to wash dishes and when I leave my apartment in the afternoon for a Nanchang Cares 4 Kids meeting, there's still no water. By now I'm getting worried. See, I haven't taken a shower since that Friday and for whatever reason I'm not getting any water even though I've called Len and she's evidently already had hers come on and off throughout this time. She tells me that maybe I need to pay my water bill. I think "oh crap." Not that I don't have the money, we're given 300 RMB a month extra to pay our utilities when they come up, but Rita's only mentioned in passing how exactly I pay my water bill. So on Tuesday I call Vivi, and over the phone, since she's off campus, she guides me to one office to pay, another office to get the money put on my card and unfortunately that's where her help
River walk
There were tons of cool statues, sculptures, maps, and such all along the walk way down by the river. stops. At that point she tells me to ask Anna or Lenn because she's never had to give the water meter money before. So I call Len. She doesn't answer. I call Anna and she's evidently still on vacation, though she gives it a good try over the phone. I'm just rather adept at following any kind of verbal instructions. Thankfully Len was able to help me once we did get a hold of her and now I think my apartment has enough money on the meter to last me the next year. Thank you God!
On Tuesday I was rather encouraged to spend the afternoon with Camilla. We had fun just chatting but also walking on such a beautiful day. We also got to see a small flower festival that was being held rather close to her apartment. There were quite a few things to see, but in a way they kind of all melded together because I didn't understand what some of the structures were supposed to represent.
On Wednesday I had fun visiting a student of Esmeralda's. Sally led me on a round-a-bout tour of her campus and showed me her dorm, her classrooms and
River walk 2
Just love these lamp posts. : ) a cool pagoda that Esmeralda liked to teach at on a nice days (though who knows when we'll get any of those next...). We finished up our time together with some Mala Tong which is one of my favorite Chinese dishes. It's pretty much just noodles and whatever else you want to throw in there. You can put meat, vegetables, noodles, and other yummy things in a basket and hand it to the cook who boils it all together right there. : )
So all in all I really didn't do too much with my time off, but granted I was only told about it the day before it happend. This past weekend was rather fun though. Esmeralda, Sally and I all went to Puyang Lake. Evidently it's just a big lake especially noted for its birds during certain seasons. Right now is the best time to see them because they're migrating from the north. It's also the dry season for the lake, so everywhere we walked will actually be underwater in just a few months! I wasn't quite sure what to expect there other than birds, but we had fun seeing a variety of things. I thought of
Sally's School
Uhhhh.... I don't know what her school is called, but it's pretty! And far away. Seriously, it's the last stop on one of the bus routes... kind of like mine. : ) it as a genuine cultural adventure. You can go to any big city and see the sights and learn the history, but what we did on Saturday was getting to see what the Chinese go to see.
When we first arrived at the lake I pretty much felt like "this is it?" All I could see was grassland at first until we went a lot further by car. Esmeralda told us though if we wanted to see the birds we needed to get out of the car and do some treking. So we did. First we found some buffalo on one side of the road and when we ventured to the other side we finally found some birds. We managed to get pretty close, but they eventually caught on that some clumsy humans were getting pretty close to them so they all took flight. It was awesome. I've seen it on tv when the birds all fly off together as one, but it was super cool to see and hear it in real life.
We eventually made our way back to the car and the driver said he would take us to the village that was nearby the
Sally's School 2
The Pogoda of Awesomeness! Well, it's pretty at least. ^_^ Though graffiti is something that is a world-wide phenomenon. lake and also further connected to it. We got to see a lot of things in the village so unfortunately I'm going to just sum it up. We first got to meet a vendor who caught us taking pictures of his super old house and he showed us how he was smoking fish the old fashioned way. He was business savy and let us all try free samples which we all fell in love with. We wanted to buy some but they weren't done and we couldn't make it back to buy them at the right time. : (
Afterwards we searched and searched for a place to eat and finally found a resteraunt that hadn't run out of food yet (at only the beginning of 12 pm). What Sally ordered for us was all amazing. Some of it was a bit too salty, but I've always enjoyed it that way anyway. After lunch we wandered, took pictures, and met up with the driver again who took us to another portion of town. In that area we found a super cool pagoda and a museum that was about the birds that traveled there every year.
We didn't go
Puyang Lake! Kinda...
Well, it'll be a lake in a few months when the rain comes, but for now it looks more like Puyang grasslands... to the museum, but we did manage to find a boat at the lake that was taking people to the other side for just 2 RMB per ride. What was at the other side? We don't know. We walked around for a bit and when we couldn't find any birds we just walked back. When we got back to the boat we asked the other Chinese students who had ridden there with us what they had come to this side to see. They said "nothing!" All that we could find within walking distance was more grasslands! Our group just laughed. : )
At that point we were all exaughsted and more than ready for our trip back, so we all loaded up in the van and headed back to Nanchang. We finished out the night at a resteraunt that served decent steak and milk tea.
At this point it feels weird getting back into teaching since at this point since I'd normally be getting ready for Thanksgiving vacation, but I'm taking it in stride and finding stuff to do. I've got it in my mind to bake so I've been trying to work with limited ingredients and baking
tools and seeing what works and what doesn't. It's all good and fun but it makes me wonder why I can't be this ambitious when I actually have the right tools to work with? Sigh... Oh well. All else is well and good and I look forward to posting my next adventure whenever it may be. Take care all!
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Camilla
non-member comment
Enjoyed reading about your adventure with Emmy & Sally!
Hey Carla - it was great to read about your Puyang Lake adventure! I also like your style of writing. It brings your story to life! And the photos too. It looked like a beautiful day. You took some great photos, particularly the birds flying away! Very cool! Glad you are soaking in this place :)