Today started with a trip to the Yellow River. It’s kinda the lifeblood of China. So, we left at 8:30- everyone but Will, who wanted to stay home and work. The rest of us piled on the van to Zhengzhou, the biggest city close to us. (This is where our closest embassy is, for those who care).
An hour and a half later, we arrived at what I am going to call the Chinese Mount Rushmore.
Except you can climb the Chinese one.
And there are no rails. And limestone steps, and they aren’t regulated at all. So sometimes I was stepping steps that should have really been three. With no railing.
I don’t even know if I was terrified, disappointed, or kinda excited. I’m pretty sure I went “Well, that’s China, and I have to make it up this mountain” and the physical excursion took all of my mental capacities. Then I saw a woman climb this mountain… in heels.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU CHINA
(China snickers).
So we went to the top, and saw more sections of the park further away, and the yellow river.
Then, as I stood in exhaustion, we had to climb down. (At this point, it becomes relevant to note I had a bottle of water with me but didn’t want to drink it because I was trying to not use Chinese bathrooms. Every time I’ve used squat toilets it never ends well).
So we went down, which was scarier than going up as there was nothing to catch us.
Then we took golf carts to a restaurant. What kind?
This kind:
And here’s the meal we had:
And this is about the point I got heat exhaustion, because I was seated in the sun.
I asked to go home, knowing I didn’t have much water available and I wouldn’t be keen on drinking it, knowing we still had half a day ahead of us and if I didn’t get huge amounts soon I was going to turn into a very unintelligible mess. I suppose that’s the upside to having experienced heat exhaustion before?
So we head to the van, but we were done with this place anyway. I’m not sure if anyone Chinese believes I’m getting worse, because we head off to a place full of peacocks.
I suck it up and buy a water, knowing that if I’m not going home shade and water will be helpful. Ben (been there before) tried again to talk to people, and they agreed to let Ann and I go home on a bus if Ben would direct us. But it was obvious they thought we’d get lost and be unable to find our way back to campus, because in the van they came up to me and said it would be better if I stayed and went to the museum with everyone because the museum was air-conditioned, and they thought the bus ride would be too tiring.
I agreed, mainly because I didn’t want to fight with anybody at this point. At least the Van was air-conditioned, and I got to cool down. I also had finished a liter of water at this point. So we wandered through the museum, and I found some interesting things, though Ann and I wandered from the group and ourselves (I went to third floor first, and she went to second floor first). After an hour, though, I was exhausted again.
That meant there was a half-hour left to kill, so I went more visiting. I think I’m not big on museums or galleries. I can appreciate the things before me, but I like knowing what they were used for, any history that people have behind them, I like touching them and knowing what purpose they served. I don’t always get that in museums, and often there are a lot of repeats. Essentially, while I like museums, I get tired of them quite quickly. I’m amazed and impressed (think of all this archeology that has happened since the 1950s, as this stuff was all found after the Cultural Revolution), but there’s only so much amazement and impression that I can do in a day.
So at 4:30, our meeting time, we hopped outside where the teaching department took our picture, telling us it’d be on their website (I found out when I expressed my usual distaste at being in pictures) and I went, a-ha. That’s why the trip was funded by them, I guess, to entertain us but more importantly to show that they take care of us and we had fun.
And you know what? I did have fun.
Hey, remember that I’ve now been drinking water? When we got on the bus I thought to myself, “it’s okay, we’ll be home soon, so I can drink and then I can pee”.
Guess if we went straight home.
Your guess, it is correct. We stopped- for dinner. Where there was tea, and wine.
I finally used my first official (non-drug-testing) squat toilet in China. And….
AND IT WENT WELL! I DID NOT PEE DOWN MY LEG!!
This is great cause for celebration, I assure you.
Even if there was no toilet paper, this restroom actually had soap. So.
Then I had tasty, tasty sandwiches. By this time, Ann and I had traded physical states- I was feeling fine, and Ann was now exhausted and tired, which is kind of amusing, because this happened the last time we went into this chain of restaurant.
But she’s in bed and I am now watered up, so that’s all good.
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