Walking to the Local Village

We set out at 9:30 this morning with our parasols. It helped a little but it was still a hot hot walk to the village right next to the campus. We live near the back gate of the campus (think two gates along the same highway). It takes about 10-15 minutes to walk to the front gate and then another 10-15 minutes walk to the village. We searched for puddles of shade along the way but were still sweating nicely by the time we got there.

We wandered around the area of the small village where little old ladies were selling fresh greens. We imagined that they just picked them from their own gardens. We bought a few veggies and some fruits while entertaining the locals by our very presence. We even bought some pork from a stall. The man selling it was smart, he just started putting a couple of pieces onto the scale and we had to tell him we only wanted one piece, 10 yuan for a big piece of pork. With our little shopping bag full of provisions, we set off towards home.

Along the way, I bought a bottle of cold water from a little store by the gate of the village. I was able to have a short conversation with the lady in a smattering of Mandarin and Cantonese. It’s really cool that everyone I’ve tried to speak Cantonese to either answered back or at least understood me. We got our lunch that way in one of the many little restaurants along the highway back. Lunch cost 10 yuan or $1.45 Cdn. It wasn’t elaborate or anything but tasty enough and definitely reasonably priced. Don even got his hair cut. It was much more expensive than in Jinan, a whole 10 yuan. In Jinan, it was only 4 yuan.

We just arrived home after a two and a half hour “short” walk to get groceries. I’m not sure how often we’ll be doing that, at least at this time of the morning. Thankfully, we did notice that a few of the stores closer had fresh fruit for sale. Planning on taking it easy for the rest of the day with maybe a trip out to get ice cream at our store, the one that is a stone’s throw away, reeeeeally convenient!

Btw, we have found out that everything is downhill from us. Sounds good, until you have to come home. We’re definitely getting a good workout!