12:59BST 7/27/08
MI LE TO KUNMING
so im trying to think of everything else weve been up to... its been a lot. i believe where we left off, we had a fun filled day of sun sun sun. that night i wasnt tired (amazingly) so i went for a crazy long run and played cards late into the night with the gang. we played this game called eucher, it was me, my partner cynthia, joe, and his partner erica. this card game is pretty addicting so itll be a reoccuring theme for the rest of the camp.
so the next day we went to have a personal tour of the tobacco factory. i wasnt really into this, as im not really into cigarettes at all (idk if you knew or not?), but i tried to be open minded and enjoy the experience. im not going to lie, seeing all of that machinery was pretty cool. i feel like i was watrching the unabridged version of good eats, only the adult edition. it was a little difficult for me though bc i had a really hard time separating all of the indiv cigs, the boxes, the cartons, the boxes of cartons, the crates of boxes, the four story stockpile of crates, im sure you get the idea by now, but i just really had a hard time disassociating the end product with the end user. i guess my hate for cigarettes is both inherent and thorough. anyways, when we got back, we ate, got dessert and tried to play cards but were informed that card playing was not allowed on campus, and then went to watch the talent show.
ahh, the talent show. they broke up the monotony of AWESOME entertainment with half hour segments of olympics trivia (show down style - buzzers and all). it was in chinese, and while i could pick up words here and there, i was lost for most of it and im pretty sure that even if i wasnt, i probably still wouldnt be interested. but anyways, there were a couple of superlatives among the rest. there was a dance act that was pretty cool. there were two girls that had played traditional instruments. one looked like a flute stuck through a gourd. the other looked like maybe a sitar? the aweful thing was, no one was controling the xiaohai (kids) so they were so loud and rowdy (not paying attn) that you couldnt even hear some of the acts. for the sitar, because it was just SO COOL, i got out of my sseat and walked right up to the side of the stage area to listen better. most of the other english teachers followed suit but then some of the kids came up too. then they started talking. it kind of defeated the purpose really. whatever. sam got up and danced with some girls in his class and then he performed two of his own raap songs. tht kid is so cool. one of the songs was something like "living in china" and the chorus was something like "1 2 3, MCA (?) is who i be, and im chilling in the PRC" - totally fun. robbo also danced with some of his kids and sang kan guo lai. the final act was leo.
ahh leo. leo is apparently only 15 years old but looks about legal. he wear like, roca wear p-diddy clothes, his manner is distictive and his english is pretty on point. the first day of camp, as i was jogging by him he gives me a sharp up-down followed by "eh girrl". during camp, leo fell in and out of love, tried to change class because his heart was broken, asked pretty much all of the english teachers for advice on everything, and most finally, he performed in the talent show. he sang "she will be loved" by maroon 5. it was hard to figure out if he was popular with the rest of the kids or not, but when it was his turn, everybody started stomping and clapping to "we will rock you", it was pretty cool. it wasnt a bad end to an overly long talent show/olympic bowl in a damp gym sock of an auditorium (most of the kids never changed their clothed the whole week).
saturday was nutty. we knew we were going to the mi le vinyard, but idk the we really knew what that entitled. we get there, get off the bus, and im expecting some tour in chinese about the vines. NOPE. we get there, and the grapes grow really high so tat they actually form this trellace type thing over your head. there are all of these corridors and there are some really low square tables that we are told to sit at when were ready. when were ready? yeah, we totally just got to walk around and grab our own grapes. these grapes were SO good! i know that wine grapes are different but i didnt realize that they would be soo good. then we were one by one, slowly served a doozy of a lunch. oh did i mention that the school administrator, venus, passed out CARDS for everyone while they were waiting? mmhmm. so we were totally playing eucher. some of the dishes weere okay, but those receiving honorable mention include fried bees and grubs, whole grilled fish, and this amazing mushroom and lotus seed soup. i wandered around, wanting to buy a bottle of wine, and stumbled in upon the CFO of the vinyard and his lunch party. HAH. we drank so much. bi jio, pao jio (like mead almost, only sssstronger), hong jio (red wine), all toasts, some gan bei's (bottoms up. literally, you have to finish the drink). we went out and played more cards for a while, but i got roped into doing 2 more gan bei's of pao jio with his excellence. the vinyard was really fun.
after a small nap, some of us got spruced up and hit the town. we grabbed food at this fried rice and drink place. nothing interesting (except for a bastardly time-release insane spicy dish of doom that almost ruined my meal/night and DEFINITELY ruined my morning). we then, on the way to KTV, discovered that we picked a really interesting night to come into town. every year in mi le, they have a torch lighting festival where they literally have vendors selling this 5 or 6' torches to light and walk around with. after watching a bunch of people with them and figuring that we still had some ways to walk, i TOTALLY bought one! we all shared it as we walked to KTV.
ahh KTV. it was me, robbo, cynthia, erica, joe, and both mikes. the selection was good, the company was great, and the beer was COLD! (a lot of times its not?). after we were about done, we decided to crash someone else's karaoke experience but i think the joke was on us as we got gan bei'd three times in a row and the room was SOO smokey that my eyes were tearing up. both mikes left a little early, though we soon followed.
when we got back to campus, we were all pretty drunk and feeling pretty rowdy. we had to use our chinese SKILLZ to convince the C-3 dorm guard to let girls from C-4 in past midnight. i think our exact words were, "danshi women shi ing yu de laoshi, mei guan xi!" "eh, shi women de mi mi ba" or rather "but were the english teachers, its okay!" "hey, its our secret okay?". then we jusst walked past. hah. mike and joe shared a room so we woke his ass up to play cards with us. two of us girls jumped on him, but i think it was robbo's sensual massage that got him awake enough to defend himself from the drunkards attacks. we then played cards until late in the night.
when it was time to go to bed, i was pretty dismayed to find myself locked out of my room... at 3 in the morning... at a kids camp. after much toil, cynthia and i managed to find the feind that locked my door in the first place. im sure she didnt appreciate being woken up to open my door, on the third floor no less, but i also dont appreciate being lied to when she told me she understood my broken chinese request to keep my door unlocked. tit for tat really.
there was a closing ceremony this morning but my stomach was in such bad shape (damn you devil spice rice) that it was just a better idea to stay in and repack everything i owned a couple times (third times a charm). i came at the end of the ceremony to discover that i had won an award but missed it. eh. :). we had a nice last lunch and loaded on the busses to say goodbye to beautiful qinglai and the city of mi le that has been so hospitable to us. i think the plan is, back to kunming for an hour or two and then over to the airport to get to shanghai. there, im staying with little mike at his house. weve already agreed that were going to order mcdonalds delivery breakfast in the morning and tear the city up tomorrow. i want a massage! until then, im just dreaming about pepto bismal and a soft bed again. zai jian!
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