This past weekend we headed down to Shangdong province with all the Communist party members at our school. We were told we were going to see a museum recounting the Sino-Japanese War (Japanese invasion during WWII). What could go wrong?
Well nothing did so I won't hold you in suspense. We headed out after our afternoon classes and the school had a bus to take us all the the train station where we caught a bullet train that dropped us off in Zaozhuang around 9 pm. As it was a Chinese trip we had to be done with breakfast and in the bus by 7 head for who knows where. After riding the bus over some nice road, some barely existent roads and seeing a good deal of farm landed we arrived at a river town that turned out to be on the Grand Canal. The name of the town was Tai'erzhuang and it had recently been renovated from the ruins the previously mentioned war left it in. This town was the site of one of Chinese victories is said war and the museum we went to afterwards recounted that battle.
At the museum, Julie and I were left free to roam around as all the Party members were busy taking pictures and then they did some sort of ritual chant that reminded me a little of when in church some reads and the congregation replies, but this one involved holding your right arm up and making a fist. The museum was air-conditioned so we took advantage. It was interesting how all the translations were very personalized. Any reference to Chinese troops was written as 'us' or 'we'. I can't remember if this is done in US museum but I don't think so.
After the museum we head to the Wei Shan Lake wetlands. This lake is also connected to the Grand Canal and we were able to take a boat ride out on the lake (or canal, it's hard to tell) and visit an island. They ferried us back to the buses. Once Julie and I got our seat we were drawn to a vendor who was selling, let me call them sandwiches. The sandwiches looked and smelled pretty good and I had been tempted to buy one but the copious crowd of flies won my better judgement. Once on the bus my better judgement was reward as Julie and I got to watch the vendor accidentally knock one of the sandwiches on the ground, pick it up look at it and then put back in spot with all the other sandwiches for sale. It only took a few minutes and it was bought. It's amazing what little things can be so fascinating. In addition to the sandwiches and duck eggs, which the area is famous for but duck eggs taste horrible so we passed, there were baby ducks and turtles for sale. Most of the turtles were small but one vendor ran us down to show off the full grown turtle she would let us buy.
I'm still not sure what people do with these turtles. On previous adventures Julie and I have seen people standing on the side of the road holding up a turtle. They are clearly advertising that they have turtle so they must want to entire into some sort of commercial activity. Julie and I decided that turtles must be the preferred currency of taxi drivers. As you may know we have found using a taxi in Beijing and most place in China quite difficult and now have realized they wouldn't pick us up because we didn't have turtle to pay them. Glad to have the head-scratcher behind us.
After the wetlands we made it back to the hotel for a big dinner. We were allowed to sleep in as we didn't have to leave for the train station until 7:30 and made it aboard uneventfully. It was three hours on the train and another hour on the bus then we were back at school for our last Sunday in China.
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