Daily Discovery
February 2019
February 28: A surprise, today!
An old PCV who served in the city "next to" mine (it's still about 3 hours away by train) about 6 years ago was back in China doing some research for his PhD studies, and stopped by Wuwei on this way through to his old site.
I showed him around Wuwei in the afternoon and then we met some of his former students who now live in Wuwei for dinner, followed by KTV! It was a fun night and a great time to see and meet new people.
February 27: Back to classes again, and this semester, there is a computer and projector available for me to use in my classes - which is extremely nice and convenient!
The downside, though, is that the computer is completely loaded with viruses - notably, the shortcut virus is quite prominent and always tries to destroy my flashdrive each class - and even getting to use the PPT is a challenge; each virus or spamware or whatever-it-is-in-actuality loads a lovely popup that is difficult to get exit out of ... tonight, I had to exit at least 22 of these before I could open the PPT and ignore the rest.
February 26: Wuwei didn't change too much over the break while I was gone - one change I noticed, though, at the first intersection I passed on my way to my apartment.
Almost all of the intersections in Wuwei now have these fancy street signs, with Chinese and English pointing the way to many many places throughout the city - they even have a little map, too, with important places nearby. At this point in my service, I know the city pretty well, but I imagine if there is another Volunteer here in the future, these signs will be a huge benefit in getting to know their new home!
February 25: It's the first day of class, but I needed a bit of extra motivation and experimentation in the kitchen to keep me going this week, so I splurged on a ceramic pot (thank you Grandma for the birthday money!).
I bought this pot to make some bread in, as dutch ovens are quite expensive and rare here, but this Chinese equivalent looked like it could do the job.
Yet, my toaster oven here is quite small, so it was an adventure trying to figure out if the pots in the supermarket could fit in the oven... and neither I nor anybody in the shop had a tape measure, so we resorted to the next best thing: a piece of shoe lace-like string that I hauled between the store on the second floor with an oven similar to mine and the supermarket on the first floor with all of the pots, before settling on the pot that I ended up buying...
Returning home, I realized that method wasn't very accurate, and well, the pot didn't really fit, but with a bit of tinkering and use of aluminum foil instead of the cover, I was able to make it work and baked my first loaf of delicious, crusty bread. Now, I can use my bread pans for banana breads, and this pot for sandwich and snacking bread. I am ready for the last semester!
February 24: Another sign that classes are starting tomorrow? All of the students are returning to the school (I've asked, they don't have a schedule yet, either).
Even without a schedule, though, the class monitors are already lining up to collect the carts of textbooks to take back for their respective classes.
It's empty now, as these students are beating the rush, but soon the area will be swarming with students picking up hundreds of books at a time for their classmates.
February 23: It's getting close to the beginning of the school semester - or at least, I am hypothesizing that this is the case, as I haven't received any form of schedule yet.
That means it is time for my biannual haircut.. and it was an experience, like always. It's quite difficult to explain what kind of haircut I want, and even with pictures, it is expected that the result will quite resemble what was intended. Today's cut looks more a bucket than usual with jagged bangs, so the picture won't be of that today.
Instead, I stopped at the market on my way back from the hairdresser, and bought some bananas. I was fortunate to find that this market has closed yet, and even though it is a 50+ minute walk away from my apartment, I'll probably have to stop by.
I am used to seeing the vendors bring their goods to the market in one of those three wheeled cart trucks, but today one of the vendors brought his via donkey-drawn cart, which is the first time I've seen that here in Wuwei.
February 22: Another interesting discovery on the plastic usage front here in China - I've talked a lot before about how plastic is consumed at frightening rates here in China; it's one of the things that stresses me out the most here.
My host mother gave me this yogurt, which as usual, is a single serving packaged within a large plastic bag and sold with a straw taped to its side. This is the first time I have seen this particular design, however, where the bag uses more plastic to create a handle.
Do you see it? At the right, there is small enclosed section filled with air to create a handle. What do you think about this design?
February 21: It's kind of boring at times living in a deserted school - for that's exactly where I live now while the school is out of session and all of the students and faculty are back home.
The school empties, and the surrounding area shuts down without the customers to keep them open, and I remain living on campus almost alone - I could spend the entire week without talking to a single person, if I chose, but I don't want to do that, so I head outside to the markets and walk the streets, chatting with people I find and buy things from.
When I'm at home, though, I tend to turn my kitchen into a laboratory, and spend a lot of my free time baking and cooking and trying to make new dishes that are failures as often as successes.
Today, I made this onion sauce that I was inspired to make: the flavor combination came to me while traveling with my father and I tried it for the first time today: caramelized onions with pepper sauce and a touch of peach jam - it makes an incredible saucy-spread that would be great with a beef sandwich, I think. I don't eat beef, but it works just as well with tofu and quick-pickled carrots and radishes.
February 20: Yesterday, for the holiday, I got dinner with my host family here in Wuwei: we cooked hot pot at their home, and as always, it was delicious.
