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Published: October 28th 2011
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Our International Department of Affairs took us 9 foreign English teachers and 22 international students on a field trip to Wuzhen. It was only an hour bus ride from the college campus where we teach and the international students live. We live about 35-45 minutes from that campus so we had a longer day.
We had been warned by 2 previous teachers that these trips can be quite horrid as the Chinese love to travel in tour groups with matching hats, a tour guide waving a flag and speaking into a microphone. We don't like to be paraded around like cattle at big tourist traps within China so we were ready for an adventure to say the least. We went with open minds and enjoyed our day trip.
When we arrived we pulled into a parking lot FULL of tour buses and many people waiting in groups with their notorious matching hats and tour guides with waving flags. Our adventure was about to begin as we entered the ticket zone. We got to see many small museums along the route including: bed, clothes, coin, rice wine and fabric museums. There are 2 sides to the historic canal city and
we visited the East side, supposedly the West side is much bigger and better. We think we will go back to visit the West side when Laura, Pete's sister, and Laurence, Pete's friend, come to visit us in December for a week.
It was nice to meet the international students as all of them were from Spain. They are studying business at our school for 1 year and all their classes are taught in English. One of the guys was so funny as I guess he is known to try everything at least once, good rule to experience life. When asked how the lunch was he said "I tried every dish and liked about none of them." That is what I thought about the food also but I kept it too myself.
We did get a good buy on a piece of blue fabric which will be our new wall hanging to cover up these stark white walls in our apartment. Pete did well with his bargaining skills and got it for a good price.
To end the trip as our bus was pulling away from Wuzhen we almost forgot Leo, our liason in the International Department
who is newer to the department. Stephanie, one of the foreign teachers, noticed a bag on the seat in front of her but no person in the row. We looked out the window as we were pulling away and here comes Leo out of the bathroom. The 9 of us teachers yelled to the bus driver so he would stop. We felt bad for Leo when he got on the bus, as he works with 4 ladies in the department and none of them noticed he wasn't on the bus. Us foreign teachers give him a run for his money but none of us would ever wish him to be left on our field trip.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Wow!
This place is beautiful. I wonder why I've never heard of it. How big is it?