Exploring

I woke up about 4:30 and was wide awake. Back home it would be mid-afternoon so understandably, by circadian rhythm is a little off. I also noticed the sun was coming up and there was already a fair amount of daylight out. Six hours of sleep would have to do for now.

I got up and fiddled with getting my laptop online. I still couldn’t get onto any websites (the firewall blocked all of them) but I had connectivity. I took some time to journal and gather my thought from yesterday. It still seems very surreal. Everything is exactly what I pictured and yet nothing like I pictured at the same time. Everything is very modern, but at the same time very grand. (Although the pollution kind of ruins the sunrise…and there hasn’t been any blue sky yet today.)

When Nate got up, we decided to go down for breakfast. There was a buffet in the lobby and Sabrina said our fees paid for two days of meals. When we walked in, there was a family working. It appeared they had several generations, from the very old grandparents to two toddlers. Both toddlers were wearing these rubber shoes that squeaked like a dog toy with each step. Their little one piece outfits had holes in the rear for easy access to a dirty diaper.

I noticed the older man who I had pegged as grandpa playing with one of the kids. Both the kid and the old man were giggling loudly.

The buffet was labeled in both Chinese and English. The first item was mushroom cabbage porage, which I decided to pass on. The next item was “bao-tz” and looked like a little roll. It came in both meat and vegetable varieties. I took one of each (Nate later explained to me that “bao” means “package” or “to wrap”.)

They had fried eggs that were cooked almost to the consistency of Yorkshire pudding. One item which I forget the name of, was almost like a Czech bread dumpling. There were also oranges and watermelon (which are both on the CDC approved list of fruits to eat in China.)

The Bao really was the best part. They were almost like steamed dumplings, but with a much thicker shell. The shell was kind of a cross between a noodle and bread. Inside the meat one was a little bit of beef, and the vegetable one had brussel sprout and mushroom on the inside. Both were very good.

Eating the fried egg with chop sticks was a chore. I’d pick it up, and by the time I had ripped off a bite with my teeth, the rest of it had flopped back down on the plate. I started taking bigger bites, which gave me a bit more control over it.

Just as we finished eating. Amy, Brenda, Jessica, and Diana (four of the girls from last night) came down to eat. Nate and I got more food, and we all moved inside to a larger table to eat. Most of us have travelled quite a bit and we kept each other in stitches telling stories.

Ally (vegetarian girl) from the night before joined us. And we kept swapping stories for a while. The little kids’ shoes squeaked up and down the halls and they ran around and played. They had the most contagious giggles and the biggest smiles.

We still had two hours until Sabrina was going to come get us for orientation (even though it felt like it should be midnight already. The girls made plans to go get manicures and Nate and I decided to go find a grocery store.

This of course broke Sabrina’s urging to not leave the apartment building (which was confirmed for me today, it is an apartment complex) but being cooped up for 12 hours had been enough.

We walked through the revolving glass door and outside.  There was a steady stream of traffic on the street and car horns could be heard echoing from building to building. There were even quite a few cars in the circle drive in front of our building. Keeping to the sideway, we headed north. The pavement was comprised of titled gray granite. The street ran along our left side while various shops were on the left. We saw a barbershop, a massage parlor, and various other shops. A lot of stores led back into other stores, but we didn’t explore much off the street.

At the end of the block there was a little family owned grocery store. We went in through the sliding glass door to a shop that was about twenty feet by twenty feet. Beverages were sold in a refrigerated case, like they have in a gas station. Large jugs and cases of water were in one corner. In the center was a display of pastry type snacks (like Twinkies, but other brands) and snack food and liquor was in another corner. I grabbed a case of twelve water bottles and perused the snack food a little. I thought it might be nice to have something to munch on, but I don’t know enough about the conversion rates to know what is cheap and what is expensive.

I settled on just buying the water (for 11 yuan) and we took it back to the apartment. We briefly tried to connect to the internet again, when I realized something. “You know, it seems like a waste to fly 5000 miles to sit on the internet all day,” I said.

“Yeah I was thinking about going exploring,” Nate said.

“Let’s do it!”

We went back down to the lobby and outside. We started by turning left to try and find the gym that Sabrina had told us about in the neighboring building. We never did but we saw a few cheap restaurants, as well as another little grocery store. This one had a larger inventory and we took some time to look at some of the brands.

