{"id":635,"date":"2010-09-18T15:40:21","date_gmt":"2010-09-18T07:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/?p=635"},"modified":"2010-09-18T15:40:21","modified_gmt":"2010-09-18T07:40:21","slug":"last-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/?p=635","title":{"rendered":"Last Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a>Last Weekend<\/p>\n

Soon after my return to China my TV stopped working.\u00a0 We had never actually turned it on but the channel indicator on a connected machine disappeared and couldn\u2019t be made to return.\u00a0 No visible results occurred after weeks of discussions with management.\u00a0 On Friday evening I returned from class to find a note written in Chinese on my door.\u00a0 After contacting a helpful student who arrived on Saturday, deciphered the words and made a phone call we were off somewhere not too far away to exchange the machine.\u00a0 When we arrived at the appointed place we were told it didn\u2019t belong to them and the phone number no longer answered.\u00a0 Back to square one.<\/p>\n

There was a small park nearby and as neither of us had been there before we had a wander around.\u00a0\u00a0 It was very much a solidly packed fun park for kids.\u00a0\u00a0It included goldfish fishing too.\u00a0 Games were along the lines of those found in side show alleys at Australian country shows.\u00a0 Also, there was a woman making dough figurines.\u00a0 A few snack and drink stalls provided sustenance to visitors.\u00a0 One stall had a very large copper teapot with dragon figurines.\u00a0 It was used to produce many different sorts of drinks, but as it was very quiet and nobody was buying I never saw how it all worked.\u00a0 Later we saw a much more attractive one, but it too was doing no business.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Water Activities<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of many driving activites. There numerous “shoot-em-up” type activites including target spots on model tigers.<\/p>\n

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Part of the park<\/p>\n

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Like every good park it had its small hill and gazebo.<\/p>\n

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Dough figurines. The maker is putting the final touches to Little Sheep, a popular cartoon character.\u00a0 The woman behind has a sleeping child in her lap.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The copper pot with its dragon and jars of flavours.<\/p>\n

The following day some of my students and a couple of their boyfriends took me into the country to see a reservoir.\u00a0 We got a bus from outside the college and travelled due north about 20 minutes.\u00a0 We alighted, walked about 100 meters at right angles to the road and encountered the entrance to the reservoir.\u00a0 I had been expecting a lake, being mixed up between it and a lake in the vague vicinity.\u00a0 There was little water and some of the locals were doing their washing in it, hanging the wet clothes on bushes and railings from the reservoir superstructure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The reservoir with\u00a0 its stone bank.<\/p>\n

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Washing on railings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Taken from the railings.<\/p>\n

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Two of the industrious ones.<\/p>\n

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View to the right from the railings.<\/p>\n

A few people were out in the reservoir area fishing in an isolated pond. There were a few other visitors.\u00a0 They were sitting in the shade beneath a concrete walkway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The fishermen and hangerson.<\/p>\n

We continued on and walked along a country road past orchards and fields containing a diversity of crops.\u00a0 These included cotton, millet, peanuts, sweet potato, corn, apples, jujubes (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jujube<\/a>), cabbage type vegetables and many others.\u00a0 A stall at the entrance was selling little bunches of flowers which were sewn together.\u00a0 I was told they were used in cooking.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure where the locals lived but 2 orchard owners were around to sell to passersby, one being outside on the road seeking customers, the other just happened to be there when we went through a gate.\u00a0 As it was a bit out of the way I\u2019m not sure who they would find to purchase their fruit.\u00a0 Each apple clung to the tree encased in its own plastic bag.\u00a0 I forgot to find out the reason, but imagine it had something to do with bugs.\u00a0 We picked some apples and got to eat fresh from the tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the countryside.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The road we walked along.<\/p>\n

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Entrance into apple orchard.<\/p>\n

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A track not taken.<\/p>\n

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Birds nest. I have seen\u00a0 many big nests like this in China.<\/p>\n

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Part of a jujube tree.\u00a0 It has thorns and from what I’ve read does well in arid areas.\u00a0 By coincidence I’d recently\u00a0 had an icecream which had some jujube in it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This what immature jujubes look like after being\u00a0forgotten in my handbag for a week.\u00a0 One of the students tried one when we were out and it was very sour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Some cotton bolls. A student said that her mother takes theirs to a factory and has it made into a quilt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Weighing the apples.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The flowers for sale.\u00a0 Nicely arranged and a collection braided together.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d have been happy to keep walking to see what there was to see, but some of the students were wilting from the heat so we retraced our steps and arrived at the bus stop at exactly the right time.\u00a0 One day I\u2019ll take the bus again and see where it terminates.\u00a0 It must go a fair way as the fee was 2RMB whereas other local buses are 1RMB per trip. \u00a0I\u2019ve travelled a long way for 1RMB in my quest to see what\u2019s at the end.\u00a0 So far it\u2019s never been worthwhile but strangely satisfying.<\/p>\n

The TV story has had a happy ending.\u00a0 My machine was replaced and reconnected last night.\u00a0 When I turned it on this evening I got to see a program I\u2019d seen before.\u00a0 There is a message there!\u00a0 Only one English channel containing a limited range of programs provides restricted viewing.\u00a0 There are some Chinese shows with interesting sets and costumes but my need for English is greater than my curiosity about costumes so I rarely watch for any length of time.\u00a0 I really enjoyed listening to some decent radio programs and watching a little TV when I was home recently as it is so different from what I can obtain here.\u00a0 Yesterday I managed to watch a little current affairs from Australia\u2019s ABC channel on my computer, but normally it tells me I\u2019m in a country it doesn\u2019t service and won\u2019t let me watch.\u00a0 No doubt I could get better access to its radio programs but that means I have to think about it and normally I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Weekend Soon after my return to China my TV stopped working.\u00a0 We had never actually turned it on but the channel indicator on a connected machine disappeared and couldn\u2019t be made to return.\u00a0 No visible results occurred after weeks of discussions with management.\u00a0 On Friday evening I returned from class to find a note […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93,94],"tags":[10,12,9,22,20,23,44,42,16],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-xingtai","tag-agriculture","tag-bus","tag-china","tag-college","tag-food","tag-lake","tag-plants","tag-transportation","tag-xingtai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":659,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}