A Little Spice

Riding the bus in Ningbo, China

Three months have passed since I first arrived in China, and despite having a few moments of homesickness and hostility, I believe I have adjusted to this China life pretty well. Since my relationship with China is no longer in its Honeymoon Phase, I think it is important to keep it exciting by adding some spice every now and then. I don't want to fall into that boring Bermuda Triangle area where most relationships get stuck, developing a monotonous routine in which I go teach each morning, come home, eat dinner, watch a movie/read/etc., go to sleep and repeat.
No thanks.

In order to avoid this phase, I like to go on random “adventures” around the city with the other foreigner at my school. Usually our adventures become a fun way to meet new people, discover an area of the town we’ve never visited before, or pick up some cool items at the markets & stores we stumble across. Last week we found a small guitar shop and I decided to buy myself a cheap guitar – new hobby! Another time we found a street filled with markets where you could buy all different types of produce and meat. They even had live chickens for sale, and customers could hand-pick their dinner and watch it get sacrificed. It was very interesting. Although most of our adventures have ended blissfully, sometimes they do not go exactly as planned.

On one of our great explorations around Ningbo, China, I thought it would be exciting to hop on a random bus to see where it might take us (You never know what you may find). My coworker and I wanted to see more of our beautiful city, so we planned to ride the bus until we found an area that seemed to catch our eyes. We would then get off and the adventure would begin! Before we know it, it is dark and cold, the bus is empty, and we are stranded in the middle of nowhere with empty stomachs. We had rode the bus for at least 40 minutes without seeing anything that looked exciting. Unfortunately, we didn't have a Plan B ready for this type of situation, so we just rode and rode until the bus driver got to the end of the route and decided to kick us off the bus. The real adventure that night was finding our way back home. Luckily we made it back safely. We definitely learned our lesson: Bring snacks with you when you go on an adventure.

- FBG