关于五大连池的美好印象--------外籍友人的文章－替缥缈之风代发

张崴

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  r: ?) W8 M# K9 U0 b* odear friend:thank you very much. One of my students is a member of an internet travel group, and last weekend the group went to a small town called Wudalianchi. In case you wonder what an internet travel group is, well, it was new to me as well. It seems they all like to travel, and various members of the group get together to organize potential trips each weekend. The trip to Wudalianchi was by bus, and said vehicle was to be met at a location I only had on a piece of paper—hand written—in Chinese. And I can only read a hundred characters, and only then if they are very nicely printed.
So yes, at 4:40 am I was out on the street looking for a taxi, and wondering where it would take me. At five the taxi dropped me off in front of the main administration building of the communist party in Harbin. This was a little disconcerting, especially as there was no sign of anyone other than a grumpy looking security guard. Within five minutes a large red bus tooled by with Claire, the student, waving madly from beside the bus driver.
We then drove around Harbin for half an hour, at which point the driver parked the bus and began looking at maps. This did not bode well for the trip. We soon headed out of town, but almost immediately pulled into a gas station. You all know what gas stations look like. Here is the country version of a Chinese one. They all look just like this one, except their roof is not warped. That comes from the computer refusing to deal with the image properly when making a panorama. I tried several pieces of software, and this was the least badly damaged image, so don't complain.
That is Claire on the right, and others from the group are on the way back from what passes for a toilet in a Chinese gas station. The less I say about that topic the better!

释然

奇幻的旅程 友善的朋友 美妙的回忆/:069

狼外婆

/:022

我就会两句英文：哈喽！你能借我一美元吗？上周徒步遇见这老外试了一下，没想到这老外还真听懂了！就是钱没借给我——真抠

孤独求败

俺滴天呀，本来国文就没咋学好，这英文更难懂了！除了景能读懂，其他都不认识，包括人~
能否翻译成中文？？

张崴

老外的视角其实是很独特的,哈哈,无论怎么说,这可是花果山户外组织走向国际的第一步啊

缥缈之风

非常感谢张威。我就是太懒了。这样一点一点地发就可以全部发上去。希望通过老外的视角大家能知道一些。外国人怎么看中国。其实平时他们是不说的。

张崴

Note how well they are dressed for the water, and how they are all quietly in their seats. For some reason this didn't happen on our boats, which are in the picture on the right. And finally, here is someone at their little cottage on the side of the stream, watching us tourists passing by .

I strongly suspect there is a story behind that building. Those windows are not at all common, nor is the stone. Most old buildings were made of very roughly squared off blocks of lava, but this is covered in white tile. Very fancy, and totally out of place. If I'd noticed earlier I would have asked--but probably wouldn't have learned its story anyway. The language barrier can be pretty dense at times.

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The bus trip back was smooth and completely uneventful, if unexpectedly longer than the trip up. Here are some passengers making sure the driver doesn't get lost. Note the good luck charm hanging below the mirror.

The bus driver’s wife is sitting in the jump seat in the stair well. I suspect the fact we didn’t get lost is largely due to her. The organizer of the trip is sitting on the floor. He spent most of the trip sitting there, enjoying being in on the action. Claire's nephew is in the blue-black shirt. Yes, he of the overactive sleep.

When we got to the top of the mountain, he decided to camp out at the rest area instead of walking around and enjoying the different views. When we got back he had bought himself a ceramic whistle that just needs a little water, and then makes a pretty good imitation bird call. The only trouble was the whistle part was so close to the tip of the stem that sometimes it was in his mouth when he tried to blow it. He was a little surprised when I showed him what the problem was, but not as surprised as I was when he showed me it needed water to work properly!

Like most of his generation of Chinese student, he doesn't get enough exercise and isn’t exactly fit. But that is something for another story. Hope you enjoyed this one!

Ken

张崴

Next we got on the boats and everyone enjoyed posing for pictures. Here you see someone else coming upstream, camera at the ready.

张崴

I got to take some thoroughly arty pictures of green stuff and water, but as they may not do well in this format, you have escaped. Well, partially escaped.

张崴

From there we went on a 'boat ride' which was actually an hour wandering around a part of the lava field with lots of ponds, followed by a five minute putter down a small creek in a large boat.