Outing to a temple and flowers (3-28)

Since I don’t have classes on Thursday and Friday, last week I went for an outing, which was really nice. The first special activity upon arriving in Chengdu was a dim sum lunch. Then I checked into the hostel and walked to Jinli. 

Since I hadn’t yet been to Wuhou Temple, the largest and one of the most important ones in Chengdu, it was time to do that. I enjoyed walking around for a couple hours. I enjoyed the statues of generals near the entrance. 

In addition to the temple buildings, there is a lovely park area with a stream. 

I especially enjoyed the deciduous tree bonsai, which were still bare 

and some of which were just starting to grow their new leaves. I hadn’t seen that before, as most bonsai seem to be evergreen. 

There is also a small museum with items from the 3^rd century Three Kingdoms.

Then it was time to go to Food Street for dinner: special fresh tofu with sauce and rice cooked in pineapple, which are two of my favorites.

Friday morning I returned to Stone Elephant Lake hoping to see the tulips this year. Because I missed them last year, I had Michelle call and ask if it was a good time to go. I arrived at the park at 10:00 and was surprised at the number of buses already there. They were delivering loads of students and senior citizens. Fortunately, both groups dispersed quickly. I don’t know where the students went, but I didn’t see them again until early afternoon when I was leaving. At that time, they were sitting on the grass coloring and flying kites. The senior citizens stayed on the paved road—or maybe took the tram—to the park center; so I didn’t see them after the beginning.

It was a lovely day. The park was full of blooming tulips of many different varieties. The early-blooming ones had already died, and some of the late-blooming ones weren’t fully open, but the rest were fantastic. 

In some places, you could see tulips everywhere. 

Most of the people walking around the beds just stopped long enough to pose for a photo in front of the flowers and then moved on quickly. That left only a few of us to enjoy looking at them in depth. Unfortunately, a few people had to have their photos amongst the flowers, leaving bare spots or breaking stems.

On the way to the central area, I was surprised to see crocuses I the grass. 

There is also a section of grape hyacinths interspersed with some other flowers. 

The big hill was covered with small, purple flowers.

When I got to the central area, I ate lunch—the traditional noodle-like dish I have had before and like.

After eating, I walked around the huge area that was full of poppies this month. By this time, it was early afternoon and more people had arrived. 

Another area had beautiful dahlias, a fancier kind than I was familiar with. After wandering around leisurely for several hours, I got a 3:30 bus back to Chengdu and proceeded home, arriving at 9:00. It was a long trip back and a long, but good, day.

My office hours’ discussion groups have changed a little. As happened last year, since it’s second semester, different girls have started to come, which is nice. This has happened with both freshmen and sophomores. Usually four to six, which is a good number for the group, show up at one time. Allen returned this week and it was her 21^st birthday. She wanted to thank me for being part of her life and had a photo taken to mark the special occasion.

I gave my last lecture this week. We only have to do one this semester, which we who have been here really appreciate. Since I was recycling a lecture from two years ago and only needed to make some changes, I volunteered to be first. So now I’m finished.

I’ve been to special English Corners in two weeks. Last week’s was put on by the political science department. Two good things about it were that they did everything in English, including a nice skit, and that they didn’t have us foreign teachers do anything special. 

This week’s was put on by the physical education, automotive engineering, and construction departments. The theme was “How to arrange time at college,” which had nothing to do with the show and which none of us could get explained successfully when we asked what that meant and how it related to the show. Students had asked Julie, Sam, and me to sing a song. I wasn’t in the mood to perform that day, but I went and did. I reminded myself that no one cares how well I perform, just that I do. I sang my old standby in Thailand—Take Me Home, Country Roads—with the song on a girl’s cell phone so I had music, which I need if I’m going to sing.

Thursday evening when I was sitting on a bench reading a middle school boy rode by and then returned to hover in back of me. I knew he was trying to get up the courage to speak to me. He did, but he couldn’t speak English. He started saying random words, and I could see him struggling to think of them. Most of them I didn’t understand, but then I heard “bon jour.” I wanted to laugh, but it’s sad that he doesn’t even know it’s not English. Then he showed me his book and pointed for me to read; so I did. I’m pretty sure he can’t read the book and probably didn’t understand what I was reading. It’s sad.

We finally have our new Internet connections in our rooms. We have both wi-fi and wired. The wired is really nice and I can now watch videos on youtube and listen to recordings. Before, they were so choppy that it wasn’t worth the effort. In addition, things download faster most of the time. We’re all happy.

This year is the university’s 60^th anniversary. Student posters advertising this were on display this week.

Metro construction is moving along. One side looks almost like a street again, and the other is close.