Huaying

After we left Mianyang on September 7th, we actually went to Chongqing (where my mom's sister lives) for a few days, but then we went to my dad's hometown, Guanyinxi, on the 9th. It's a very very small town outside the county-level city of Huaying. If you want to know the order of things, from small to large, it's this:

Guanyinxi (town/village?)

Huaying (small city)

Guang'an (large city)

Sichuan (province)

China (country)

The World

I didn't even know how it worked exactly until just now, when I looked it up on Google maps and Wikipedia, haha. I just heard these different city/town names thrown around ever since I was 4. 

Anyway, my dad's mother (Po Po for me) lives there and my aunt (Da Gu) lives there part of the time. She recently bought an apartment in Huaying, which is a big difference from the house in Guanyinxi. I think Guanyinxi might be the most rural place I've ever been. They don't even have a sitting toilet, they only have a squatting one (more on this subject in a later post). Not only that, it's outside the apartment! You have to walk down this long hallway to a balcony, and the bathroom is on the balcony. The only thing covering the door is this worn, threadbare sheet that flutters open at the slightest breeze. Luckily, the only thing the bathroom faces is the view of rolling hills. No buildings for peeping toms to creep in. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, though, is a scary thing. I used to be afraid of going as a child...I thought some axe murderer would come swooping in and kill me. I'm better now, but it still kind of freaks me out. 

We stayed in Guanyinxi for only one night, and the next day we headed to Huaying with my aunt and her granddaughter, San San. She is absolutely adorable, but also pretty spoiled. 

Cute, right?

I can't say that we did anything super exciting while we were there, but on September 11th, my mom went to the hospital down the road to get her tooth fixed, since one of my dad's friends is a dentist there. While she was there she realized that one of her old friends is also a doctor there, so she called her up. Then we bumped into yet another of my dad's old classmates, so the three of them insisted on taking us out to lunch once my mom's appointment was over. 

Some sort of duck...

They ended up taking us out to dinner too!! We ate frog, which I haven't had in a long time. I know it sounds gross, but it is quite delicious.

LOOK AT ALL THOSE PEPPERCORNS. My mouth was completely numb.

That was our last night; the next day we went back to Chongqing and have been here ever since!