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I can hardly believe I'm writing this...
We have both signed up to run 21km ( that's about 13 miles) in the Zhengzhou-Kaifeng International Marathon on 27th March. 2011. In a month. Ah. It's only a half marathon [he writes, hoping that by repeating it, it'll somehow get shorter] although, having spent the day discussing doing the 5km fun run, it wasn't until the last minute, sign-up sheets in front of us, we ticked the 'Half Marathon' box. Still, there's plenty of time to claim there's been an administrative error and switch to the short course. Either tha, or blame Andy for talking us into doing it - this will probably happen at around the 15km mark, anyway. It's not a sponsored run, costs only 5GBP to enter AND you get a free t-shirt. I'll be honest, the t-shirt was a major incentive. I've just got off the treadmill, which I have learnt will travel (so to speak) 5km in 37.5 minutes at what I thought was a sensible pace. I'd like to get the thing over with in 2 hours tops though, so I'll have to add a not-very-sensible pace to an already probably-not-very-sensible idea. Along with observations about mad taxi drivers and near-destruction tuk tuks, I'm filing this in Life And Death On The Road! X This has to be one of my favourite lines about China:
"In a country with a history of associating its leadership with the power to control the weather, it’s the government that will be called upon to make it rain." What surprised me most about visiting Kaifeng was, in fact, nothing to do with the city but how surprised Chinese people are when you describe both baozi and jaozi as dumplings.
Baozi are small flour parcels filled with, well, anything really, and steamed. Jaozi are larger, but boiled, and filled with similarly unidentifiable vegetables or meaty paste. They're versions of each other really, only different in size and cooking, yet when we explained to our CouchSurfing host Huiqing, with whom we stayed the night, that we'd had "baozi, steamed dumplings" we had to explain every type of dumplings we had conceivably ever eaten, at home or abroad, to show the difference, or lack of, between one dumpling and another. Kaifeng is famous for its dumplings - famous how or among who, I've no idea - particularly its mutton dumplings. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that they are slimier and don't taste as nice as those on campus in Zhengzhou. Still, Kaifeng is a lovely little city. It's much more relaxed than Zhengzhou, in no small part thanks to the lakes within its city walls. We took a pedalo out for an hour on a lake on Sunday for a different view of the city - this was pleasant until Anna and I had a small disagreement about who was the captain of our swan-shaped vessel. This resulted in Anna singing "I'm the captain, you're the first mate...." I forget the rest. I'm the captain. End of. Anyway, everything's nicely contained inside the city walls in Kaifeng. Its been flooded and destroyed several times but they've done well to preserve or recreate a number of temples and palaces of this ancient Song capital, and we spent the afternoon in Longtin park and the Dragon Pavilion. Back in Zhengzhou (Kaifeng is reached by bus easily), there was no sign of the anti-Japan protests, other than heightened security at the campus gates. There was, however, and EARTHQUAKE!!! Four point seven, whatever that means. I didn't feel a thing - probably napping - but others ran out of buildings - either through fear of the Earth shaking or through lack of faith in Chinese construction standards. They've probably got a point - 24 buildings collapsed in Suzhou, the epicentre of the quake! Photos of Kaifeng are here, Anna's are here. X Hello,
Things here are still going well, although the novelty of my being foreign has certainly worn off with my students. This means I now have to survive only on them thinking I'm 'handsome' and them liking me for not setting homework, or face being some kind of 'proper teacher'... We're going to Kaifeng (a couple of hours east by bus) for the weekend for the 28th Annual Chrysanthemum Festival. Not that I'm into flowers particularly, but it sounds like as good a time as any to visit somewhere new. We're going to be CouchSurfing with a Chinese lady who lives near the centre. I say 'couch-surfing', she's got a spare room with a bed for two in it., for free, and available tonight. It's probably just as well that we're leaving Zhengzhou overnight. Last weekend, when we were in town exploring the centre (photos below), we saw a mini demonstration by students against Japan. It was the anniversary of the especially brutal Rape of Nanjing. It passed by fairly peacefully, and you only knew about it if you were there or spoke to someone who saw it all, although word is a shop selling Japanese stuff and a Japanese restaurant got smashed up. This weekend, however, it all going to hit the fan. Chinese fan, of course, There are bigger demonstration planned, a hangover from last weekend and this ongoing Fishing Boat Saga. We've been instructed not to go into the centre of town, and students have been confined to campus. Damage report on Monday. Piccies from the centre of town, around Erqi Tower. I'm in Kaifeng if you need me :) X |
Photo Blog hereThere's a selection of photos from my time in China, and travels over Spring Festival, on these pages. Categories
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