We were lucky enough to get to sleep in a little bit today. We had
been told to meet Emily at the gate at 8 for our departure to ¡°the
village¡±. Our van arrived with four men pushing it into the
courtyard. Apparently the battery was not charging up correctly
because it had not been used in a while. After a slightly delayed
start, we all piled into the van¡.all 12 of us. Yep, we had some new
guides that were coming along with us: Emily, Wendy (assistant
Director), Terry (TA), the driver and his wife and son. Oh the six of
us also piled into the back of the van as well. We were all quite
cozy. Our journey took about 40 minutes to get to the Moushan village.
We had some difficulty trying to decide which road to take. The driver
was getting different directions from all four women in the car. After
about 15 minutes of driving back and forth on the highway, the driver
stopped and asked some locals for directions. We were making headway
now.
Somehow we ended up at the Four Seasons Park and Resort. We later
learned that we were not going to meet Emily's family because the
school decided to set up this excursion instead. The park and resort
area was kind of set up as a natural park. As we got out of the van,
we were told, ¡°Now it is time to fish.¡± Who knew that we would be
fishing in China? We were each handed a fishing pole as we walked
along the path and headed across the bridge that took us over the pond.
It was a really beautiful area set against the hills. It reminded me
a lot of our local state parks. We were split into groups of two and
each group got their own fishing house with a little dock. We were set
up with chairs, and umbrella, a bucket of fish food, and a baggie of
worms. We had a gentleman help us get our hooks baited and throw our
lines out as we waited. Karen made a haul with three fish, Carla had
two, and Angela caught a tiny little one. Amy and David left the day
without any luck. It was really a fun way to spend the morning in a
beautiful setting.
We also were able to eat at the restaurant at the park. They had
quite the spread of food for us. We had an interesting assortment of
foods to choose from: peanuts, cucumbers, squid, chicken soup, rabbit,
edamame, a variety of melon, beans, snail, soups, potatoes, green beans
and pumpkin, corn on the cob, Mexican salad (corn, peas, and
carrots), and mussels. We had Sprite, tea, and beer to drink.
All of us piled back into the van to head back into town. As we
drove back, we decided to make a stop at the Madison Bridge Bar. We
had walked past there last week on our day off and they had handed us
each a card advertising the fact that they spoke English. They had
contacted the school and invited us to stop in when we got a chance.
It is quite funny that they know how to track down the foreigners in
such a big city. We stopped in to have a cocktail and they were all
very excited to have us there. Each of us got a decoration to write our
¡°feelings¡± on, which they hung up along for everyone to read. Our
bartender jazzed up the music for us because he wanted us to dance.
However, one in the afternoon is a little early for my dancing shoes.
We enjoyed the atmosphere while we were there. It is a fun little
place to hang out in a quaint little spot. It was a nice end to the
afternoon.
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