The surprising discovery of the day was the 桃酥 cookies that they had in their house, which were their favorite in Wuwei - and now they might be my favorite cookie/dessert that I have found in China.
They look like most Chinese cookies, but don't have the ubiquitous fake butter flavor that I've always encountered before. Instead, they have a bit of a coconut flavor, and the taste and texture remind me so much of my Grandma Kay's "World's Best Cookies" that she would always make me when I was in the States.
I miss her, but I am glad that I have found something here in Wuwei that reminds me of her.
February 19: Today is 元宵节 (Lantern Festival), which, as I have been told, is the end of the festivities that started earlier in the month with the Chinese Lunar New Year, and it's a special day here in Wuwei.
The streets are packed with lights and people: lights on the trees, and people walking the streets with their family to see them all, with a few families from outside of the main city area packed in to the back of their little cart trucks driving through to gaze at the city lit anew.
Another tradition today is to eat 汤圆 (or 元宵), which are little stuffed balls of sticky rice, usually filled with a sesame paste, peanut paste, or even some fruit fillings that I've seen recently. My favorite is the black sesame sticky rice balls - not to sweet, but oh so delicious. I've bought a bag and will boil a few of them every day in the coming week!
February 18: I've made it back to Wuwei - 558 hours on the train completed thus far in my service, so I'm not stranger to the trains, but it is nice to finally get off and stretch my legs a little bit. I didn't sleep too well on the train last night, so I'm a bit tired and it will be nice to get back to my apartment and settle in for the rest of the day and get a nice long sleep in overnight - then it's off to the supermarket to buy some vegetables for the week.
February 17: It's a bit of sad day, today, saying goodbye to my father as he heads back to the States, but it's also a happy day as I look back at everything we were able to accomplish and see during our week together. It was amazing, and I am fortunate to have such a great family, and blessed to have the opportunity to see them multiple times during my service.
And so, now it's back to Wuwei for me, as the next semester inches closer, even as I board the 23 hour train back to site.
I was lucky to get a hard sleeper ticket on the way back, so I hopefully will be able to get a little sleep at the very least; one of the other aspects of riding the sleeper compartments is that you exchange your tickets when you board, and receive a card that proves you have a bunk; when your train is nearing the station (particularly if you have an early morning arrival) the train attendants know exactly who will get off at each stop and make sure you are up and ready to go.
February 16: I don't know if you can come to China and travel without visiting the Great Wall. I've seen the Great Wall a few times previously, but always at the western end of the wall, never near the beginning close to Beijing.
Today, my father and I checked that destination off of our travel list, heading to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It was incredible, if a little dangerous due to the snow and ice that remained on the wall after a large storm just days ago, but the views were spectacular and the other travelers were few, so we had enough space and time to really enjoy the trip today.
And the cable car we took to the top? It was the same one that President Clinton rode in during his trip to the same section of the Great Wall in 1998.
February 15: It's my birthday today - yippee! It's not too special, but I am very grateful that I am able to spend it with my father exploring some of the great places in Beijing.
Today we went to the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It was a very busy day, but incredibly interesting and rewarding, and I don't know if I'd have rather celebrated my birthday in any other way.
February 14: Happy Valentine's Day, Grandma!
It was a nice surprise to receive my only Valentine this year from Grandma - a cute little bobblehead companion that will be traveling back to Wuwei with me!
February 13: It's the last full day in Xi'an, and we stumbled upon a new (to us) street that was at least a kilometer long and full of great food, restaurants and stands on both sides.
I even found a new food that I hadn't heard of or seen before, which doesn't happen too enough for me anymore on my China travels.
I'm not sure what this is called (蛋菜夹馍? like, egg and vegetable with bread?), but it was unique: a warm toasted bread, stuffed with peppers; rose flavored pickled mustard tubers (?); a fried egg; a salted, preserved duck egg yolk; peanuts with peppers; and a mix of multiple types of nuts, including sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, peanuts, slivered almonds/macadamia nuts (?)...
Incredibly tasty and definitely something I'll miss when I leave Xi'an.
February 12: I don't know what else to say besides, "Wow." And that "photos don't do it justice."
The terracotta warriors are amazing, and it's incredible to see them, over a thousand years old and still so fantastically detailed, with hundreds intact and many burial chambers as-of-yet unearthed (I'm thinking they won't be touched anytime soon).
It was definitely a bucket-list type of day, and if you ever come to China, I hope that you will make the trip here to see these - I don't think you will be disappointed, and neither will the 20,000 other people who visit on the same day as you.
February 11: It's a long day today of traveling, as we say 'goodbye' to our first city of Shanghai and go to the second: Xi'an.
Xi'an is a city with a incredibly famous and well-known attraction: the terracotta warriors - which we will hopefully see tomorrow.
Today? We saw mostly large apartment buildings and smog as our fast train cruised along the route between the east coast of China and the middle north. Xi'an, here we come!
