Little Snapshots

Another guest post – this time from my Dad, who seems to have inherited his father’s storytelling skills. Enjoy!

Almost everything here is unlike my usual driving experience.  Lane markings, if any, are merely suggestive; signal lights seem rare; right turn on red does not require a stop; motorcycles go wherever there is an inch clearance; pedestrians cross busy streets one virtual lane at a time pausing to trot across in front of oncoming vehicles.  It is all quite exciting and it works amazingly well.

Variety.  There is huge variety of conveyance on the streets.  People walking (side walks may disappear at random), bicycles, pedicabs, rickshaw-like things with motorcycle fronts, tiny three-wheeled trucks spewing their two-cycle smoke, single- and double-cab mini trucks, taxis and more taxis in red, yellow, green and blue, bread-loaf vans, cars of all sizes and prices, medium sized trucks, vans and buses, and large heavy duty trucks all compete for space on the road and usually do not crash.  The motorcycle taxi drivers and city bus drivers seem to be the best at quickly getting from A to B.  Liberal use of horns announces presence, impatience, or anger.

So many different car brands.  Volkswagen, Citroen, Peugot, Chana, Hyundai, Geely, BYD, Brilliance, Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, BMW, Audi, Mecredes-Benz, Chery, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Rouwe, Ford, Kia, and I’m sure there are others.  They range from the tiniest to large luxury sedans and SUVs.

In the shopping areas cars are parked on the wide sidewalk.  I’m sure there is someone collecting a fee.  It must be quite a trick to get them in and out of parking places with all the pedestrians walking by so close.

The taxis and buses all run on CNG instead of diesel or gasoline and they all seem to have manual transmissions.  I suppose only the big luxury cars have automatics.

Although my Mom and Dad have gone home, I asked Mom if I could use an excerpt from her travel journal for a guest post on our blog. I may be doing this several times over the next few weeks, to let you see where we are from the perspective of someone who’s not always here. Enjoy!

Karen’s tutor, May, arrived at the apartment shortly before 10, and we waited for Travis to get home before leaving for the park.

On this bus trip, we saw our first near vehicle accident. I mentioned before that lane markers don’t really mean anything, and every driver is doing his best to squeeze into nonexistent spaces. This time, a truck driver came a bit close to our bus, and his load actually bumped the mirror of the bus. Both vehicles stopped immediately, while the drivers got out and discussed how best to separate the two vehicles without any damage. At least, that is what I assume they were discussing, as I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Eventually, they settled on a plan, got untangled, and we were on our way once again.

By the time we rode the bus to the end of the line, where the park was located, it was nearly lunch time, so we headed off for the famous Lanzhou beef noodles at a local restaurant. They were quite yummy.

The park was up on a hillside, so we climbed lots of steps to get to the entrance.  Chinese steps tend to have low risers and long steps, so they weren’t very steep. It’s a good thing Andy & I are in pretty good shape so we could climb all those steps! When we had wandered in the park for awhile, we came to the entrance to a zoo. After some debate, we determined that it would be worth the  6 kuai per person (that’s a little less than a dollar) entrance fee to go in. Melody certainly enjoyed seeing the animals, and they had quite a selection – giraffes, zebras, camels, various bears, including a panda bear, lions, tigers, leopards,  deer, goats, vultures, various monkeys, wolves, and elephant with a very proud keeper, a collection of birds, and others I’ve probably forgotten. It was an old-style zoo. You could see the animals very well because they were in enclosures very close to the walkways – not in their natural habitats. That part was a little sad. The most entertaining part was the monkey island. The viewing area overlooked the monkeys’ rocky habitat. From time to time, visitors would toss plastic drink bottles into the pit. It was amazing to watch how adept the monkeys were at removing the bottle caps. Most of them didn’t know how to drink the liquid without spilling much of it. One I saw poured the drink out on the ground, and then lapped it up. There were many fights over the bottles, but one mama monkey snuck off with her bottle into a cave, opened it there, and carefully drank from it.

On our way out of the zoo, we passed some kiddie amusement park rides. It seemed a little out of place when we heard a train playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” especially when the words – all in English – were added to the tune.