One Girl, Two Coasts: Day Twenty-Two: the Water Park Life

Day Twenty-two

I was unhappily woken up at 5:15 the next morning, for an exciting weekend trip with my brother and my two older cousins (essentially a kid's weekend out!). Our aunt had bought us tickets to go to rafting in a place called Ningguo, around five hours away from Shanghai. My aunt and uncle had gone on a few trips with the tour guide for the trip named Mr. Wu, so they were all pretty tight now. As a result, we'd be picking Mr. Wu up on our way to the subway station.

I was still exhausted as we made our way from the car to the subway to People's Square where the bus that we would take to get to Ningguo was waiting, but it helped a lot to doze on the bus. When we first stepped onto the bus, I was rather surprised; almost everyone on board was at least middle aged. There were a handful of little children, but the four of us were the only ones in between the years ten and like, forty-five...awk. I was confused because our itinerary had said that we'd be going to a water park this afternoon, and then would be rafting the next day. Seemed a bit too intense for such elderly folk, no? I guess they're all adventurous...good for them.

Mr. Wu and another tour guide took charge once we got rolling on the highway, encouraging us to nap and informing us of the schedule. Halfway through the ride, they also did some riddles and invited a few passengers to sing some songs for us. Real-life entertainment for the win!

We pulled over on a deserted street for lunch at a local restaurant. My tummy was rumbling...we had only a few minutes at the apartment to eat breakfast, so I'd inhaled a banana and some crackers and bolted out the door. Thankfully, my older cousin had bought a pastry for each of us to savor on the bus ride. The tour group had to split up into groups of eleven in order to fit at the round tables, where waiters and waitresses had already put down the same set of hot dishes on each table. After quite a bit of loud fussing and arguing by all of the adults, the four of us were split and each dazed and confused pair ate at a different table.

The food was measly compared to the usual Chinese meals here...it was just soup and rice with a bunch of simple Chinese dishes, mainly designed to fill you up without too much quality. Whatever. The adults, however, argued tirelessly with the attendants, asking for other dishes and complaining about the taste. Two of the men at my table went out to buy two huge boxes of beer at a store pretty far away....die-hard alcohol lovers. When they learned that I was American, they encouraged me to eat the food here and yelled "Cheers!" when we clinked our glasses...lol!

After our meal, we headed back on the bus and shortly made it to the water park. I guess I can kind of see why no young twenty-something's were in the group; they hate being the sun just about as much as I hate mosquitoes (that's saying a lot, since I counted all the bug bites I've gotten since I've been here, and it's in the mid-twenties. Yeah). They're pretty much vampires here; the whiter skin is, the better, so they put on whitening products, carry umbrellas around, and slather on sunscreen 24/7. Imagine how great pale white girls would feel over here!

I am very sad to report that the water park was disappointing. It was out in the middle of nowhere, which explained why there was almost no one there, which wasn't really the problem since there were no lines.

However, we walked into the place and you could see the entire park from there; there were a few water slides, one of those big toilet bowl slides, a tide pool area, and a water playground. That was about it. We were all very dismayed, like children without presents on Christmas. Was this a joke? There was a water park way larger and more complex, only ten minutes from the Shanghai apartment. And we had gotten up early and sat through five hours on a bus, to come here?? Not cool...

Well, we still intended to make the most out of the few hours we had here. After changing in the shower rooms that lacked any privacy whatsoever (China doesn't believe in individual changing stalls...or doors), we started off with the toilet bowl slide, which ended up being the best one in the park. We went through every ride in the park at least three or four times, since there were no lines. Halfway through, everyone had to evacuate the slides and pools because of an impending thunderstorm. It also started raining at some point, but we were soon able to continue playing.

When we were finally finished, we showered, changed, and got back on the bus to go to our hotel. It was actually a really nice hotel, and I got my own room with Jason. PARRTY!! It was really nice, and we finally got our wifi. Once we rested for a bit, it was time to get back on the bus for dinner at a restaurant close by. It was pouring rain, and by the time we were seated and eating (this time the four of us were together at a table with only one couple), the rain was coming down hard. All of a sudden, a gust of wind blew through an open slit in the roof, and a bunch of dust, trash, and other debris came tumbling down...right into our food. Perfect.

The adults at the two affected tables would certainly not stand for such a travesty, and they quickly got us new tables on the second floor while the cooks started making us two new sets of meals. I feel really bad that we had to waste our halfway eaten meal, but there was no way I was putting anything from those dishes in my mouth after watching a few dead bugs/crickets plop into the rice.

While we waited for the second round of dinner, we chatted with the couple at our table. Much to my surprise, the husband had gone to language school, worked in Nicaragua quite a bit, and spoke fluent Spanish as a result! He'd also been to Los Angeles and therefore was excited to hear that I'd be going to school there! It was so cool to speak Spanish with a Chinese man...I've never met anyone in this country who can speak Spanish, so it was really impressive.

Once we had gone through a cheerful second dinner and lots of great conversation with our two new pals, we went back to the hotel for a bit, and then took a walk to explore this unfamiliar city. There were KTV places, shops, restaurants, etc. everywhere and we wandered into a cute little shop with tons of cosmetics, skin care products, accessories, and more. You could get four face/feet/hand masks for only a little more than a dollar, so you bet I loaded my basket up with those! I seriously could not resist.

We also popped into a supermarket to get some water and drinks for the night before heading back. That night, we enjoyed the free movies, shows, and games the TVs in each room offered, and watched Identity Thief in my cousins' room next door. My cousins and I had got these cute little alcoholic drinks infused with fruit that we also tried (mine was grapefruit mixed with vodka). It was a rather late night, but we all slept really well after we said goodnight. Sleepy time!