On Monday everyone going to Sichuan and Chongqing met at the East train station. It was only a two hour ride to Chongqing. I did my best to stay away from some people, but we were assigned to seats close to each other. Sure enough, there were confrontations.
When we entered Chongqing, I was immediately struck by the contrast in landscape. There were mountains and hills everywhere. After passing through some mountains, we emerged into Chongqing city. It was incredible. It's just hills, mountains, and rivers, all of which were completely populated with skyscrapers, houses, and bridges. What struck me the most was that the whole area is just filled with skyscrapers. All of them are apartments.
I found out that Chongqing city lies in a bowl surrounded by mountains. Two rivers cut through it and where they meet forms a mountain on a peninsula where the heart of the city is. It's one of the hottest cities in China because the air doesn't circulate well. The mountains prevent the hot air from escaping.
I met Jason, my Wai Ban liaison. He's 27 and dresses like I do. He's pretty cool. He took me out for lunch and then took me to my host family. Their daughter is 16 and speaks pretty good English. They showed me around the house, which is a pretty amazing house. Their community was built into the hillside that leads up to the mountains. From this house, you can look out and theoretically see the entire city… but it's never clear enough. The house has 4 stories, but it's a very thin house. At the top there is a small garden with fish and turtles. That was my favorite part. They use 3G internet instead of having a modem, which caused problems for me because their USB 3G receiver wouldn't work on my macbook. I couldn't figure out how to install it on my Parallels Windows XP because it's all in Chinese.
After they showed me around the house, I didn't have anything to do for the rest of the day. My host mom could tell I was bored, so she gave me her laptop to use to get on the internet and then gave me her Ipad to play games on… So Posh Corps.
During dinner, I told my host sister that I like photography. She said she did too and she wanted to see my photos. So we sat on the couch and I showed her my photos. She was enthralled by them. For each photo I showed she would gasp and go "OH WOOOOW" and grab the monitor to get a better look. She showed me her photography too, which was actually pretty good.
It made me think more and more about this photography club I'm thinking about organizing at the school for the kids. The area seems affluent enough that the kids would be able to afford cameras and would be interested.
Afterward, my host parents took me out for a walk. My Wai Ban lives right next door and they are friends. So that was convenient. The Wai Ban joined us and we walked down the enormous hill, through the community, and across the street to Jiaotong University.
This neighborhood is really amazing. there are bridges where you wouldn't think bridges would go connecting hill to hill, serving as a walk way between rows of houses and apartments. The winding road allows cars to get to and from their houses. If you look out in any direction, you can't see the ground. Just tons of apartments.
We walked around the school. There's a big soccer field and a track around it. There are two swimming pools, basketball courts, and little shops. There are lots of trees everywhere. It's a nice campus, though undoubtedly a little old.
When we got home, I went to bed on a hard bamboo mat.
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