World's Biggest Annual Human Migration Underway in China

... and we are going to be part of it.

Check the link below.

http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/worlds-biggest-annual-human-migration-begins-in-china/

We will let you know how our Changchun to Beijing train trip goes tomorrow night. Wish us luck!

Term over, bring on more adventures!

Marks are in, desk is cleaned off and it is time for a bit of relaxation and getting things together for our travels. The remaining students are going home today; the dining hall, coffee shop and store will close this afternoon.  Our local gym has already shut down for the holidays.  Teachers are leaving for near and far, some home to Spain, the Philippines, India, Canada and the USA, others for holidays in to Thailand, Nepal, Singapore and Germany.

(If one of the students had written that last sentence, we'd be crying, "Run on! Incorrect parallel structure! Watch those commas!" We say a lot of silly things.)

We will keep you posted.

EE and DEA

Travel plans!

Hi friends.

E at Nanhu Park in September

Thanks to our dear friend E  and Sophia and Gary of Win Win Travels in Yangshou, our holiday is planned.  The internet, Hostel World, Ctrip  (like a Chinese Expedia, ) credit cards and PayPal make this so much easier that it would have been 10 years ago.

So:  Changchun - Beijing - Yangshuo - Xian - Pingyao - Taiyuan (airport) - Changchun.   We might make a quick trip to Haerbin after that before heading back to North America at the end of February. The excitement starts on January 21. Before then we have to make a "dry run" to the train station; train rides during the Spring Festival/ NewYear period are apparently an experience unlike any other. Oh, teach and make up exams (Liz) finish marking (both of us) and make a trip out to Beifang market (the north market) to pick up some clothes that are being made for us (and a certain little girl for her New Year celebration.)

North America? I thought you were going to stay for a year. Is something wrong?

We were, and nothing is wrong. Dean Phillip was doing a year long plan  and asked David if he would be available to teach his fall courses again.  Since we would not do a full year, go home for four weeks then return, the College graciously offered us the opportunity to teach here for one semester, be in Canada for the spring and summer, and return in August!  We can even keep the same apartment, which is perfect.  (The climb up to the fifth floor several times a day is great exercise and it is very quiet.)

Speaking of making up exams, I'd better get them done.  Liz :-)

And then there were roosters

Quick bus trip down to Guilin Lu today to pick up some things at the International grocery store. That sounds like a shiny western type place. Imagine instead a narrow stairway in a row of small shops and restaurant, leading past boxes and bikes and doors to the second floor. There is a  door marked "Sam's Food Market." After you push the doorbell and are scanned by an eye in the  door,  the door opens and you are in a tiny room with two people, a calculator and some bottles of wine, adjoining two very small rooms, one with a freezer.  E. needed some whole wheat pasta. We wanted salsa, tortilla chips and coffee. Score - there was some Campbell's cream of chicken soup as well! Actually the tiny store is very well stocked with the strange things that foreigners want to eat, mostly Americans, Canadians and Germans.

There is another one about two blocks away that is a bit more modern. Between the two we can get most of the things we miss. In the fall the real find was cheddar cheese. Right now, Walmart - or Waldemart - has extra-old Cheddar for less that we pay in Ottawa. Must be a December/January thing.

Anyway, the bus home bus passes several small outdoor markets. At the one closest to home there was one of the ubiquitous three wheeled  bikes with a big box over the two wheels at the back.  These often carry materials for recycling or supplies for the street cleaners. The box on this one was full of live roosters.

(This photo is just a random rooster. The ones I saw today may end up in tomorrow's hot pot.)

December ....

Hello friends,

We have been teaching, celebrating with friends, planning our trip which starts at the end of this month and just being. here are some photos. Descriptions to follow (maybe.) Love, Liz and David

This is snow that fell in early December. We have only had about 10 cm total. It has been well below freezing ever day so nothing has melted. Someone shovelled a patch on the soccer field. Who knows why? This morning at 7 there was a man walking backwards on the rutted and icy track around the field. Why not? That's building 2 where I teach.








Many doors, including the doors to the Teachers' Dormitory are covered with thick curtains against the cold.  In some big shopping centres, you walk though the thick and heavy curtains and around a bit of a maze to get inside.
They are effective. It has been so cold that the plastic "windows"on the curtains have been covered with thick frost.

As you can imagine, there are lots of collisions.




Here is the entrance to the gym - in this little area you can find a hotel (pay by the hour,)  hair salon, grocery store - quite a good one with several butchers and great produce section - coffee shop and the stairs. There are other businesses too, but I have no idea what they are. It's like that here.


"Down a steep and very narrow staircase" from the gym.  There is sun right at the top of the stairs but they are otherwise rather dimly lit.

This is a rather fuzzy photo of the checkin desk at the gym.

Gyms are gyms everywhere. Hand in the card at the desk, smile, say nihao and xie xie and that's it. No need for much language, just change and hit the weight room.

Until you lock your key in your locker on the one day you decide to have a shower and get your gym clothes wet too.  At times like that it is  handy that there are so many students from both universities in attendance: there is often someone around who speaks a bit of English. A trio of kind young women came to my aid.... I did play up the helpless old woman thing a bit.  Staff asked me to write down a list of the contents then handed us the bolt cutters.

In four months, I have only seen other women working out in the weight room twice. There are yoga and belly dance classes, quite a few women use the treadmills and some do stretching and body weights in the "dance room." Some people do stare at the grey haired old foreign woman who lifts weights in a "180 Fitness" DB singlet, but they do it surreptitiously.

As I wrote above, a gym is a gym.  If you know what to do,  it is cool.



