Site Visit - Tuesday

The next day I got up early and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I forgot about coffee. I should have bought some instant or something. I staggered around my host family's house looking for something caffeinated. I failed.

After breakfast, my host father drove me down hill to meet Jason. Jason showed me around campus, took me to open a bank account, bought a train ticket for Saturday to go back to Chengdu, registered me at the local police station, and showed me how to use the buses.

He showed me where my apartment is. It's right on campus. We couldn't go in because the guy who has the key is on vacation until Thursday. He showed me where the "shuttle" is to go the new campus where I will have some classes. I asked him where the damn campus is on a map and he laughed. It's been kind of frustrating that every time I ask anybody about how far away this new campus is and where it is, all I get is a laugh and no information. I bought a map of Chongqing and I asked him again "where is it?"
"it's on this side, but it's off the map." On the map, my campus is on the east side of the city, on the far right side of the map. What he pointed to was the far left side of the map.
"So, I have to commute across the entire city of Chongqing to get to work?"
"Yes. It will take an hour. Probably more because of traffic"
Great.

He walked me around to all these places and then back to my host family's house, which was pretty arduous. Chongqing is extremely hilly and walking around is not easy. I probably wouldn't have minded much if I was walking on my own, but following this guy around and not knowing where, how far, or how long we were walking was extremely tiring.

At home I sat and did nothing for several hours.

Then my host father knocked on the door and spoke in Chongqing dialect, gesturing that we were leaving now. "oh, okay."

We drove through the city, and I looked out the window the whole time saying "jesus… holy shit… god…" looking at all the buildings.

We met up with the rest of the family and ate hot pot… Then we went to see Harry Potter! In 3D IMAX!

The cost was 100 freaking kuai… which just seemed insanely expensive to me. In China especially, that's a LOT of money. My host father paid for it and I felt uncomfortable about it. But… IT WAS THE LAST HARRY FUCKIN POTTER IN 3D IMAX… So i wasn't complaining.

And it was awesome. Everything was just spectacular. Then at that moment when Harry and Voldemort were dueling at Hogwarts and Voldemort's Avada Kedavra just rebounded and was about to kill him… The screen went black and the lights came on like the movie was over. I was so angry. So so angry. Everybody was yelling and standing up and stomping about. Somebody came in and started saying something in Chinese. Finally, Foy translated for me and said the power just went out in this district.

After 10 or 15 minutes, the power came back on and the screen came on again. Then everyone shouted until they rewound to the part that was interrupted… Then Voldemort died… but the moment was lost. I will never regain that moment when I got to see the end of Voldemort for the first time on screen. I'll watch this movie again, but it won't be the same.

After the movie, my host father returned all our 3D glasses and he got a bunch of money back, so I'm assuming he got refunded for the tickets. I'm happy for that at least.