Monday, July 19, 2010

A FEW LAST ADVENTURES

Time has been going by quickly. June was the last of many things. Much of the month is spent in exams. Classes are easy, but sometimes long. It was the last of the Saturday parties and dancing. It was the last of two years of PI Qiu Wednesdays. (A few of the boys are trying to extend that a little into July) It was the last shao kao. It may to our surprise be our last visit to XingHU which we grew to love last year,


It also though was the time of freedom, and we have been able to do some traveling locally. During the Dragon Boat Festival, we flew to Wuxi. Remember last summer it is where we went to visit a family of four generations. It was a chance to see them again to spend time with the three brothers and to be part of that family. They just accept us as if we were. We share great times around the table drinking our bowls of beer. This trip they took us to AnHui where they are building their new factory. It is interesting to see how they treat the employees and make arrangements to care for them as they move to a new home. The grandfather and I climbed his mountain, and he introduced us to some of his friends. I was touched because the calligrphy I had sent for his 90th birthday is now hung prominently in their home.



Our second trip was to Tongliang. Tongliang is the home of the dragon. Several students had told us to go and one student invited us. Over a broken road we traveled. We arrived to no student and no phone number that worked. Tongliang people speak putonghua so they could understand me. We got a taxi driver who got us to a nice, cheap hotel. The clerks could understand that we want to see the dragon, and they arranged for tickets and transportation. We got some rest and went to dinner. The student called (he had changed his number). He came and we and a friend went to the show. The local TV people interviewed us, and we had front row seats. The dragons were beautiful and the fire dragon dangerous. Worth a night if you are in the Chongqing area.



Our friends Mr. Li and Shelly from Jiangjin agreed to go with us to Si Mian Shan. We went to Jiangjin stayed in their new home and then went by bus up into the mountain. The mountain was beautiful and the air fresh. Si Mian Shan is famous for its waterfalls (over 100) on the mountain. We saw and walked around the largest of the falls. We got a pass that rode us from site to site so we were able to do three of the seven highlights in one day. We stayed over night on the mountain. The next day the bus picked us up and we rode for about an hour to one of the other faces of the mountain to see the second largest fall. Because it is out of the way it was the first time Mr. Li and Shelly had seen this fall. We walked into a gorgeous valley and saw the fall from many perspectives. Many Chinese come and spend the holiday here. They walk every morning and evening in the cool.


Teacher Liu and Gao Ping then took us to their hometown. We went to HeChuan. It was about an hour and a half from YongChuan. We met the parents who are living in a brother's home. We then went to a sister's home where members of the family gathered to have a meal with us. We had a great time around the table and with the family. One of the nephews has very good English from working as an interpretor for a Chinese company in Africa. He traveled with us for these couple of days. First we visited the Fishing Village which turns out to be a castle over looking the river on a cliff where they held off the Mongols for about 40 years. We had an interesting and quiet walk. We then drove to Jin Yun Shan to enjoy the air and walk to the summit. We stayed overnight here. We did not complete the adventure because of a heavy rainstorm, but we did not fail to get soaked either. We visited Mr. Li's school Southwest University in BeiBei in the afternoon before heading home.
These are adventures in between we have been eating as people keep having Last Suppers. A few students are still around so we are not alone and several of our treacher friends and community friends are here so we are enjoying our last days in YongChuan. Tomorrow we head to ChengDu to sign out. Ned and his wife, Lia, will arrive, and we will see some more sites and the subject on the next blog.