Day 3: A Day of Walking

The stadium on campus. Make sure to sit in your
assigned university seats, denoted by color.

                Another 0445 wake up call. Finally, some sleep, though. I felt a bit sick from the day before’s food, as I had been warned. It sometimes takes the digestive system a period of time to adjust to such vastly different cuisine. Luckily, it was not too bad, and I was recovered by breakfast. Breakfast this time was a sunflower seed muffin, a ‘chocolate’ cupcake type imposter and vegetable wantons. Bai had taught me some Chinese the day before, so I decided to try it out. 50% credit. I said ‘three’ correctly, but I also added ‘weight’ after it – resulting in 15. The phrase I used is common to rice, for example, but not wantons – I had a snack for the day as a result. The server did not find this order strange, which is perhaps shocking to me. After breakfast, I went back for the 30% Juice, and went with orange this time. Also, good, but pulpy and not as good as the yellow. Come on orange, get with it. Yellow, clearly the leader at this point. Bai and I decided to go to Linggang/Nanhui New City during the day to walk around the lake (largest manmade lake in the world), as I had done a little bit the night before. $1 yuan bus ride required. The bus was full, but not crowded – but there was no A/C…luckily, I had my 30% Juice to keep me happy for the 20 minute ride. 

Lovely water feature with terraced gardens.

This is below sea-level - who knows why

Upon arrival, I received confirmation from what I heard the night before, Shanghainese come to Linggang to weekend and get away from the crowds. As a result, there were a ton of street vendors set up along the lakepath selling jewelry, accessories, toys and a ton of watermelon/other melons. It is melon season, apparently. There was even a bit of a scene when one of the street vendors was confronted by the police for not having a permit for the location he was in. The police seemed very angry and the vendor relented, but Bai explained how it is just a big game, as the vendor will return when the police depart. I am guessing this is why they were so angry. There was also confirmation of Bai’s warning that many people would take photos of me strictly because of my race. Lots of phones out for this exotic American. There was also a very cool sunken water feature, just because. Really, it is something to walk around this city, billed as ‘the future of city living’ or something like that. Everything is engineered, even down the vegetation. Newly planted trees are the only kind of trees, it seems. As the lakepath petered out, I suggested to walk back to the university, as Tian had told me the way the night before and there was time to kill. Plus, it was supposed to be nasty weather followed by nastier 93+F heat for 5 days, and now was the time to get some exercise in. 40 sticky minutes later, we arrived back at campus and I took a nice cold shower and rested my ankles.

The center of campus - gives a good idea
of how the rest of campus looks

                For lunch, Bai and I decided on Tibetan food. It is a segregated hall from the rest of the building it is housed in, due to Tibetans aversion to pork, Bai inferred. Again, my ordering skills need sharpening, I did not receive the vegetables I asked for, but instead, more rice and chicken. Oh well, it was tasty, and I stole some from Bai, who had received too much. It is odd to me there are no beverage servings at these cafeterias. I need some fluids, people! This time, I found fluids at a separate smoothie bar, I guess you would call it. I went for mango. It was a great serving size (pretty large, maybe 500mL), cold, smooth and delicious. And also $14 yuan. That is as much as lunch cost – but very worth it. I will probably buy these pretty frequently, especially on those 90+F degree days.

                (At this point, I think the novelty of describing every meal to you, the reader, has lost its shine. I will not bore you with details of my cafeteria experiences (unless truly warranted) any further!)

Upon returning to the hotel room, Bai signaled she would be doing laundry and that I should learn how to for my own purposes. She had complained about a dryer cycle that required 8(!) hours of runtime. I couldn’t believe it, so I wondered aloud about a possible second spin cycle, and it was agreed we would run an experiment.  Science! Bai wondered if it were possible to run just a spin cycle with the machine, which had only Chinese language near the buttons/settings, but I didn’t need to necessarily read the labels, only the one that described the spin. Electronics work the same across languages, fortunately, and I was able to make the desired light come on. The second spin cycle decreased the drying time to less than 3 hours (at least). A great success, indeed. Such critical thinking brought on a nap that lasted through dinner. Science is hard.

After dinner, we headed to the supermarket. It was very busy in this area – but mostly for restaurant patronage. I grabbed a big jug of kiwi juice at the first stop and nectarines and grapes for the week’s lunch at the second stop. Something I noticed immediately was the individual plastic wrapping or many fruits, such as peaches and apples to prevent bruising. The plastic, I tell you, so much. The checkout line was also an experience. The cashier was processing orders three at a time, but not necessarily in a linear fashion. If Bai were not with me (as always), I am sure he could have named his price with no resistance from me.

The evening’s plans involved a card game that I have been trying to learn a long time. It requires at least 4 players and 4 decks and it is called “Beat the Landlord”. Besides Bai and myself, I met 3 new friends associated within our same circle. I learned the game, though holding an entire deck in your hand is quite difficult, and even won a hand. Oddly, enough, we played at the office – the place with the largest space and most comfortable arrangements. Maybe not so odd after all.