A Taste of Sam's Life in Ningbo

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that I was ridiculously excited to see Sam, one of my oldest (long-time, not that she’s an old lady ;) friends again, and that in her new, for-the-time-being home in Ningbo, China. A city I’d never heard of before she moved there, but that has 7 million inhabitants nonetheless. Since Sam is one of my very favorite people on the planet, I knew she’d show us a fabulous time, but I didn’t know beforehand just how darn helpful it would be to have her introduce us to China and travel around with us for a bit. Being with someone who knows Chinese – even “survival Chinese,” as Sam calls her language skills – is a Godsend in this country, where even hand gestures are unrecognizable (fun example: the Chinese only need to use one hand to count to ten).

Sam, gnomey, and me, reunited!

We arrived in Shanghai jetlagged beyond belief after 17+ hours in transit, but, surprisingly, managed to very easily find our way through the metro to our hostel thanks to all signs in the city being written in pinyin – the official way of writing Chinese in the Roman alphabet, developed in the '50s – and not only in Chinese characters. In another fortuitous turn of events, the dorm room we’d booked for the night for the three of us – go big or go home when starting out a new backpacking life, right? – was full, so they gave us a triple for the same price (score!). Which resulted in us crashing in there at about 1:00 in the afternoon for the most glorious 3-hour nap I’ve ever had.

We explored a bit of Shanghai around the Bund for the rest of the afternoon before Sam arrived – 2 hours late thanks to a taxi letting her off on the wrong street, having understood her in (survival) Chinese to have said “Shaanxi” instead of “Shanxi" street – at which point we went for a lovely dinner of xiao long bao (regional soupy dumplings), a soon-to-be staple food of ours in China.

 Mystery meat street food

The next day, we took a bus over the "world's longest sea bridge" (or so they say, China seems to always have the world's ___est something) to Ningbo and got a big heap of an introduction to expat life in China with a bunch of Sam’s friends at a random little waterpark right outside town. It’s hard to express just how embarrassingly much I love amusement parks, so suffice it to say that a waterpark on a painfully hot summer day is just about perfection in this California girl’s eyes. The four-person intertube funnel ride was just about as much fun as you can have apart from a water trampoline, but man, do the Chinese make you work for your fun! We had to carry the rafts all the way up those seriously high flights of stairs each time! On wet and slippery ground with a few beers in us (but of course)! In the US, people would go lawsuit-crazy over much less...

 Now that's how you carry rafts

To continue our full-on Ningbo experience, we had some super delicious barbecue street food after the waterpark (the clams were to die for!), then got martinis at their neighborhood fancy schmancy bar before hitting up the local bar street, which we weren’t allowed to leave until the sun came up.

Ningbo sunrise, as seen from Sam's apartment

Along with getting our first taste of Chinese beer – light and not nearly hoppy enough, but somehow still refreshing in the heat – we also got to know the quirks of Sam’s little group. Our favorite weirdo was AJ, who comes from an Australian farming family and is a bit awkward around people until he gets a drink in him, and then he starts dancing in what can only be described as a male version of the Elaine dance (here's hoping the poor guy never reads this!).

Over the course of the next couple days, Sam took us to a few of her favorite restaurants and one major aspect of Chinese culture became suddenly clear to us: group eating. People only seemed to go out to eat in large groups and not a single person in one of the restaurants we visited ordered a dish for themselves. All dishes were ordered for the table - and always way more than you can finish - for everyone to pick from slowly as each dish is delivered to the table in a completely haphazard order with no consideration for what it is a starter or main dish or dessert. There is no better way to try as many new dishes as possible in such a short time frame. And as a random bonus for the chopstick-impaired (like me), you never end up overeating!

 Sweet food court treats to start the day

 The ancient Ningbo library

 45° Celcius is not pretty on anyone (notice that the AC I'm in front of is on 30° and it felt freezing!)...

...but ice cream helps

Evening group dance time

Two of about 18 ordered dishes

Sam’s last job before sending us off for a week on our own was to help us book our train tickets to Beijing, a daunting task anywhere in China and one nearly impossible for foreigners in not-on-the-tourist map Ningbo (literally, the Lonely Planet covered it up on their map with the legend). We thought the streets in China were chaotic enough - people just drive in any direction, in any lane, any time they want, is what I gathered from my observations - but the ticketing office is a whole nother beast.

 Pedestrian crossing? What's that?

Waiting for train tickets

It's basically one giant, loud mass of people forming groups that could occasionally be mistaken for lines and I gathered that it works like this: Everyone slowly shoves and elbows their way forward until they reach the front, at which point they yell at the ticket seller in Chinese their destination and time and she yells back prices and questions like, “hard seat?” “sleeper?” or “first class?” in a disgruntled voice and tries to get the transaction completed as quickly as humanly possible. Needless to say, Micha’s and my blank stares and useless English words were of absolutely no help and without Sam’s (super impressive, to us!) survival Chinese, we probably would never have made it out of Ningbo, much less on two reasonably priced second class seats on the bullet train. Which, coincidentally, is the exact same as the German ICE, a comforting realization when boarding. If only the seats were also made for German sizes instead of Chinese, then it'd be just like home...