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Published: October 17th 2009
The running is still going well and I am doing about three runs a week. We are also now going every week to a Chinese Corner which is basically a time in the week when we meet up with some college students for a meal and speak Chinese with them. It’s going quite well. They are English undergraduates and so if we get stuck we can ask them how to say something in English. It’s a good opportunity to practice our Chinese which is coming on slowly. And I mean slowly!!
At the weekend I went to Xian to the annual VSO conference. It was nice to meet up with the other volunteers and share our experiences and find out more about what we need to do to make out placements in the next semester. The situation also lent itself well to some “cheese shopping”. Cheese is a bit of a rarity where we live and whilst in Xian, I took a trip to the Metro supermarket and made a few purchases; namely butter and cheese. The things you miss!!
On the 26th Bine and I biked to have lunch with a Chinese colleague before visiting the Qingyang Culture Exhibition.
This was a celebration of the crafts and skills of the prefecture (group of counties). Each floor was dedicated to a different county where you could experience (and buy) the particular crafts native to the area. We were watching some shadow puppetry when a Chinese man started to explain its importance in Qingyang. From then on for the next two hours he was our unofficial guide to all exhibits we visited. We were served free wine and snacks and given various gifts - it was great!
We returned to this exhibition the next day to take photos and were presented with some Chinese caligraphy after writing messages in English for the stall-holder. People in China are welcoming and generous despite their meagre means.
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Jennifer
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Cheese Under the Bell Tower
The last time we went to Xian, we found a store under the Bell Tower that had cheese. We got dizzy looking for it but finally ran into it at a dead end that enters into the cheese part of this import shop. There is also a store entrance (NW corner down the stair pit) near the entrance back into the Bell Tower underground tunnels. From this entrance you can see the Starbucks that is near the Haagen-Dazs ice cream place, not the Starbucks near the McDonalds.