Week 7
We had a
long weekend this week because of a Chinese national holiday. The holiday was
set aside so that the Chinese could visit the graves of their ancestors and
clean them. They bring offerings of foods such as fruits to the graves so their
ancestor’s spirits can eat them. They also burn paper money at the graves so
their ancestors have some cash to spend in the afterlife. So to give people the
time and opportunity to travel to the burial grounds, the government made a
national holiday. I considered traveling over the long weekend, but was advised
not to since EVERYONE in China would be traveling. It would be impossible to
escape the crowds. Thus I decided to stay put.
My new
gloves came in the mail so Ryan and I were finally able to go out and kick the
ball around with me playing goal keeper. The field that we play on is normally
split in half when there’s not a league game being played. This way two small
games can be played at the same time. When Ryan and I arrived only one half of
the field was being played on so we went to the other side. As I was putting on
my cleats, a man walked by and did a double take when he saw me. He said “你踢球吗？” which means, “You play
soccer?!” I nodded while he smiled and shook his head in disbelief. Once we
were ready, Ryan and I spent some time passing the ball just to warm up before
I donned my gloves for the first time since July (before my most recent knee
surgery). Ryan, being the nice guy he is, spent most of the time shooting on me
even though he normally plays defense and is unaccustomed to shooting. I wasn’t
paying attention to the people around us but after we were finished practicing,
Ryan told me that I attracted a lot of attention. There was one time when made a pretty good save that a
couple spectators actually applauded for me. I didn’t notice at the time so I
almost didn’t believe him. Since I’m not anywhere close to being in shape, I
insisted that we keep to ourselves for now. Give me a month or two of regular
practice and exercise and I’ll be ready to play with the boys.
Because of the long weekend,
Nicole and I were finally able to go ride horses. The buses were still crowded
like last time, but Nicole was insistent that we get on no matter what. So when
bus Y5 came to the bus stop, we elbowed our way through the crowd and jumped on
the bus. We barely fit and were actually right next to the front door. Every
time the driver opened or closed the sliding door it would hit me in the back.
The particular bus we were on happened to drive by the West Lake (the most
famous place for tourism in Hangzhou) which is why it was so crowded. Once we
got further along the line, it emptied out quickly. Nicole’s Chinese friend
Jane met us at the bus stop and walked with us to the horse stables. The
stables are located on the outskirts of the city. In total the house 30 horses.
It’s a really nice place with lots of trees and right in the shadow of a
mountain. There were multiple tracks to ride in. One was used for riding lessons
and the other was for customers like us who just wanted to ride for fun. The
track we rode in was one of the smaller ones. There were three horses in our
track: one for me, one for Nicole, and one for an employee. It cost 100 yuan to
ride for a half hour. Believe me, that was long enough. Even though we were
only riding in circles around the track, I got a variety of speeds from my
horse. All the way from stop to eat grass to a gallop. I had no idea controlling a horse was so difficult. I was having fun just winging it. Nicole, being an experienced rider, was trying to get her horse to canter but was having
difficulty. She asked the employee what command she should give to make her
horse go faster. Little did she know what would happen. Next thing we know, the
employee on the horse starts chasing our horses wielding a whip. He chased us
around the track a couple times and all I could do was hold on and laugh. It
was really exciting and terrifying at the same time.
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