Golden Week

Longshan Park
So firstly, apologies for such a long gap between posts. You may be aware that the 19th Meeting of Congress is currently taking place in China. As such, the government has become (more) strict on internet usage. So VPNs (which is how I access google and therefore, this blog) have not always been working. It's a small price to pay for this experience and it hasn't much bothered me - it's been quite refreshing not to be on Facebook or Whatsapp all the time!
Fisher Girl Statue - perfecting the pose!

Anyway my last post got quite a positive reaction - I'm glad so many of you liked it. As I made it during Golden Week I realise I never actually showed you what I got up to in my time off, so here's a sneak peak:

Summer Palace
I mostly explored Xiaolen (where I am living). Because of the heat I hadn't been out much and it's only recently just started cooling down. I started the week by going to Longshan Park - which translates to Dragon Mountain. Suffice to say that they were no mountains or dragons but it was a beautiful place. Plus it's only a bus ride and short walk from my home so will definitely be going back there again.

Summer Palace
The most exciting part was when Alyson and I braved the train station on our own. It was busy (but not as bad as we anticipated). We navigated our way around waving our tickets and passports at anyone who looked official. We went to Zhuhai and managed to use the different buses to go to some tourist places. First up we visited the the the Fisher Girl Statue. We actually got to the beach but it was so packed we didn't even try to get on! Still we managed to get some nice pictures.

The Peoples Park
We also went to a replica of the Summer Palace. The actual Summer Palace is in Beijing which is a little far for us so it was nice to walk around. Having said that it was so painfully hot that it got to a point where we decided we'd rather sit in the air conditioned train station a little early. It was a beautiful place and we'll definitely go back when it's cooler.
The Peoples Park

Near the end of the week we found another park in our area. It was a small park mostly aimed at children but there were some nice paths to walk around.

The last of our adventures saw Alyson and I head to Shiqi which is a 40 minute bus ride away. We met up with one of our fellow interns from Harbin (who I became quite good friends with and miss lots!). We had lunch, wandered around and made some travel plans for after the work ends!

Shiqi
Hopefully the next post won't take so long, the meeting ends this week so fingers crossed everything returns to normal!

Xie xie



P.s If you want to know more on the Fisher Girl, visit this page: https://internchina.com/the-love-story-behind-the-zhuhai-fisher-girl/

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