We were up bright and early on Tuesday to catch our 7:30 flight to Shanghi. Once we landed we drove to Zhouzhuang. It is often referred to as the "Venice of China". It is an old canal city that is very beautiful, but it is also very small and packed with tourists. They did have boats running up and down the canals with little old Chinese men and women piloting them and singing traditional Chinese songs. That was one of my favorite things that I have seen thus far.
The Nanjing area is known as one of the 3 furnaces in China and let me tell you, it lived up to its name. It was so incredibly hot. When we first got here we saw all of the girls carrying umbrellas and fans on hot sunny days and we thought it was adorable. Now we know that it is both adorable, and a necessity. We don't think twice anymore about busting out an umbrella for some portable shade.
We also visited a Buddhist temple and had some very fancy meals. I ate duck brain again. I had to. The boys were daring each other to eat from the duck head and when they gave in, they just picked out little bits of meat that weren't much different than the meat on the plate. When Jasen said, "Jennica, show them how it's done," I had to. I couldn't look as I cracked the head open, but I sure ate that brain and showed everyone up. It was a triumphant moment, if not a little disgusting.
On the second day we visited some very beautiful and very Chinese (surprise!) gardens and made the 3 hour drive to Nanjing. (My favorite garden was the "Humble Administrator's Garden". We all made jokes about becoming humble administrators. I am already succumbing to MPA humor. Yikes. At this point I was on day 2 of heat exhaustion and I didn't know if I would make it through the day alive. I was feeling less than congenial and it showed. When Seth and Sarah asked me how I was doing, I said that I wanted to kick a kitten. Now Seth asks me how my KKM (kitten kicking meter) is doing. It is usually very low, just so you know.
However, in that moment it was at 100%. Our tour guide didn't speak any English, so we just had to follow him around and listen to 10 minutes of a Chinese explanation of a rock or a bush or an old room that looked like all of the previous 50 rooms that we had seen and then one of our Chinese speakers would translate the 2 sentences that they could remember and we would shuffle along to the next place. It was excruciating. It was 94 out with 70% humidity. I honestly didn't think I would make it through the day.
We had arrived in Nanjing at the Presidential Office of Sun Yat-Sen. We had just driven 3 hours in a poorly air-conditioned bus and the site closed in an hour. Our guide talked at the entrance, in the heat, for at least 30 minutes. I wanted to die. Luckily I lived through the day, if only just barely.
That night the beds at our hotel were soft. SOFT! I haven't slept in a soft bed for almost a month! All of the beds here (including hotel beds) are just raised sections of floor. They are rock hard. I am used to sleeping on them now, but it was a treat to sleep on a soft bed! We also had "western" breakfasts at our hotels. It was Chinese style french toast, breads and cereal, but it counted and was a relief from some of the crazy food we have been eating. Usually I am very adventurous with food, but after a month I am just craving sandwiches and cereal.
Our last day in Nanjing was incredible. We were met in the morning by an MPA grad who is working in China. He toured with us and acted as our interpreter! It was so refreshing! We saw the tomb of Sun Yat-Sen. We had to walk 392 steps to get there. Each step represented 1 million people who lived in China at the time of his death. It reminded me of the Spanish Steps in Rome. We also went to see the Ming Tombs where the emperor of the dynasty is buried. (Along with his 40 concubines that they buried alive so they could all be together in the afterlife). Yikes.
My favorite part of the tombs were the stone animals and soldiers that guarded the way to the tombs. There were huge stone elephants, camels, lions, and chimera. We took a lot of pictures with them and our Chinese tour guide thought we were nuts. In the afternoon we went back to the Presidential Office and then had about an hour to run through a Night Market. Our group is becoming rather adept at haggling.
At dinner we found out that our flight was going to be delayed more than 3 hours, but less than 4. (At 4 hours the airline has to put you up in a hotel.) That put us flying out at 1:30. It was a long night. However, the airline did hand out Sprite and ramen while we waited. I can't imagine an airline in America ever doing that. We finally got home at about 3:30 and discovered that the University would be having an all day power outage starting at 7:30 in the morning. What a warm (literally) welcome home. We showered before we went to sleep and got up just as the AC clicked off for the day.
We were all especially grateful for church today. It was fast and testimony meeting. When it came time for testimonies, they asked for 2 volunteers from the Xiamen group, so Jasen and I volunteered. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to bear my testimony across all of China. I imagine that I probably won't have many more opportunities to bear my testimony via Skype. It was a little weird to have my back to the group and just talk to the computer, but it was also pretty awesome.
After church we had a 4th of July BBQ! Skip and Callie had brought buns and BBQ pork, and potato salad, AND homemade rootbeer! Alicia provided the salad, brownies, and jello and we brought drinks and chips. I am not kidding when I say that several of us were very close to getting emotional over the welcome sight of such familiar food. We all ate our fill and were incredibly happy.
Traveling abroad always makes me very grateful for all of the blessings that we enjoy at home. I am very grateful to be an American.
We went home and struggled through the rest of the day without electricity. We tried to nap, as we had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before and, as Talia said, "We slept like sweaty babies". It didn't last last long. We went out to find some kind of relief and discovered the only hotel on campus that still had AC and sat on a couch there for 4 hours until the power came back on.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder and there are no words to express how fond I am of air-conditioning.
Today I miss regular toilets (not squat pots), and reliable electricity. I also miss fireworks on a warm summer night. God bless America.
No comments:
Post a Comment