After two days in Chuxi Village, we returned Xiamen. We stayed the night in a hotel on a small island off Xiamen called Gulongyu, which was colonized by the British back in the day, and had some interesting Colonial Architecture. It was an "open" night, which means the time was ours to do whatever we liked. Some friends and I toured the island, then took the ferry to Xiamen for dinner, followed by some aimless wandering around the quickly modernizing city. Although I would have enjoyed staying in Xiamen longer than we did, I don't think I would like living there as much as living in Beijing. Two months ago I couldn't have pointed out a single difference between the two cities, but that night, I found myself noticing small things about Xiamen that were quite different from Beijing. It was somewhere around this time that I began actually missing Beijing. It was quite an odd phenomenon, because I also began missing America. I was homesick for the two strikingly different places I call home. Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed my time in Xiamen, and was sad to leave the next morning. We were allowed to sleep in relatively late at our hotel on Gulongyu, and after check out headed to the Xiamen Botanical Garden. We had a quick group meeting at which we were instructed to follow a road that wound up and down a large hill (almost mountain) thru the Botanical Garden, and then branch off onto another path which would supposedly lead us to a large Buddhist temple. Then we were let free. I guess all the teachers must have gotten ahead of us, because soon enough I was alone, with the exception of my friend Sam. We must have diverged from the correct path at some point, because after an hour and a half of sweaty hiking, we wound up EXACTLY where we started. There was not a teacher or student in sight, so we laughed ourselves and then hush-hush... decided to be cheaters and take a taxi to the other side of the mountain, where the temple was located. The temple was beautiful inside, but unfortunately we didn't have much time to look around since we arrived late due to our unfruitful expedition to nowhere. I'm off to go start homework, but will write more when I get a chance.
The first 4 pictures are of the Temple, the Botanical Garden, and a view of Xiamen from the Botanical Garden (it was a smoggy day). The fourth picture is a view of Xiamen from the ferry to Gulongyu.
苏娥俐
4 comments:
wow, looks like you are having fun with the sites at night! And you get the ride the ferry around, so i'm assuming you took like 1000 more pictures of the scene there... plus homesickness is common, but I hope you are experiencing some self discovery over there! keep these updates coming when you can =)
Since the only Chinese countryside I've ever seen was in movies, I'm really liking your addition to that limited perspective.
I'm glad you were with Sam if you got lost. Being lost on your own isn't nearly as fun as being lost with a friend : )
I'm procrastinating cleaning and picking up my room but was tickled you'd posted a new blog and gave me a good excuse to procrastinate!
I give SYA credit for taking you-all on trips outside of Beijing so you can get a feel for other areas of that amazingly large country. I even take it as a good sign that you were homesick for Beijing, in addition to the U.S. because you can't feel homesick if you don't feel pretty comfy with a place. I'm super glad your family makes you feel so at home in Beijing. Heaven knows you are a big-city girl; Grammar's genes coming through for you!
It can be a great thing to have more than one place where you feel at home! I feel that way when I am in Minnesota - totally at home.
I think by the end of the school year and when you've returned to your first home, you'll probably have some homesickness for Beijing - maybe hard to imagine now - but I think it's a possibility.
Is it smoggy everywhere or did you see some blue sky when you were outside of Beijing? I remember one time in IL when it had been gray for weeks and weeks in the winter and then the sun came out; you and Mitch wore your sunglasses because it was so blinding after adjusting to the cloud-filtered light that we were all like moles and blinded by the big sunshine. It made me laugh at the time to think we were so unused to the sun that it would startle us when it came out.
Thanks for giving us this chapter of your adventures!
Hi El! Great story-telling! We're enjoying living vicariously through your travels. Could most of the people you met in Xiamen speak English or is the opposite true? Communication/understanding is so vital in this world. Cheers! Grammar
Thanks for the wonderful window to a world I probably will never see in person.
Hope you're taking care of yourself and feeling good about life!
Your fifth grader teacher,
Miss Stewart
Post a Comment