They carried dozens of brands of Pocky (those skinny Chinese cookies dipped in chocolate.) There was even an Oreo brand pocky. I also saw a few brands of Chinese chocolate and made a note to come back later. This was also the first time I saw a display selling masks for the pollution.

We went back outside and turned right again, heading north up towards the first little grocery store. When we reached the corner, Nate stepped out into traffic and kept walking. I hesitated and got caught on the curb. I watched the intersection trying to figure out how many different directions cars could be coming from. It seemed endless (not to mention the scooters and bikes that were flying every which way.)

The intersection was controlled by a light. The top light was red and the bottom was green. In the middle however, in place of a yellow light, there was a counter that counted down how much time was left on the green light. When the counter reached zero, the green light went off, the counter turned yellow, and then the red light came on.

A group of Chinese men walked up behind and began to cross the street. Assuming they knew what they were doing, I followed them.

“You can’t hesitate,” Nate told me.

“I know,” I said. “I’m a bit out of practice.”

A little further up, there was scaffolding around a building that was under construction. I noticed a Chinese businessman step out into the street and walk around it. I followed him and Nate followed me.

That brought us to a busy intersection that had a walk over to cross the street.

“Should we go up?” I asked, pointing to the stairs.

“Let’s go this way,” Nate said, pointing around the corner.

I was surprised. Traffic was congested, but the sidewalks really weren’t. I think the crowds I saw in New York were larger than this (which I know is not true, but as far as density and chaos goes, New York felt more chaotic.)

We walked along the street and saw a few more shops. There was a repair shop for glasses as well as a window cutting shop. We walked along a large fence with fake ferns growing on it and speculated what conspiracy might be on the other side.

At the end of the street we turned right again. The street snaked into what looked like a more central area with some cooling looking buildings.

“Should we turn around,” I asked.

“That looks kind of cool up there,” Nate said. “Let’s just walk to the end.”

A little ways down, we came to some police officers directing traffic. They were giving directions in Chinese. They didn’t seem to faze Nate, so I followed him as we cross through the cones and walked through traffic to the next block (nice that he can understand the language.)

At the end of the street, I saw something incredible…an ally!

It was filled with large shade trees that hid family owned shops.

“Should we turn back,” Nate asked.

“Let’s go this way!” I said, pointing down the side street.

It was so much fun seeing all the little market stands and fresh fruit. All sorts of people were selling their produce and it all looked so good (even though most of it is not approved by the CDC.) It surprised me that no one really approached us. In fact, it was almost as though we were invisible.

“A tea shop,” Nate said pointing to a little green building. “We have to go in there.”

We did. Inside, there was a heavy, dank odor. The room was very humid, and filled with bricks and barrels of tightly packed tea leaves. I looked at the first display I came to and recognized the pinyin name for oolong tea.

Most of the labels were in Chinese and Nate spent some time perusing them. I looked at some of the teapots while the owner proudly beamed as we examined his collection. At one point he said something to Nate and pointed at the scale.

“Is it priced per gram?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nate said.

Nate came to one barrel that had small woven sacks. He opened one and smelled the continents. Satisfied with the odor, he purchased the package. The sign on the barrel said “oolong.” I haven’t had oolong tea in a while…and I suppose I’ve never had real oolong…so I too purchased one of the woven sacks of tea leaves.

Leaving the shop, we walked down the side street some more. These are the moments I love about travel; when I can be completely lost among locals and just see how they spend their days.

We came across Jessica and Brenda at the end of the block. They asked about our tea and we gave them directions to the shop.

“I think we need to get over one more block to get back,” Nate said.

“Actually,” I said pointing through the trees up at one of the buildings on this street. “Isn’t that the terrace we were on last night? I think our building is just around the corner.”

We followed the street around a bend, and sure enough, there was our building.

I had never been so sweaty in my life. There was a nice breeze so it wasn’t particularly hot (warm but not uncomfortable.) I noticed I was one of very few people wearing shorts, but I wasn’t quite ready to switch to jeans. Either way, being back in the air conditioning felt good. We took about 45 minutes to unwind before going to meet Sabrina for the official orientation.