Enlightenment, one post at a time...

Enlightenment, one post at a time...

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Qiu Tian (Autumn in China)

The past few days the weather here has been phenomenal.  Mid-70s and sunny with a slightly cooler breeze.  Simply wonderful.

At the pool hall
Friday night Cecelia, myself, Steven, Alex (an Australian teacher) and some Chinese friends went out.  We started off with just Steven, Cecelia and I going out for Sichuan food.  After that, we met up with some Chinese, Panamanian, and Indonesian friends at the pool hall.  We played billiards for awhile, then Alex and two of his Chinese friends arrived.  This is when things got terribly muddled, and it is my last clear memory from the evening.


Gan bei
Alex, Cecelia and I with "Pleather"
Alex brought a pitcher of white Russians with him, in which Cecelia partook.  Soon (after Steven left) we all headed down to another restaurant for sweet and sour pork ribs.  In the process, we ended up ordering waaaayyyy too many beers.  I got into a drinking competition with a Chinese friend who is just over half my age and definitely half my size.  We started drinking beer from small "juice glass" sized beer glasses.  We were both drinking it down like shots--one swallow.  Wow.  We ended up joining another group of Chinese guys (also drunk) whom Alex said had "David Bowie haircuts."  One in particular struck his fancy saying things like "Ohhhh, look at your Bowie!", and "the jacket... wait, is that PLEATHER?!", or  "ahh and you're missing a tooth as well, splendid!" to some poor drunken Chinese guy who didn't speak a word of English, but kept staring at us.  We ended up taking pictures with the lot of them (including "Pleather").  After the restaurant, Alex, myself, and some basketball player from the University went in the north gate to relieve ourselves.  We then went to an outdoor restaurant (street food with tables set up along side the road) where we proceeded to get more food, more beers, and even drunker.

Eventually we went home.  Our Chinese friend slept on our couch (as it was way past his dorm's curfew) and we went straight to bed.  The next day Cecelia was really hung over.  She ended up vomiting as late as 5 p.m.  That's when you know you had a good time the night before.  We had to cancel plans that day (for obvious reasons) and stayed inside.  It's too bad, because the weather was gorgeous.


We spent most of Sunday afternoon (after Cecelia slept late, still not feeling well) walking around the campus, taking pictures.  It was honestly one of the best times I've had here yet.  Everything was quiet, it was sunny with blue skies, perfect breeze, and warm (but not hot).  I'm so happy that we're finally getting some quality autumn time.  It seems that, in the States, it's hot until late-September, then it's beautiful for like 3 weeks, then it snows.  In Shaoguan we're actually going to get a full season.  Imagine that.

The leaves have not turned here (they may not, actually); however, some have already fallen.  It really adds to the atmosphere, because the falling leaves make the wonderful rustling sound when they blow, and they also make it smell like autumn.  Another aspect helping the aesthetics is that the Chinese burn leaves.  I really love that smell!

This morning I had class, then walked home, very content, as the sun shone through the trees surrounding our apartment, and the breeze rustled the leaves.  For the first time this trip, I'm really really really happy to be here and nowhere else.


1 comment:

  1. Nice post, Collin. We love getting a sense of life there, and hearing the gritty details! Yup, PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR!!

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