AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU COULDNT PACK MORE INTO ONE DAY...

19:19BST 7/24/08
MI LE - QINGLAI XUEXIAO

today was bonkers. last night after writing up my post, i completely zonked out, only to wake up late this morning. i ran down to breakfast only in time to grab some spicy noodles and hot dou nai (soy milk). class was good, we learned the rest of the food groups, learned about physical descriptions, played a couple games, had a DANCE OFF! and watched the rest of happy feet. after class we came together to eat lunch and were told that there were busses leaving at 14:00 and 14:30 to take us to the hot springs. since it was only 1230, i figured we would have time to try to go see the giant golden budha that i mentioned yesterday. how naiive is this? i thought that perhaps we could just hop a taxi over and up to the budha shrine, see it, and come back in like an hour and 15. so silly.

999. the number of steps it took to get up to his magnificence. i knew we were in trouble when, after climbing for about a half an hour, cynthia said, "these arent even the stairs we saw from your lense... we must not even be half way there yet!" id say she was about right. i really like how, in china, if you pay to see something, you really HAVE to spend some time there to take it in. it really is an honest way of doing things. along the way, there was a small covered area with 20' statues of some budhas (there are more than one in eastern culture). i thought that was pretty cool. psh. at the next stop, there was a big covered house that had huge gates that were only open a little. when you peaked in, you could see the beautiful painted and tranquil face of a 30' golden statue. finally, when you feel broken, bruised, and too hot to go on, over the stairs you see the round head of the GIANT golden budha. i think he is 50' tall, maybe taller. hes alone up there near the top of this mountain, but hes so shiny and bright that you can see him from MILES! really awesome. good build china, good build. we hot footed it back down the mountain to the cab and tried to get back in time to catch the 230 bus to the springs. fat chance.

we took a taxi over to the place, it was in the same compound as that really nice restaurant yesterday. i thought that maybe a hotspring was a medium sized pool that was pretty warm. OMG i was wrong. this place was insane. there were beautiful big rocks that formed the sides of all of the pools and the partitions as well. from what i could tell, there were three large spring areas. in this large springs, there were three partitions: hot, hotter and too cold. in the hot ones, there were these sectioned off 'volcanoes' from where the hot water would come. these were about the size of a three person hot tub and about as shallow. members of our group would take turns seeing who could stand it the longest. im fairly confident i won each time... at my own expense though, my legs were red and blotchy for awhile after i got out. no pain no gain right? so in florida, when i say there were three large springs, you would probably think that there was a large flat land with three open spring areas right? i think the chinese understand subtlety a little more. they are tucked away at different levels on the side of this low mountain. all througout and in between, there were little private warm pools that were sometimes completely hidden by boulders or trees. though absolutely stunning and private, these pools were obviously man-made (not without finesse though) and the water was only tepid. there was also a large cold water swimming pool at the top of the resort. this pool was pretty cool though because in the middle and in a few other places, there were large soft boulders in the water so that you could hang out on your own little island just under the water. the whole experience was just insane and rightly topped off with a refreshing 4 kuai yezi nai (coconut milk). tell me, in what high class resort in america would you find coconut milk for about $.50? i know right?

there was one downside that has been a reoccuring theme in this trip. there is such poor communication between the staff and the volunteers that, when we toweled off and got out, looked, and finally called venus, she told us that she was dry, back at school, and sitting down to dinner. no one told us they were leaving, when to come back, how to get back, or if we were expected at dinner. it took half of our group about 15 min to get a taxi bc there werent really any around that area. we were some of the last ones to come to the dinner hall, half wet, and all a little angry at the lack of communication.

on the plus side, theres no denying that every experience today was pretty awesome... and im not even done yet. tonight is the first night that i dont have class so i think im going to go for an evening run and then plan out a big gameshow-type quiz for my last day with the chitlins. im also kind of in the mood to hit the town honestly. i dont think theres much going on in mi le, but this getting out thing is pretty awesome.

finally, they say that if bad food gets to you, it usually takes about 4-6 hours. im honestly starting to doubt that. the people that ive talked to about the dragon's revenge (china's montezuma if you will) is the worst because you never know what it was. so far ive felt like ive always had a good idea. who knows.

anyway, now that its several hours that ive been out of the sun, my skin has turned to the most pleasant shade of strawberry. i think ill go educate the kids what a real sunburn looks like. ive come to the realization that im the only european-decent gal on this trip. some of the american volunteers and chinese staff tell me that they catch the kids whispering that im beautiful. i could definitely be called worse :).

oh, funny joke. we were talking about drinking games and joe said that the chinese had a lot of drinking games. i jumped on it and quickly said, "like what, eat the dinner?!" heeheehee. its actually really funny considering how much weve been forced to drink at a lot of our meals.