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ChongQing

In the midst of packing and planning for our final trek from China to America (at least for the foreseeable future), Sarah and I decided to take a couple of days away from Chengdu.  So on Tuesday we hopped on a train and traveled some four hours to Chongqing.  The train ride was during the afternoon and allowed us glimpses into the beautiful scenery and culture of rural China.

  

This city is very different from Chengdu and reminded us of cities in the US.  The convergence of the Yangtze and Jailing rivers puts the downtown area of the city on a peninsula, not unlike Midtown Manhattan; the steep inclines away from the rivers are on par with what is seen in San Francisco.

The city is also a starting point for many of the cruises down the Yangtze river, on which is found the recently-built  Three Gorges Dam.  We didn’t have enough time (or money) to take a multi-day cruise, but did enjoy an evening cruise and some views of the city.

On Wednesday we headed to a number of museums in the city.  I never learned about Chongqing in a history class, but the importance of the city cannot be understated: the city would be to the Pacific theater of WW2 what London was to the Atlantic theater.  The Chinese made this their capital city as the Japanese had invaded the eastern portion of the country, so it was heavily bombed, but never invaded due to the mountainous terrain.  We wandered around the Red Cliff museum and the adjacent living quarters for the Communist party members, at a truce with the Kuomingtang.

  

We also went to the ancient street and the Chongqing museum, which also contains the Three Gorges museum.  Multiple pieces of rock, destined to be underwater due to the dam project, were excavated and moved to the museum.

The evening included a trip to the downtown area, which includes a Liberation Monument; we found it odd that the monument had a corporate sponsor:

  

Thursday took us to some parks and temples in and around the city, which afforded us some hazy views of the city.

  

It was a nice trip away from the pressures of moving, so prevalent in our apartment right now as seen by piles of stuff to sell or pack everywhere. 

Spring Break

International Day has come and gone!  Usually we have a day in the fall where we put on a show for the students during the school day and have some foods from different countries.  This year the event was turned into an after school carnival, including games put together by high school students and booths from local restaurants, as well as performances from many different countries.  It was an exciting time to celebrate the diversity in our school and in the world.

This being finished, We’re on our spring break!  May 1st is Chinese Labor Day, and we have a week off.  This is the last year the break will be so long; China is realized the issue of having the entire country’s population on a vacation at once (kinda like Christmas break - only with 1.3 billion people) and has now made other days official holidays: tomb sweeping day and the mid-autumn festival are two new celebrations.

But for now, we are enjoying our break - today we went to floraland, a recently built theme park outside of Chengdu that has taken some “creative license” with its design.  In other words, Disney would be proud…if they could make royalties off the place.  It was a nice day for the trip.

Tomorrow we are taking a few days away from Chengdu and heading to Chongqing, a trip by train of about 4 hours.  I’m sure there will be stories to tell when we return!

Choir Festival, Day 1

We’re in Tianjin, with one day of choir rehearsing down, and one day to go… it was a long day for Sarah, who spent most of her day at the pianoor conducting the women, while with a cold.  (It’s her birthday today, by the way - she’s 26!  And we had lemon cake from the cafeteria, a tradition for her.  The lemon cake, that is; not the cafeteria.)

 Another reason the day was long was the traffic: what was supposed to be a 20-minute bus ride from hotel to school took over an hour and included us walking several blocks.  Apparently earlier in the day a decision was made to temporarily turn a two-way street (of 6 or 8 lanes, mind you) into a one way street.  Combine this with all the pre-olympics renovation going on in the city, and you start to see the difficulty…

This evening we went to a shopping complex for dinner, and there saw the Chinese version of the American grocery store, Trader Joe’s:

Way to be original.  More rehearsing and a concert to come tomorrow!