day trip to Changchun

I had an accidental day off last week, so a Chinese friend and I took a day trip to Changchun. The boss of the oil company that I tutor was out of town on a business trip for two weeks and apparently my school didn't know since he was still on my schedule, and my other tutoring student was scheduled with someone else. I had never been to Changchun, which is the closest big city to Songyuan, so an adventure was in order.

We went to Jing Yue Tan Forest Park first. When we first got in it seemed really big, but all man made. It was reminiscent of the aquatic park I had been to in Nanjin, Tianjin. Pretty, but disappointing if you're expecting some real nature. After wandering around for a bit though, we discovered the real lake. There are a bunch of small, man made ones that are meant to look nice near the entrance of the park, but as you get further in you find a large natural lake, forests, hiking trails, places to camp, etc. This park also has the highest point in Chanchun, and a really good view of the whole city.

In addition to the usual park amenities, it also has a driving range, a bath house and random carnival type games and activities. My friend and I did the thing where they strap you into the harness and you're attached to rubber bands on tall poles, jumping on a trampoline, bouncing and flipping. Tops of fun. They can mechanically adjust the tension on the rubber bands, so the workers were grabbing my harness, bouncing me crazy high and then flipping me. I was flying around like a rag doll; it was so much fun!

After the park we went to explore the actual city. Changchun is kind of great; it's pretty, has a good variety of food, good shopping, both traditional Chinese and western influences depending on the area you're in, not a bad spot at all. We had Italian food for lunch, made an actual Italian man, and Indian food for dinner, made by actual Indian people. It was definitely nice to get some variety in my diet!

This is what happens when I let a Chinese saleswoman dress me.

The crappy thing was that after a few hours my neck started to kill. And then my shoulders. After a while I couldn't turn my head or anything and I was in tons of pain. As fun as it was, I got the worst whiplash ever from that rubber bandy thing. My friend was freaking out, trying to convince me that I needed to go to the hospital to get x-rays. This was the day after I had gone to the hospital, so there was no way I was going back, but I knew it was just muscle thing; it was hard to explain that concept to my friend. We drove back to Songyuan that night, I popped a couple of muscle relaxers and decided to deal with it the next day. Regardless, all in all, it was a nice little day trip!