When we stepped off the plane in Changsha, it really felt like walking into a sauna, even though it was the middle of the night. A 90 minute bus ride brought us to our hotel in Zhuzhou, Hotel Hua Duo. It is not the same quality of hotel as we had in Beijing, but it has air conditioning (although I did not realize this until we woke up later this morning, when I tried to use the remote to turn on the TV and received a cool blast of air instead. Better late than never.)
This room (407) is our home/resting place for a week until camp starts. The 2 bed, ½ bathroom, 1 mahjong table room overlooks a fairly busy street, average by local standards I think, but about as busy as 8th Street in Saskatoon (except more motorbikes). The bed is impressively firm, like a sheet of plywood wrapped in a sheet. There is a no smoking sign, but the floor is riddled with cigarette burns, particularly around the mahjong table. There is a bit of a funky smell in the room, that doesn’t improve over the course of the week.
Today we visited King Home Middle School, then wandered the largest mall in Zhuzhou, similar in many ways to a Canadian department store. I appreciated the fixed prices, despite the praise of some of our group on my bargaining skills at the tourist markets in Beijing. One major difference from a Canadian store was the large number of assistants in every area of the store, ready to help you. Another difference was that when you selected something to purchase, they wrote up a purchase order, which you then had to take to a till to pay, and then you brought the receipt back in order to pick up your item.
That was enough for today. Tomorrow morning there is a special welcoming ceremony for us at the school, followed by … well, the schedule is becoming subject to change, so we’ll see.
-Paul Stinson
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