My National Holiday Trip

In China, the first 3 days of October are a National Holiday, so no work for me on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday this week! As I mentioned earlier, Christine, one of my Chinese teachers had invited me to spend a few days with her family. I was not impressed when my alarm clock went off at 4:30 on Monday morning - I was meant to be on holiday, but no - I had a train to catch. Christine had warned me to be at the train station at least an hour before the train left (scheduled for 6:30), so I had to get a taxi to the station - the metro doesn't start running until 5:30. Believe it or not there was a massive traffic jam around the station at 5:30. It was amazing, 5:30 in the morning on a bank holiday Monday!! Anyway, I gave up sitting in the taxi, and walked the last few minutes to the train station. I arrived at the station to find a completely different entrance to that I'd spent hours at trying to buy a ticket the week before! No matter; I queued up, got my ticket checked, my bag X-rayed and found my way to my waiting room. Then I waited...and waited. I still don't know why I had to be at the station so early. They didn't let you board the train until 10 mins before it left. Ach well, the experience was good for me - character building! So, at last I got on the train.

The trip was fairly uneventful. The carriage was very noisy - as I've come to expect everywhere in China, but I just plugged in my new MP3 player (which is about half the size of a box of matches) and listened to my own noise. After 4 hours, the train arrived in Lu Cheng and I was met by Christine and her brother Geraint. The promised trip to her village on the back of a motorbike didn't happen - we all took a car out to her aunt's house for a family party. After being introduced to the family, we went for a walk round the paddy fields - as I said I'd never been in one. Did you know that there are lots of snakes in paddy fields? There was a bloke hunting snakes in the field we went to visit, and he'd just caught one. He was so proud showing it off for the camera, before he put it in the basket on the front of his motorbike (with the other half dozen he had already caught) and drove off. I had to think of him later as we sat down for a great banquet, which included eels! Lunch was really amazing. The dishes just kept coming and coming. I ate as much as I could, but I put up a really poor show on the eating front compared to everybody else, but by the time my few days were over I had firmly established my reputation for having a small stomach. No, I don't think it's true either!

Later on in the afternoon, we went wandering through the paddy fields to a pool and went fishing. My attention soon wandered, and I ended up strolling through the paddy fields, keeping an eye out for snakes. I couldn't believe that I was there. I remember being taught about paddy fields in China while I was in Primary school, and here I was standing in one. Who'd have ever of thought?? I also remember learning about Chinese fisherman using cormorants to catch fish, but that's another trip. Our fishing trip was the classic type - rods, hooks and no fish. We'd been very optimistic and had taken a net out with us, and some kind soul dug up a couple of sweet potatoes from beside the pond so that I didn't return empty-handed. My announcement of 'look we got two fish' was met with laughter. I'm not sure if it was at the 'fish' or at my bad Chinese.

After another bumper meal, we headed back to Christine's, and I was ready for my shower (with hot water from a solar panel) and bed. It had been a long day! The next morning I did try to eat my rice porridge for breakfast, but didn't make a big dent in it. It's a specialty of the region, and when the Chinese kings traveled to the South of China they would stop off to eat the porridge. An acquired taste, I found. Next, I helped Christine with the washing. Or rather, I watched Christine sit on the doorstep and wash the clothes by hand, before taking them over to the village pond to rinse them out. We met quite a few of the neighbours on this trip, and word of the arrival of a foreigner started to spread! I was the first foreigner ever to visit the village, and it was a very strange experience. During the course of the day, everybody in the village found an excuse to come and visit us. Some people just stood and stared, others spoke to me and some of the younger kids ran away crying!

On Wednesday, I entertained the neighbours with my badminton and table tennis skills, befor esitting in the shade reading my book. Yes, even at 11 am it was uncomfortably hot in the sun. Well, it is October!! I had news from Russia - they're already scraping the cars in the morning!!! I haven't needed to wear a jumper yet, never mind a jacket. So, after lunch, I jumped on the back of a motorbike, no helmet, nowhere to hang on to and we headed off to the main road to meet up with some folks who were taking us to the nearest city - Danyang, a small place of 800,000 people. That's about the size of Glasgow, and I'd never even heard of it. It's famous for shoes and specs. I've never seen so many opticians! Across from the station there was a whole shopping centre - and every shop was an opticians. Christine was thinking about getting contact lenses, so we visited a couple. She was chatting to the assistant and I decided that I'd try out the eye test. When I had my medical for my visa, I had to have an eye test. When I go to the line I couldn't read any more I said so, and the doctor said 'really?', so I'm a bit concerned about this turning 40 lark, and started on the slippery slope. Anyway, I was standing testing my eyes on the chart, decideing that I didn't really have anything too much to worry about (but will get an eye test next time I'm home, just in case!) and I looked up to find a group of shop assistants watching me and laughing their heads off. Silly foreigners!

So back to work on Thursday. It was a bit of a struggle getting up 'cos I arrived back about midnight, so 5:45 came around a bit quick. I certainly seem to take this Chinese belief of early to rise to heart. I still need to work on the other half - the early to bed bit. It's great, it's the weekend again already! Wonder what mischief I can get into ?