Piggybacking a bit on Jane's post of a few days ago, I've been thinking of how lucky we are to have so many things within walking distance. Not only is there absolutely no need for us to have a car here (okay, so maybe we'd like to get into Chengdu more often), but we really don't even need to bike that much. Consider our following commute times (all by foot):
1-5 minutes walk:
- 400 or so neighbors, including a couple of close friends, several colleagues, tons of kids for our kids to run around like hellions with, and the incredibly sweet former chair of the English department, who took Xander and Jane fishing one day last summer and sings Chinese folk songs so loudly to himself that we can often hear him at the back of our apartment.
- A small supermarket, about the size of a Wallgreen's. They're selling moon cakes now...
- Several convenience stores, for when the supermarket isn't open or when I feel like practicing a bit of Sichuan small talk.
- The mantou shop - a place that sells steamed buns and hot soy milk for about 5 cents each. Great for snagging a snack on the way to class.
- The cart right by the university gate that sells phone cards. Cards for the internet too.
- Johnny's restaurant. Okay, it has another name, but it was Johnny's favorite restaurant, so now its English name is simply Johnny's place. After a little bit of convincing, they now make us a pretty mean batch of kung pao tofu, when we're in the mood.
- A big open air vegetable market - a world unto itself. I'm sure we've got photos of it on the blog or Flickr somewhere, but I'm to lazy to look right now.
- 4-5 bubble tea places. We loves us some bubble tea!
- A long store lined commercial street containing, among many others stationery store, black market DVDs, barbershops, multiple restaurants, and a madly swerving electric scooter or five.
- Our kids' schools - the kindergarten, where Zekey and Ysa are each in their own separate classes this year, and the primary school, which Xander is walking back and forth to all by himself!
- A playground. Okay, it's really an exercise yard, with all sorts of low impact fitness-y things for mostly senior citizens, but it's the closest thing to a playground that we've got in these here parts. If we by chance see a real American-style playground in our travels somewhere, our kids all drop into a dead faint. (For five minutes, until they wake up and realize that it's not dangerous enough to be fun...)
- The English department office, which we are going to less and less as we get more and more settled in.
- A soccer field, running track, and a basketball court. Half of the basketball court doubles as a bike rodeo arena for the 4-7 year old segment of the University's population.
- A ping pong plaza. (My students often want to know what the English word is for an area with forty or so ping pong tables permanently installed outside, and I haven't been able to give them a precise answer, until exactly... now!)
- A kid's sandbox! Well, actually, it's the long jump sand pit next to the running track, but grandparents bring the kiddos there to play all the time. Oh, and said grandparents also have their kids pee into the sandpit when they need to, in the traditional Chinese diaperless way. We've been gently directing our children to the basketball court and the exercise yard instead...
10-20 minutes walk:
- The stop for buses to Chengdu.
- Our brand new high speed rail station! (Though you can only get tickets for the day after tomorrow's train, it seems.)
- The new section of campus, where Jane and I are teaching our classes this semester. Also a great place to ride bikes and fly kites, weather permitting.
- A couple of good tea houses. One we discovered just today, in fact...
- New construction by the river, including a couple of good restaurants facing a plaza and park(ish) space that our kids like to run around.
- More new construction! Dust!
- Other areas of town that we haven't needed to go to!
- Um, dragons...?
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