Last night, exhausted after a long day, I went to bed around 9:30. Around 10:30, I awoke to the phone in my hotel room ringing.
"Hello" I said, groggily into the phone.
"A bunch of stuff in Chinese," the woman on the other line said back.
"I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese."
"A lots of other Chinese words I do not understand"
"I'm really sorry, my Chinese is very bad."
"Ughhhhhh," she sighed heavily. Then she hung up the phone.
I will never know what this phone call was about but, paranoid I had turned the AC on too high, I increased the temperature in the room.
I didn't have work until the afternoon, so I decided I would have a little continental breakfast at the hotel, and that take a little stroll to start to see whats around. The continental breakfast was confusing, to say the least.
I only put the things on my plate that seemed the most breakfast like, but the buffet itself seemed like it was a lunch buffet. There was rice, chow mein, and lots of different mysterious vegetables I was not yet ready for. I had a little sesame roll, an egg roll, some dry bread, 2 red bean dumplings, and what I thought was coffee but turned out to be some sort of warm chocolate soy milk. After this disappointing meal, my morning stroll had a new goal: Find coffee.
The blurry picture at the top of the blog was what the majority of my walk looked like. Because I was not yet familiar with the area and couldn't figure out how to find a map on my phone, I decided to just head in one direction down the street and then I could walk back the same way.
The first thing you notice while walking through Gaochun is the massive amount of scooters. Flying down the street in all directions are little electric scooters, it seems like there are more scooters than cars on the streets. And these scooter drivers have no regard for safety. Without any sort of helmet or protection, people will zoom down the street at 40 km/h with a child of three standing between there legs. And this isn't something I saw one time, over the course of my walk I saw at least 30 scooters zip by with young children standing between their parent's legs.
I also noticed that street cleaning was very different here. In America, one truck shoots water on the ground and sort of swishes it around. In China, a truck shoots water into the air and then two other trucks drive behind it and swish the water around when it lands.
Gaochun is a small suburb on the outskirts of Nanjing. I have been describing it to friends as the Monrovia of Nanjing. If I had to compare it to a major American city, I guess I would say imagine Detroit but without any restaurants, bars, or things to do. There isn't poverty, I haven't seen any homeless people, but it doesn't seem like there is much wealth either. There are lots of very tall apartment complexes with clothes hanging from the windows (washing machines don't dry here) and they mostly seem slightly dirty. There are lots of old men who seem to just be hanging out on street corners with rickshaws or old bikes with wagons tied to the back, smoking cigarettes. I very much wanted to take picture of these men, but I chickened out because it seemed rude.
I did take a picture of Rudolfo. I don't know if that's his real name, but that's what I called him. During my walk, I noticed 3 or 4 dogs without collars. I can't tell if they are wild street dogs or if dogs just don't have collars here. But Rudolfo was very nice, he came right up to me and let me pet him and play. Afterwards, I kept scratching my beard and became very paranoid I had caught lice or fleas.
I found a nearby woman and tried to ask if Rudolfo was her dog. I pointed at the dog and then pointed at the woman. She, in turn, pointed at the dog and then pointed at me. I shook my head, trying to express that no, Rudolfo was not my dog. She shook her head back at me. I don't know if she was just coping me or if we are communicating, but either way, I turned around and started to head back to my hotel.
I had not found a coffee shop. I was very disapointed. About 50 percent of the stores seemed to be completely closed down. A lot of the other stores seemed to be very confusing. One store sold bowls and sunglasses. Another sold liquor and bed sheets. It seemed to me like there was no rhyme or reason to what seemed like a good item to place in your store.
Still thirsty, I decided to stop in a liquor store to grab a drink. Being new to this country, I bought a drink that looked like it had an exotic new fruit I had never tried before. It was definitely Limeade.
Right before getting back to my hotel, I noticed a little mall that I stopped in just to look around. I noticed a karaoke booth (pictured above), a children's ball pit/arcade store (sort of like a Chuck E. Cheese for toddlers), a store that just had a giant Jacuzzi filled with babies, and a store that just had three kids playing drums at the same time called Jazz Drums. Again, I would have taken pictures, but it seems wrong to take photos of other peoples children through a glass wall.
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