The Longest Date I've Ever Had

I asked a girl out the other day, and she said yes. The girl in question is from a class I taught at a university several weeks ago - I only ever taught two classes there, this isn't one of the universities that can afford to hire a foreigner full-time. It's a very nice university, though - an hour and a half's drive from the city, which places it out in the country, within walking distance of the mountains.

I'd left it a little late to ask this girl out - I'd figured out I liked her by the end of the second class, but I didn't do anything about it then. After that I just had to wait, because I had no way of getting in touch with her. I knew she had my contact details - I'd written them on the board for the benefit of the whole class. Several students from that class did get in touch with me, all of them were interested in talking with a foreigner and improving their English, but I didn't hear from her. I sighed and moved on.

After several weeks she did get in touch with me, however. It took me a while, but I eventually got around to asking her out for dinner, and on Sunday we went out.

At this point Linda (Alex's girlfriend) was very helpful - she helped me decide on a restaurant, and later turned up with Alex at the same restaurant. She also told the girl she could stay at our apartment, since she and Alex would be staying at his other apartment that night.

Dinner was had and enjoyed, then we went on to Ivy's birthday party. No amount of coaxing would convince Vera to dance, and we left early, since she was clearly not enjoying herself much. Back at my apartment we watched TV for a while, then went to bed (in separate rooms). In the morning, I asked if she would be my girlfriend - to no avail. She said she wanted to focus on her studies. I was disappointed, but carried on with the plan we'd decided on the night before - that I'd go back to her university with her, so that I'd know the way (yes, I'd been there twice before, but that was by car - I had no idea how to use public transport to get there).

Once there, I met several of her friends - all people I'd met before, all from the same class I'd taught. Of these people, two of the boys stayed with us for the day - so then we were four. Oh yeah, names! The girl who isn't my girlfriend is Vera; her friends are Frank and Alexander.

I joined in their P.E. class, and guess what P.E. in China involves? Ping-pong! I spent most of the morning playing against a succession of other students, several of whom taught me nifty tricks. One guy showed me how to put spin on the ball, and one girl had a wicked serve that kept catching me out. After that we had lunch together, and then the three of them skipped their afternoon classes so we could go out together.

We wandered by the riverside for a while, talking and taking photos, and then decided to walk to the foothills of the mountains. By the time we came back the sun was getting low, so we had dinner in a restaurant on the way. When we got back we talked outside for a while, and then went to the dorms.

Dorms in Chinese universities are strictly segregated by sex - each sex has separate buildings, and the opposite sex is not allowed in. So, Vera went one way, and I went another with Frank and Alexander. Their room had eight bunks, so I spent the rest of the night watching half of The Da Vinci Code with a bunch of Chinese guys.

In the morning I had breakfast with Vera and her friends, and then went to their English class. The first class was listening class, which was not too exciting, but the second was oral English, and I think I intimidated their teacher a little by being there. She recovered well, however, and got me to correct everyone's pronunciation. They had great difficulty with "sun", of all things. It probably didn't help that the New Zealand accent has very slight difference between all the sort vowel sounds. Even Australians can't tell the difference between the New Zealand short I and short E.

Finally, Vera helped me catch the right bus home. I even managed to get off at the right stop - she was worried that I'd get lost on my own.

So, in the end, I had such a good time that I completely forgot to be depressed over being rejected. I'll go back sometime to hang out with them, maybe have lunch together, because they're all nice people.

Alright, you've read enough - photos!

This is me and Vera by the riverside. Yes, I'm holding a pink umbrella.


This is Frank. It's not so obvious in this picture, but he looks vaguely like a Chinese Harry Potter. He's also the class monitor, which in theory means he's responsible for making sure everyone gets to class on time and such; in practice, it means that Vera teases him relentlessly about it.


This is Alexander. He's quieter than the other two, but he's good company.


This is me, Alexander and Frank once we'd gone as far as we cared to go up the foothills.


This is a stealth photo of Vera, after she made a big deal about getting a photo taken. She stole my camera and tried to delete it, but as you can see, I was victorious!


Finally, this is the view we had from the foothills.

