Weekend Fun

Moving to China I expected to have a lot of spare time to myself. Not speaking the language and not having my family and friends nearby, I figured that I would have a lot of quiet time to reflect on my experience and maybe learn Mandarin or something useful like that.

Turns out I was wrong.

As it happens I work in a very social environment where weekend activities such as local sightseeing and parties are arranged amongst both local and Australian staff. In addition I have a network of inbuilt friends that have been inherited from various others who have preceeded me in Chongqing, including my mum, so a lot of time has been spent catching up with these people too. Weekends so far have been jam-packed with not a moment to spare, and at this rate I am going to need to check in for some R+R on my return to Australia.

Last weekend my Chinese colleagues arranged a trip to the new Chongqing Three Gorges Museum. Located in People’s Square, the Museum is brand-spanking new having only opened three or four months ago.

I had never been to People’s Square before so that in itself was good to see. People’s Square is a big (massive) open space where people just seem to sit around and hang out, much like a big concreted park. In the evenings people gather for dancing which is something I’ve not yet witnessed but would like to – I’ve seen similar on a smaller scale and it looked like something that was a cross between tai chi and line dancing. People’s Square is bordered at one end by the Great Hall, an older Chinese style building that is used for concerts and performances, and at the other end by the Museum.

I was impressed by both the design and the content of the new museum. The entry foyer of the museum is a glass atrium which has water running down the outside of it – a great effect that reminded me of the water wall at the National Gallery in Melbourne. The museum is massive, covering the history of Chongqing and the Three Gorges from the geology and ecology of the area to the relocation of millions of people for the dam project, from archelogy to social history and everything in between. Admittedly it was a little bizarre to see ancient relics preserved alongside displays advocating the engineering of the massive dam project but I suppose at least the history of the area is being recognised even if it has been flooded in the name of progress.

One of the highlights of the Museum was the 360degree movie theatre showing a trip through the Three Gorges. Helicopters and river boats were used to make the film and it felt like you were actually there travelling through the Gorges. At the end of the film the helicopter flies right through the city centre of Chongqing and I was able to pick my apartment building, although it was mid-construction with a crane sitting on top of it at that stage! Just about everything in the museum was in both Chinese and English and the scale of the place was amazing. I think I only saw about an eighth of the museum so a return trip or two is certainly on the cards.

That evening I welcomed everyone to my apartment for a Housewarming Party. Being a fairly small one-bedroom apartment it was pretty full and people ended up sitting on the floor in the living room. Being a housewarming party I received a number of gifts:

A bag of oranges

A set of plastic coathangers (very clever gift if you ask me)

Three helium balloons (one rooster-shaped – year of the rooster)

One inflatable hammer approx. 1 metre in length. Contains a bell and squeaks whenever it hits anything

Three bunches of flowers

Two boxes of chocolates

Two bags of lollies

This weekend another outing was scheduled by the local staff. In a case of excellent timing that just doesn’t seem to happen in Melbourne, for the third week in a row a rainy week became a sunny weekend. Clear, blue skies are a real rarity in Chongqing which is typically overcast with fog and pollution, so sunny days are all the more appreciated. Just because it was sunny and warm however doesn’t mean that the skies were clear…

We took advantage of this t-shirt weather by visiting South Mountain Park where we visited Lao Jun Temple and the ‘Golden Eagle’. Lao Jun is a Taoist temple that sits on the top of a hill and can only be reached by climbing about a bizillion very steep, very tiny steps. Having not done much in the way of exercise since my arrival in China, and being on the tail end of a head cold, I thought I was going to die on the way up. The incense and super-huge candles being burned outside the temple didn’t much help my lungs either. The views would have been magnificent from the top of the hill, across the Jialing River and the city skyline, had everything not been blanketed under a layer of white smog.
Typical Chongqing.

The highlight at the temple as far as I was concerned was the Chinese tourist at the top muttering under her breath – I thought she was cursing the group of us as foreigners for being disrespectful or something but it turns out she was muttering in wonder about why our Chinese hosts would bother taking us there!

The Golden Eagle, again, was at the top of around a bizillion stairs. This time even steeper and in one stretch there wasn’t even any stairs, just a steep, muddy slope. The hand rails had eroded or disappeared altogether so just the stumps of the iron posts remained which made the going pretty tough. I’m not too sure what the significance of the giant golden eagle is however it would have been a magnificent lookout across the city if we could have seen anything. Apparently it’s a bit of a lover’s lane with little heart-shaped padlocks hooked all around the rails – they sell the locks at a little stall at the base of the eagle and couples hook them onto the rails to symbolise their love. Aww… Again the highlight for me was the comment by some local people about our mixed group of foreigners and Chinese. Apparently they thought we were either very rich or very stupid for needing so many tour guides.

The evening was spent at the apartment of one of the Australian advisers… the Hospitality adviser funnily enough. He cooked a feast of Indian food (he’d brought the spices etc from Australia) which was a real luxury. The Chinese enjoyed the new flavours and the Australians certainly appreciated a taste of home (funny how Indian food is a taste of home?!)

Next weekend I will take a break from the local sightseeing and head further afield, heading to Chengdu to catch up with some of my AYAD mates. Surely more stories to follow!