Meeting the mayor and a trip to the mountains

Last month was China’s National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. Not only was I lucky enough to be invited to meet the mayor of Tianjin at a formal celebration but also we were able to travel to Beijing during the holiday!

National Day is celebrated on 1st October to mark the formation of the People’s Republic of China; in Tiananmen Square there is a raising of the Chinese flag ceremony which is followed by a parade and firework displays. As well as this around the same time there is the Mid-Autumn Festival where Chinese people eat mooncakes and display lanterns.

Sadly I wasn’t lucky enough to be able to see the Tiananmen Square celebrations however we did decide to go on a trip to a more rural area near Beijing during the holiday and we were able to meet the mayor of Tianjin which was a massive privilege. I was also unable to taste mooncakes as every time we were given them they had peanuts in them. However my friends said they were delicious!

Meeting the mayor was a very special occasion. There was 10 or so foreign students who were able to go from our university and at the event there were many famous sport stars, singers and actors but at the time we had no idea we were in the presence of so many influential figures. At the event we listened to speeches and enjoyed a dinner, then the mayor himself came around and shook our hands.

During our week off we decided to go to the Nine Dragons Mountain which turned out to be quite the adventure! After taking the bullet train we ordered our taxi and got ready to for our holiday. We got off to a rocky start when our taxi brought us to a small farming community in the middle of a corn field and the hotel we booked turned out to be fake. Thankfully we were able to get our money back and found a new one nearby.

At the hotel we had a huge meal including fish, salad and chicken head! Owen was the only person brave enough to try the chicken head. The hotel was lovely apart from the huge amount of bugs absolutely everywhere but we decided to stay and deal with the bugs. This resulted in a centipede in the bathtub, countless cockroaches and a five inch long millipede crawling around the room resulting in Robin throwing it out in a glass cup at 3am.

In the morning we got up and decided to explore the area. We found an abandoned house up in the mountains and explored it for a short while until we realised squatters lived there and so we continued on and walked further up the mountain to find a tree with red ribbons tied to it for luck. Within the mountains there was monkeys but sadly we never spotted any. The views from the top of the mountain were stunning and we are considering going back to stay for longer to participate in the activities such as archery, tours and going on a slide down the mountain.

The remainder of October was pretty hectic in the lead up to midterm exams and so now we are finally done and get a rest until our January exams.

Alex