Mountains Near Lantian

Sunday was the Dragon Boat festival, and as a result I had a day off. Ariel, Yoyo and I went to Lantian for the day. Lantian is a village about an hour out of Xi'an, and it is famous for its jade - as a result, there are a dozen or two jade stores along the two main roads of the village. We went in a few, but I didn't buy anything; I'd very cleverly left the bulk of my money at home.

After that, we went to the nearby mountains, and getting there was almost as much of an adventure as climbing them. First we caught a van to the toll gate on the way there, and stopped before going through. It turns out Ariel's sister-in-law works at the toll gate there, and Ariel had her arrange to get the tickets for the mountain (it's some kind of national (or local) park or something). She also managed to get us a free ride most of the way to the mountain - she wasn't working at the time, but she talked to all her co-workers at the toll gate, and within quarter of an hour one of them called us over - someone in an SUV had room to spare for the three of us, and gave us a lift. As well as accomplishing all this, she's pretty, and single. I'll ask Ariel about her tomorrow.

It quickly became apparent that the journey would not be quick. Here's a photo illustrating the situation; bear in mind that this was taken after the traffic let up and we were actually able to move. It was worse further back.



It also shows off the lovely rock gorges we were driving through, which kinda made up for the slow journey.

The driver dropped us off some distance from the mountain we were headed to - he was going another way. How far is "some distance"? About this far:



We hired another van right there on the bridge that photo was taken from, though, so it wasn't like we had to walk that distance.

After finally getting to the start of the scenic walk, we, well, started walking. As far as mountain climbs go it's dead easy, not at all like Tibrogargan or Beerwah - there are steps the whole way up, even if they do get steep at some points. It's through very pleasant forest a lot of the way, too, and there are lots of rocks to climb around and make a fool of yourself on (not that I did any of that, you understand). Here's a shot of the path, with a very tiny Ariel somewhere in the middle of the photo:



This next photo is getting pretty close to the lookout. Someone else thought it was pretty enough to take a photo, and I thought his silhouette made a nice photo, so here's a photo of a photographer:



This is the only photo I took with the gondola in it. There's a gondola that goes all the way up to the first lookout, and we opted out of taking it up. By the time we went down again, it wasn't a case of deciding not to take the gondola - it was the lack of money between us that forced us to take the path back down again.



Finally, this is where the gondola leads! The first lookout. This isn't a great shot of the view, since it's in the wrong direction; there is a wall of mountain behind the lookout, and it's so much prettier that it looks in this photo. That's why I took the photo in that direction, instead of towards all the open space. What I really wanted was a panorama, but this was also the last photo my phone took before it died.



Yes, all these photos were taken on my phone. I forgot to take my camera, which is a far greater sin on a trip like this than some of the other times I've forgotten to take it. I have several good excuses, though! First, I didn't know we were going to be going up a mountain - I just knew we were going to some nearby village for the day. Compounding this was the fact that I had to get up at 7am on a Sunday in order to meet Ariel and Yoyo, so I wasn't thinking my best at the tie I was leaving the apartment; plus, I'd gone out with Alex the night before, and didn't get home until 4am. Three hours of sleep + 7am start + not knowing about the very pretty mountain = forgetting my camera (and money to buy pretty jade stuff). Maybe next time.

New Art

I was in a painting mood this afternoon. Look! Art!

That Is All

I've been reading the comics here this morning. I can't keep my eyes dry for just one of them, let alone all.

Children's Day

Yesterday was Children's Day, and instead of regular classes we held Children's Day events at the local park. There were three rounds; one in the morning, and two in the afternoon, so that we didn't have to deal with a huge number of kids all in one go. By the time we got to the last group we all knew the drill pretty well, but we were also all very tired.

We started each round off by gathering all the kids together at the park's gate, before herding them to a more central location. There, Keiko (one of the Chinese teachers, who also happens to be a great dancer) led them all in a group dance before we split them into groups to teach separately. We taught them the English names of the animals that the Beijing Olympic mascots represent, and the names of a few Olympic events, before finishing up with some games. A good time was had by all.

Afterwards, we all went to have dinner with Helen - she used to be the head teacher at our school, but tomorrow she leaves for her home province. I'm not sure why - she's sick of teaching little kids, or she has a better job waiting there, something like that. At any rate, dinner was fun! We had hot pot, which is a great way to serve a dozen-odd people with one meal.

That is all.