November wrap-up

I haven't posted anything for quite a while, but that doesn't mean nothing happened, on the contrary! Ling Ling came to see me for a few days, that was very nice. The weather had been quite bad for a week, with lots of rain, but it improved instantly when she arrived, so we went swimming and made long bike rides along the coast. Needless to say, we had a good time. I skipped 3 days of class, but one day she joined me. Being a language teacher herself, she was curious to see how my teachers are handling things.
Actually, my teachers have been adding a lot of entertainment to their classes lately. We often play games where we have to guess words, or do some role playing. We also have done some presentations by students, showing photos and videos of their home country or travels, and talking about it (in Chinese, of course). I picked a nice selection of images from my travels in the northwest of China, where none of my classmates, nor my teacher had ever been, so it was quite interesting. Also my experience as a volunteer English teacher in Hainan in 2006, on my first visit to China, made a good story.
I went out to foreign restaurants a few times, including two Thai, one in Zeng Cuo An, and one near the university, and I joined a cute (and tall) Chinese girl whom I met a month ago to the Korean grill restaurant at the four-star Ramada hotel where she works as a hostess, welcoming guests with her charming smile and beautiful eyes. She also lives in Zeng Cuo An, so finally a friend who lives nearby. The food was nice too ;-)

The weather is almost like summer again, so I swam a lot this month, and also made a long (40 km) bike tour along the coast, almost up to the airport. I passed a very big beach which I had not seen before. It's called Fantasy Beach, and the surrounding area is developed into a large entertainment park with rides, a big water world, kart racing, night life, and of course shopping. Further north I passed a deserted village, which looks like a ghost town, with crumbling houses and rusting vehicles. Like an apocalyptic movie set. Strange enough, a bit further down the road emerges another equally old neighbourhood, but full of people and very lively.
Continuing around the northeast corner of Xiamen island, I reached Wutong, which has a lighthouse, and from there you can overlook the bay separating the island from the mainland, with plenty of big sailing yachts. After Wutong I had to turn around (or rather, inward), because there is a tall bridge over the bay that also harbours the big marina. Around the bay a whole new suburb of many apartment towers is rising, already finished but still uninhabited, except for the sales offices of the boat dealers. Another charming and lively village nearby is already partly demolished, and will have totally disappeared within a few years, no doubt.
In my village life goes on at the usual slow pace, although there is an ongoing process of entrepreneurial renovation which turns every house into a small hotel or cafe. Some of them are actually rather large and fancy, with prices reaching not so friendly levels. It doesn't stop the stream of young couples and slightly more adventurous singles coming to Zeng Cuo An to escape the hectic life in Guangzhou or Shanghai. The latter are good targets for Chinese practice, and sometimes a nice seafood dinner at my favourite restaurant.

Tomorrow I will get on the train to Nanning again. It has been two months already since I last saw Xiao An, and this time I will have the opportunity to meet the people who I missed on my last visit. It's not a holiday now, so everybody will be there. I have to skip some classes again, but I will bring my textbook, and I have my flashcards app on my phone, loaded with the latest vocabulary...