Ok, I know where I am. Tianmen. Did I tell you that? just in case, I tell you again. Tiamen, in the Middle-of-nowhere province. rock on
Anyway, good evening my friends!
I know you've all been waiting for this email! heheheheeh! You're hooked now!
Me too, that's the problem...my life is so interesting and busy at the moment, than writing this so called diary is the highlight of the day. You can imagine the rest.
But let's not complain! Tomorrow is another day and I will have to clean. Because nobody else did. Surprise surprise. Chinese hospitality? probably. I'm complaining again.
Where did I leave you, my passionate followers? oh yeah, I was packing to go to Wuhan.
As a sailor crosses the sea, Ellie crossed the whole province of Middle-of-nowhere (Hu bei in Chinese) and went to Wuhan.
The trip was actually quiet interesting. The bus was very middle aged (I mean, from the middle age) and let's not talk of the roads. Unless you are in a big city, roads don't know tarmac (neither did I, up to last week...Stevie told me the word). So we traveled on holes surrounded by mud, dust or simple soil, till we got to the motorway. Ah, what a relieve for my back. The trip lasted more less 3 hours, and we've been delighted by a very funny (I suppose) Chinese movie. Interesting. plus the people staring at me...all trying to sit beside me, but the woman was defending that space she conquered with sweat and blood!
So. I got to Wuhan (that it means Shining Capital of The Middle of Nowhere Province. Chinese are very good in summarizing...) and I dashed to get a taxi, to finally meet the only one English speaker dwelling in the province. Stevie.
(little digression: I'm eating biscuits that taste of chicken)
I get to the hotel and I almost kill Stevie with my pestering smell. So she kicked me in the shower, she made me a coffee and then we went out to get some food. All the time we were speaking in English, and this is an important remark.
So, we get to a restaurant and we sit. At this point of infinite darkness, while all the people were speaking to us in Chinese and showing as menus in Chinese, Stevie produced a shiny book from her bag; a shine little golden book with diamonds on the cover and sapphires as a lock. She pronounced some strange mystic words, and the book opened, spreading star dust on the waitress. And she understood.
Ok, it was a simple phrase book, but for us it was more precious than gold!!!
In this way we got a massive amount of food on our table, and a teapot full of hot water. Hot water? I wondered in wonder. And Wise Stevie explained me that it is because you can't drink normal water in China (tap water, that's it) so you get boiled water. What about the tea? We tried our best to pronounce tea in Chinese, but it didn't work, so...hot water will do! The beautiful thing of Eating in Chinese restaurant is the people. Spitting on the floor just right in front of you. Honestly it has been hard to keep my dinner in. How can they do that??? And smoking. I hate that!! Anyway, what could we do? Local customs. But the food was great. Obviously some of the locals tried to chat with us, but it didn't work out very well... (I've just run out of chicken biscuits...mmmh...)
Oh well, the day after we were ready to go and conquer Wuhan! We had an incredibly good breakfast...with steamed bread! ahahahahahahah! sweet and savory...while Stevie got addicted to dim sum (nothing more than small Victoria sponge). After filling ourselves up, we started walking to get to the city center. Now, O really want to see you trying to cross a Chinese street. It is a daredevil sport. I've never been so closed to death. Drivers simply blank out pedestrians. Or try to kill them . That is the same. (I'm watching Muse's videos on youku, and I decided that I want to marry Matt Bellamy. I think you don't care). We were just waiting for some locals to cross the road and follow them, as fast as possible. What a nightmare!!! We wanted to find the park and luckily some of our followers directed us. See? sometimes stalkers are useful!
We walked and walked and walked, till we get to the supposed city center. FULL of people, cars, bikes, motorbikes...anything! We walked around slightly confused, hunting for food and we went down a small alley clearly dedicated to selling shoes. Every single shop had shoes. And the strangest sight hit me! An old man walking around in pyjama and slippers. Local customs again??? Who knows...
A very impressive thing about Wuhan is that they have adapters. That it is not a kind of dinosaur, but an essential item for every traveler. You can't find adapters in Tianmen, but thanks to Stevie' shining phrase book, we found one in Wuhan. And Stevie bought it for me!!! Ready...steady...worship! A present from the sky. It was simply too expensive for me (yeah yeah I know, I have to learn that China is no-debit/credit card place...only cash) but Stevie came down in a beam of light and saved the day.
Life looked better, suddenly. So we decided to take the ferry. And from the river, my eager followers, we could finally behold the extent of the pollution in this country. We couldn't see clearly the building on the other side of the river...a river that is slightly larger than the Thames, to give you an idea. But we could see the sun. The pollution was so intense that it was creating a "sun glasses" effect and the sun looked like the moon. It's a bit scary, trust me. I hope they'll do something about it. Not that we have much time left, but anyway...we're supposed to leave the place as we found it! Bah!
The other side of the river is actually much nicer. Smaller and nicer building, less people and traffic. And we found a tea room where we rested for a hour or so, before walking up to the Yellow Crane Tower, a Chinese style building, very very nice. But we didn't get in...too expensive and anyway, thanks to the pollution, we couldn't see that far.
So we crossed the river back to the modern bit, and we desperately tried to get a taxi (getting an ice cream on the way). Taxi drivers did not bother...they couldn't understand neither us nor the map. So we had to walk again all the way back. My legs and feet were singing a very sad tune when we got back to the hotel...I got into my pyjama, but Stevie forced me to go out for dinner! No respect for young people!!! We ended up in a shopping center in a place that looked more Japanese than Chinese, but who cares! The very cute waiter made up for it. How cuuuuute! Stevie proclaimed that she wasn't that hungry so she ordered a salad. I got tofu with rice. In a few minutes the very cute waiter brought us a bowl of fruit salad with ice cream on top! How nice a present, we thought! So we shared it and ate it. Very nice indeed. Then my tofu arrived...and we waited for Stevie's salad. and we waited and waited...till a strange suspect started growing in our brains...was the fruit salad Stevie's dinner? We'll never know for sure, but most probably yes. Ups.
The day after it was raining...good day for a museum! So, after another good breakfast, we left happily, with the idea of changing some money. We went to the bank and found out that they change money only Monday to Friday. Lazy cows! Why are you open then??? Close down and go home!!! Slightly pissed off we got a taxi and we got to the museum. Very interesting, especially the sight of an old Chinese woman having a poo with the door open. This put off Stevie from going to the bathroom for more than a hour. How sweet.
Unfortunately the time came to say goodbye. I went to the coach station and bought the ticket (thanks to a note that Song wrote for me) and a woman all dressed in red grabbed me and took me to the bus. She was speaking a lot, but the only word I could get was Tianmen. "Tianmen!" "jhgvjhchsdiuvh Tianmen uisfhuisdh" "Yeah...Tianmen..." "Tianmen gbuksgsd?" "Tian...Tianmen...?" "TIanmen". Very interesting. We all got on the bus and we started watching Chinese stand up comedy (?) and then an American movie dubbed in Chinese. They never got the mouth moving right. It was quiet funny!
When I got the Tianmen, all the people on the coach suddenly wanted to talk to me, take photographs and so on...oh my god, I don't speak Chinese! help! I ran and ran, followed by a cloud of screaming people, and I ran till I understood that I couldn't run forever! So I turned to face them, naked my sword and...oh no, that is another story. I just jumped in a taxi. And got home. To find it as dirty as I left it. Well that's life.
The good thing is that after a few hours that I was at home, 4 of my students came to see me. That was nice, good way to end a nice (polluted) week end. Difficult to communicate sometimes, but funny enough.
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