Second week in China - CongHua (April 22 - May 1)

During my second week in China we (Laura and I, though Laura left after 3 days to go home to Finland) also did a placement. This time we were able to do some hands-on work with the patients which was really interesting. Especially as I hadn't seen some of the types of impairments before, so I learned quite a bit.
The place where the hospital (Hospital homepage in English) is located is actually not the town of CongHua itself, but some smaller village about 15min from CongHua. The place is quite small and lives on tourists, for there are hot springs all over. Somehow though the boom in tourists was overestimated and there a quite a couple of unfinished houses/hotels to be found, along with hotels that close down. Nevertheless new ones still seem to open up, with bigger pools and more luxury.
The hospital itself is located in one of these old hotels, but has been refurbished to the purposes of a hospital.
I really enjoyed the peacefulness and being in the countryside during the 9 days staying there. Although I also worked the weekend I still got around a bit on the bike I borrowed. So just have a look at the pictures, there is an explanation with each one of them.

Placement at the Workers Rehabilitation Hospital

Another story about food has to be told here again. I went for breakfast with Wu Mei at a place on the way to the hospital (as opposed to the staff cantine). She ordered some congee (ricesoup with whatever meat or vegetable in it) for us and asked for the best one. When I started eating I had to battle to get the meat off all these tiny bones, so I asked her what kind of meat it was. At first she didn't want to tell me and just said she didn't know the English word (cheeky :-) ) which made me guess it was snake (as that was similar). After a while she did tell me (before she was afraid I wouldn't try) and I found out that I was eating frog meat for breakfast.... And it was really good :-)

M