And this is why I love China. Step out of cold gloomy stairwell into a sunny day filled with all sorts of different sights and sounds. There are bright red letters on the buildings.  Straw is piled on newly laid concrete - it is there for the winter.

We get rather caught up in the teaching, and that's fine because that's the job .  But just walking anywhere is an adventure full of images that could fill many blogs!

A Winter Trip to Jingyuetan

 A winter trip to Jingyuetan, or, chickadees speak the same language in China

(I did hear and then see a chickadee. He might have been a bit bigger than the friendly little birds on the Jack Pine Trail in Ottawa, and he might have been more of a baritone than a tenor. But, that little bird was definitely a chickadee. No photo.)


The Vasaloppet is just over a month away. Time to check out the ski field and facilities in the  Jingyuetan National Forest Park.

Here are some photos, out of order . The story follows. I'll try to match them up later this week.

There was another small earthquake yesterday, November 23,  the third since we have been here. I was asleep.  There was another one about three weeks ago. One of the young teachers from California rushed into my classroom  and asked if we had felt it. I hadn't, and the students would not interrupt the lesson. However, one student wrote this sentence on his next spelling test, "There was an earthquake, but the teacher made us keep working!"

I finally made a trip out to the ski centre at Jingyuetan National Forest Park today: 45 minutes on the light rail, much of it standing in sardine-like conditions, then a 10 km walk around the semi-frozen lake.  The downhill area is very tame.  People get their rental skis on (and those I saw were all novices) then are pushed/pulled by volunteers to the base of the lift. That is a moving sidewalk like you find in an airport.  There was so much fog/smog this morning that it disappeared into the clouds, but at some point the sidewalk ends and people go down on a wide and barely perceptible slope, to be caught by yet more volunteers clad in bright green bibs. There is a chair lift for another part of the hill. 

The cross country ski centre is another 500 metres down the road.  The building was closed (as was the restaurant advertising German coffee and cakes, which sounded appealing after a 10 km hike.) A German man and little daughter were getting into their car after some serious cross country skiing. He directed me to the ski rental hut, about 500 metres across the field.

Many of you have been in places where you did not speak the language so you will understand.  I passed a  group of workers scraping away at the snow. They looked at me with looks that are in no way unfriendly, clearly thinking, "What is this old foreign woman doing here?"

I went into the building. Typical ski rental place: skis on one side, boots on the other, toilet (very welcome at that time,) and snack bar  (milk teas and noodle cartons.) There were a lot of young people there (college age.)  After a bit one young woman asked in brave English if she could help me.

After considerable sign language, discussion, and input from 15 young people, several supervisors and the snow clearers, it emerged that I had come the back way, (snuck in, as it were) and had to go back and get by ticket at the front about one km back the way I had come.  I tried to find out how they got in, and therefore avoid the longer walk, but that was impossible to communicate or do. So after many apologies on their part, they sent the old foreign woman back across the snow, with "bye-bye's" and waves.

The kids were in training to be volunteers at the big race that takes place here on January 1, the "VasaLoppet.") It is estimated that there will be 10 000 competitors from around the world.  I had hoped to do the 17.5 km race, but that is now 20 km, which may be a little long. Perhaps I can get out there again some afternoon this week and actually get on the snow. The alternative is the 2.5 km fun ski, which will be crazy, and definitely fun. 

A week from Friday we are expected to provide some sort of "English Enrichment " for the students. I proposed that several of us take them on the light rail for a morning on cross country skiis. Hope that idea is approved.

There IS a shuttle bus from the main entrance gate to the ski hill, so I was able to get back in 15 minutes instead of nearly two hours. (Hallelujah!) The road is narrow; imagine the road beside Meech Lake. The only other people riding the bus were a pair of students who asked if we could talk in English. That happens here all the time. They were gracious and sweet and thrilled to have their photo taken.

The train ride home was half an hour and I sat the whole way. It is about 300 metres from the train station to the North gate of our college, and from there about 600 metres to the residence. In between is the dining hall where I stopped for a cup of milky coffee and one of the yummy breakfast pancakes with meat filling to take back to the apartment. ($1.40)

We dined on the pancake, home made salsa (David's creation) and some of the corn chips and bagels I bought at the international food store downtown on Friday afternoon. Now marking.  Yesterday I cleaned. Today which I was out, David tidied and sorted and we have NO MORE EXCUSES not to finish our home work.

XO

Liz

A winter morning ramble in Changchun - Sunday November 17

(We are behind in the labelling ... photos for now XO)

Sunday November 17

Most of the apartment buildings are in complexes, with gates, guards, parks, stores, schools, restaurants and lots of public art.  The art is sometimes a bit neglected but never vandalized.  We have posted several pictures of the huge "Sunny City" complex right beside our college.  This one is located across the light rail tracks outside the north gate.

Cranes and construction everywhere. This building was stripped to the bricks and is being rebuilt. The sky really was that colour.

 This is a rare sight in Changchun.  The city used to be full of low brick buildings like these that were torn down to make way for the apartments. Most of the building sites, or abandoned homes are hidden by huge hoardings decorated with advertisements for the luxurious structures to come.  We will photograph and post some of those signs.  This little house was intriguing.

As was this little stream and bridge.  It reminds me of the Sawmill Creek in Ottawa.

 
One advantage of snow is that you can see where people have been, so I followed footsteps past an apartment building and down into the mixture of abandoned homes and allotment gardens, now asleep.

And across this little bridge. About 20 metres further a man was shovelling snow. I felt a bit shy and retreated. That was silly - there is little sense of private property here. People walk everywhere, and nobody seems concerned.

 

Sasquatch?

Yeti?

Bigfoot?

No, it's just David, ready for winter.  He would be equally at home in Vladivostok, which is not far from here.