February 10: It's our one full day in Shanghai, and we made the most of it today: walking along the bund, and the older areas of the city where the architecture and the buildings are left over from the colonial era, walking along the river during the day and at night to see the lights that are the Chinese version of Times Square, and finally just wandering around the city to see what we can find - take a look for yourself with the pictures below!
Oh, and of course, I couldn't not take your standard tourist picture that everyone else was taking, though, perhaps theirs worked out better than mine.
February 9: My dad arrived today! I was incredibly happy to see him, and it feels really amazing to be with part of my family again, even if I still miss my mother and sisters a lot.
After traveling to the airport to meet him, we took the maglev train back to the city, which is perhaps one of the fastest trains in the world, as it uses magnets to push the train off the tracks, elevate it, and propel it along the track, making it able to travel at incredible speeds due to the lack of friction.
Case in point? Look at that photo with the speedometer reading. No, it's not a typo. Yes, it is 431 km/h (270 miles/hour).
February 8: Spring Festival is almost over - there are just a few days left, but even now people are starting to head back to their homes or to the homes in the cities where they work.
I'm heading to Shanghai today, to meet my father, who will be coming and visiting for a week to explore Shanghai, Xi'an, and Beijing with me. I'm very fortunate to be able to see him again in China, and looking forward to the time we will have together and the new places we will explore.
First, though, is the train ride: even on the fast train, it takes 14 hours to travel from Chengdu to the Eastern coast of China, where Shanghai is located. It takes longer if there is a snow storm that causes the train to wait in a tunnel for a few hours, and we ended up arriving close to three hours later than scheduled.
But, I made it, and so did the thousands of others waiting in the train station today: it was PACKED, or as the Chinese say: 人山人海, people mountain people sea.
February 7: It's the last full day that I will have to spend with my host family, and we are going out to the countryside just on the outskirts of Chengdu (even though that is still about an hour and a half drive, nearly the same as driving across Wisconsin to see my grandma. Hi, Grandma!)
It was a unique and incredible experience, that was fascinating in so many aspects: from the orange and pomelo trees they grow on the properties, to the 100 year old house built in a different style than anything you'd see today, to the love of fireworks in rural areas where there's no restrictions (and little conventional safety, I'd say).
My favorite part of the house: the kitchen where they cooked dinner, wood-fire fueled, and outside the house in a small concrete room right next to the pig pen.
February 6: While we have been busier celebrating with family and friends, there hasn't been a lot of time at home. Today there were no plans, so it was a perfect day to relax at home, AND teach my host mother how to make a few more delicious baked goods.
On the menu today: brownies. They were chocolatey, more like a cake consistency, and a little dry, but my host mother loved them. Why? Because they're not even a little bit sweet - the 1 1/2 cups of sugar called for in the recipe were immediately cut to 1/4 cup by my host mother, and the results were telling. To my new China-adapted sweet tooth, I could handle the difference, but if I hadn't lived here for a year and a half already, I don't believe I would have liked these brownies very much at all.
February 5: I was fortunate to be around Chengdu during the Spring Festival, so I also had the opportunity to visit my supervisor's house and celebrate a little bit with them, too.
Even more fortunate was the instruction I received in making dumplings from the "dumpling master," my supervisor's father, who could roll out the homemade dough and make a perfect dumpling in literally seconds.
February 4: Happy Spring Festival and Lunar New Year! Today was another day of celebration - this time with the family on my host mother's side. What did we eat for dinner? If you pay attention at all to my blog, you've probably guessed it: hot pot. I'm not sure if it's a very traditional Spring Festival food, but it is a traditional Chengdu food.
The specialties were in abundance tonight for the hot pot, not the least of which was the brain. Pig brain. It didn't look bad, and if I weren't a vegetarian or if it was customary to eat it, I would have, but it's the first time I've seen it at hot pot!
February 3: It's an important night - as all of the nights are in the next week of the Spring Festival holiday. Tonight was a dinner with my host father's side of the family, and my host mom's dad. We ate at one of the restaurants still open, with an abundance of dishes - 18 dishes for 8 eight people, and more than the table could hold as they started getting stacked on top of each other before we even reached the double digits.
My favorite? The steamed bread filled with red bean paste that came out for dessert, and not only because it's cute and looks exactly like a shitake mushroom, but also because it's delicious.
February 2: Spring Festival is almost here! One of the most visible signs? The subways are nearly deserted as so many people have already headed off to their hometowns. Usually, riding the subway is similar to the metaphorically can of sardines, with less space than those lovely fish.
February 1: It's Friday - the last day of work for my host mother before the Spring Festival. She doesn't have to work on the weekend, but many others do, as the government has moved the workdays from next Thursday and Friday to the weekend to facilitate a full-week of time off for the Spring Festival holiday.
How do we celebrate? Naturally, we must have homemade hot pot, which might be the best hot pot. It is a bit more work to prepare all of the vegetables, but it's a lot cheaper and you can have everything that you would like. My favorite three? Lotus root, seaweed strips, enoki mushrooms... and quail eggs. Okay, that's four, but there are too many great options for hot pot.
