I am humbled in this city. There seems to be an endless sea of people like us. Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets
10-2-09
Literally every day in this country has been a new crazy adventure. I was thinking today about how many stories I'm going to have to tell when I get back, and just how many once in a lifetime experiences I have every day.
When we got up in the morning we stopped by the local eatery and got some of the specialty breakfast noodles that they eat here. They definitely lived up to the hype that my roommate has created for them over the past month or so.
After breakfast we were driven out to the dock to take a boat down the Lijiang river. Actually here it is just called the Li Jiang, because Jiang means 'large river' in Chinese. I don't know why they had to translate it the way they did.
We were lucky my roommates in laws live here, they were able to get us tickets on the Chinese person boat, which only cost 210 RMB ($30 USD) instead of the 660 RMB (almost $100 USD) that every other white person has to pay to take the exact same boat. As we sat at the dock wondering why we were the last boat to leave for our real life jungle cruise on walked some military people. They told everyone to sit still while they inspected the boat. I wasn't particularly worried- getting out of sticky situations is a specialty of mine. Fortunately they didn't want anything to do with us. After checking the boat for... I don't really know what they were looking for... On stepped the news crews and the mayor of the city.
He gave a simple speech welcoming everyone to the city and telling everyone he hoped that they had a good time on the boat, you know, the usual PR stuff. After his speech was over he started shaking hands with little kids and kissing babies, politics are all the same. Then, our eyes met. In an instant he rushed over to where we were sitting. My roommate who went on the cruise with me today is half Chinese, so I was the only white person on the boat. He came over and said hello and pulled me out of my seat to get pictures shaking hands with me. Everyone who was sitting around me started shouting out to him, "He speaks Chinese! Talk to him in Chinese!" So then we had a nice 5 minute chat. The news crews were eating it up- a white person who speaks good enough Chinese to carry on a conversation with the mayor! My roommates future in laws said they would keep an eye out for me on the nightly news.
The boat ride down the river was amazing. There is no other word to describe it. The entire 26 kilometers that we rode took over 5 hours. The entire time both banks were lined with rice farms and small fishing villages. The farmers were using water buffalo to plow their rice paddies, and the fishermen were pushing themselves around on small bamboo boats. It was like being in a movie.
The food however was not so amazing. When they brought out lunch my roommate and I stayed out on the observation deck so I could take pictures, but during a lull in scenery we went back in to rest. They brought out our lunch. Fresh bamboo shoots and river snails. A fisherman had pulled his small boat up by the side of ours and sold them to the crew so that we could have a fresh lunch. Yum yum.
After the boat ride we were in Yangshuo, a small city that really is nothing more than a tourist town. After being there for only about an hour my roommate called and told us we should try to get a bus home so we could eat with the family. We came on down, and were treated to a very nice and very delicious Sichuan restaurant. Sichuan food is known for being spicy, and I know that Asian food can get spicy, but the food we ate last night wasn't spicy at all. It was quite delicious.
After dinner the family took us all to a KTV (Karaoke bar) and rented a private room. We spent the better part of four hours trading off singing random songs. The English selection wasn't great, so when I wasn't singing Celine Dion on ABBA I sang some Chinese songs. It was a crazy and fun night.
Tomorrow promises to be another adventure, but I won't spoil the surprise now by telling you what is going on.
Literally every day in this country has been a new crazy adventure. I was thinking today about how many stories I'm going to have to tell when I get back, and just how many once in a lifetime experiences I have every day.
When we got up in the morning we stopped by the local eatery and got some of the specialty breakfast noodles that they eat here. They definitely lived up to the hype that my roommate has created for them over the past month or so.
After breakfast we were driven out to the dock to take a boat down the Lijiang river. Actually here it is just called the Li Jiang, because Jiang means 'large river' in Chinese. I don't know why they had to translate it the way they did.
We were lucky my roommates in laws live here, they were able to get us tickets on the Chinese person boat, which only cost 210 RMB ($30 USD) instead of the 660 RMB (almost $100 USD) that every other white person has to pay to take the exact same boat. As we sat at the dock wondering why we were the last boat to leave for our real life jungle cruise on walked some military people. They told everyone to sit still while they inspected the boat. I wasn't particularly worried- getting out of sticky situations is a specialty of mine. Fortunately they didn't want anything to do with us. After checking the boat for... I don't really know what they were looking for... On stepped the news crews and the mayor of the city.
He gave a simple speech welcoming everyone to the city and telling everyone he hoped that they had a good time on the boat, you know, the usual PR stuff. After his speech was over he started shaking hands with little kids and kissing babies, politics are all the same. Then, our eyes met. In an instant he rushed over to where we were sitting. My roommate who went on the cruise with me today is half Chinese, so I was the only white person on the boat. He came over and said hello and pulled me out of my seat to get pictures shaking hands with me. Everyone who was sitting around me started shouting out to him, "He speaks Chinese! Talk to him in Chinese!" So then we had a nice 5 minute chat. The news crews were eating it up- a white person who speaks good enough Chinese to carry on a conversation with the mayor! My roommates future in laws said they would keep an eye out for me on the nightly news.
The boat ride down the river was amazing. There is no other word to describe it. The entire 26 kilometers that we rode took over 5 hours. The entire time both banks were lined with rice farms and small fishing villages. The farmers were using water buffalo to plow their rice paddies, and the fishermen were pushing themselves around on small bamboo boats. It was like being in a movie.
The food however was not so amazing. When they brought out lunch my roommate and I stayed out on the observation deck so I could take pictures, but during a lull in scenery we went back in to rest. They brought out our lunch. Fresh bamboo shoots and river snails. A fisherman had pulled his small boat up by the side of ours and sold them to the crew so that we could have a fresh lunch. Yum yum.
After the boat ride we were in Yangshuo, a small city that really is nothing more than a tourist town. After being there for only about an hour my roommate called and told us we should try to get a bus home so we could eat with the family. We came on down, and were treated to a very nice and very delicious Sichuan restaurant. Sichuan food is known for being spicy, and I know that Asian food can get spicy, but the food we ate last night wasn't spicy at all. It was quite delicious.
After dinner the family took us all to a KTV (Karaoke bar) and rented a private room. We spent the better part of four hours trading off singing random songs. The English selection wasn't great, so when I wasn't singing Celine Dion on ABBA I sang some Chinese songs. It was a crazy and fun night.
Tomorrow promises to be another adventure, but I won't spoil the surprise now by telling you what is going on.
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