Spring Festival Travels (Part 1)

One of the benefits of teaching for a university in China instead of a private tutoring service is the incredibly long vacation that one receives during the Spring Festival break.  And this year, we get about two months.  I’ve been back in Dalian for about a week now, and have started up a couple of part time jobs to make use of all of this free time.  But the first half of the break was spent travelling throughout China.  Well, perhaps not throughout, but we hit up a few cities.

The route:

Dalian -> Nanjing -> Zhang Jia Gang -> Shanghai -> Beijing -> Dalian  

(Kathleen’s brother is visiting, and they took an extra stop at the end to see the ice festival in Harbin.)

It felt like travelling a lot, but after looking at the path that we took around China, it actually looks as if we were on a pretty short leash.  But trust me, it felt like a lot.  We got fairly lucky and one my students helped us procure beds for the train from Dalian to Nanjing, a 21-hour ride.  We left at noon, played Magic and read our Kindles until we passed out at 10 (or at least tried to), and arrived at about 9:30 the next morning.  We promptly went to get xiao long bao (小笼包) from my favorite spot and then went to our hostel.  Xiao long bao are similar to other steamed dumplings, but they have a stickier skin and have soup broth inside of each dumpling.  They’re fantastic, and I can’t find them in Dalian.

We spent four nights in Nanjing:  one in a shitty hostel, one at Sam’s house, and two in this sweet converted-mansion hostel.  Nanjing was wonderful.  I got to see everyone that I wanted to and eat all of the food that I missed dearly.  Connor, Nick, Sam, and I got to play about 10 hours of League of Legends in a couple of different net bars around Nanjing in the three/four days that we were there.  Kathleen joined us for some of the gaming time, although it takes some fortitude to handle Chinese internet bars.  Shit.  Is.  Rough.

There were about 7 net bars, all about this size withing walking distance of my house last year.

After Nanjing, we stopped in Zhang Jia Gang to celebrate Spring Festival with one of my friends from last year.  He was quite insistent that we come to his hometown to have an authentic Chinese Spring Festival.  I was a bit worried at first about dragging Nick, Kathleen, and Connor with me to an old student’s house in (potentially) the middle of nowhere for a visit, but it all turned out wonderfully.  (Thanks to Nick and Kathleen for taking all the pictures on this trip.)

Jackie's neighborhood

The view from in front of his house

Hanging out with the fam

In front of his father's store.  Note that the store is named "正山商店" which is the Chinese equivalent of "David Smith's Store"

After refusing countless cigarettes...Nick and I begrudgingly accepted one.  (Not in front of the kids though.)

...feast.

Making dumplings with Kathleen.

I watch on as Jackie's mom packs me a tupperware of my favorite food from dinner.

"I hope they don't come back again, they smelled like cheese and bread.  Just smile and wave."

I felt pretty lucky to have the opportunity to have Spring Festival with a student from last year.  As a teacher, you makes tons of promises to tons of students that you'll see their hometown, visit their family, etc.  And it was nice to actually follow through on one of those and be able to share it with Kathleen, Nick, and Connor.

Our next stops were Shanghai and Beijing.  I'll post some pictures of that next.