So yesterday Becka and I set off to find me a riding stable that our teacher had marked on a map for us.
No we didn't find it.
It was worth the hunt though. We caught one bus to a certain stop in an area of Qingdao outside of the main centre. There was a minor Fail moment when we heard our stop called as the next one, looked at each other and nodded that this was our stop, and then both started daydreaming before both realising at the exact same moment that it was 5 minutes later and our stop had come and gone... But we got off at the next one and it was ok as the next bus we wanted stopped there as well. This part of Qingdao is less shiny and more functional but with the narrower streets and shorter buildings, there was more of an everyday life feel. Then we hopped on the next bus but realised we were going the wrong way so hopped off again pretending that we had meant to only travel one stop. We crossed the road, or rather ducked and dived across, and got diverted into a music shop and Haoyide, a chain of corner shops, before finally getting on the bus the right way. Haoyide looks and feels like the news agents in Britain but sells dumplings by the counter along with eggs boiled in tea. And the sandwiches, which someone obviously saw in the West and thought would therefore do well here, are filled with weird Chinese style fillings, I don't even know what they were only that they tended to be brown or yellow. The problem is is that Chinese people don't get sandwiches so don't buy them and Westerners don't get the fillings so won't buy them so who does...
The next bus dropped us off in the area behind Fushan mountain. This is the mountain that my University is directly in front of so as the crow flies we had perhaps not gone very far but as you have to go round, it takes a while. We wandered aimlessly around a collection of flats but did not find what we were looking for. These flats were rather nice, in that the gaps in between were filled with tangle undergrowth and trees, giving it a rather suburban feel. Becka liked it.
We asked a passerby if there was somewhere nearby where you could ride horses and after uttering whatever the Chinese for "ride horses? Around here???" another passerby intervened and pointed us in a direction. We followed this but just found more flats and roads. It didn't look promising. So we asked again and this time got pointed in completely the opposite direction. But again we didn't find anything... The closest we got was a shop selling horse baskets. Not the same. Still it was quite fun ambling around what definitely felt like a community. There was a park with old women nattering away and cackling, the odd child being shepherded around by their grandparents and some old men gathered around a game of Mahjong offering the players advice. You very rarely see children here together. They tend to be held very tightly by their parents or grandparents being hurried from one lesson to the next. You never see them playing together in the parks, only occasionally messing around as they wait for their slower carers to catch up. I am fascinated by what type of adult this system is going to produce. We in the West criticise some people for being Helicopter Parents but those are nothing compared to what I've seen... Even when the child is quite substantial, the parents hold it's hand, help feed it, lift it up onto the bus... I suppose that they are well aware that this is all the child they are going to get so maybe that makes them extra protective. But when their child goes to university, it's common for the mother to go too and *still* do everything for it...
One of our teachers, as she is the only child of only children, is allowed to have two children herself. She has a son already but said that she did not want another.
In the end we gave up and found that by happy chance, there was a bus that went straight to our university. The service has very old and rusty buses that aren't mentioned on my bus map so that's why we didn't know about it. Their buses need retiring. They can't make it up a slope without coughing horribly and then need a breather. Poor things.
On the way back we passed some stalls selling literally thousands of vases. Becka and I have vowed to return. Maybe one will be worth £52million!
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