DAY 5 ONLY NOT REALLY

00:58BST 7/13/08KEISHA'S HOUSE - KUNMING
today i became overwhelmingly aware of my lack of progress on a project at home. i decided that since i can barely sleep here anyways that i will try harder to work on the project in my downtime.

back to the fun stuff. i skipped breakfast with the thought of another delicious lunch. instead of going to the lake, me, sunny, danny, and sunny's mother went to sunny's grandma's house to visit with their family. for lunch we were served these unreasonably large bowls of noodle soup. there was all kinds of goodies in the soup like veggies here and there, sauce, spices, and then this brownish paste. as soon as i smelled the dish i knew what it was - pig intestine. i dont mean to sound judgemental but it literally tastes and smells like fecal matter! i tried my hardest to be polite and force some down but i couldnt finish my bowl by a long shot.

after lunch we went to the golden temple in kunming. just absolutely gorgeous. we climbed a million flights of stairs. we went to the temple at the top of the hill and then to a nearby bell tower that was over 400 years old. i find that in chinese parks that you have to pay to get into, they have so many things to see and do that you can(ad have to) spend the whole day to see the whole park. good bang for your buck no? oh, there were also a giant collection of green houses at the temple. i took a lot of pictures of some of the species that i hadnt seen before. it was pretty BA.

sunny's uncle picked us up from the temple and took us back to her grandmothers house where we... sat. we sat and watched chinese tv for some time. some good did come of it, i think i want to try to download a show called fen hong nu long - it means pink fashion lady i think. but aside from that golden nugget we were pretty bored. sunny and her mom got into a pretty big argument (in kunming hua so i couldnt really understand) to the extent that sunny started crying. i found out later that she felt that since i will only be here for a little bit, i should see as much as possible instead of sitting on a couch. i was really touched about how much she cared - opeople here are really so wonderful.

later we picked up rob (aka robo) and went to a restaurant on the side of a hill. again, more food than anyone should eat.. ever. this was the first meal where i was pressured into drinking beer and it was sooo good. it was the local beer of yunnan, called lan cang jiang (details to come). im actually filling in the details a couple days later so im a little foggy as to what all we ate that night. however, after we had eaten for quite some time, sunnys uncle (who is a racecar driver btw) asked me what was my favorite on the table. i told him i liked all shucai (veggies) and he ordered another plate of delicious greens. im in love with china's vegetables.

on the drive back to the city i realllllly had to pee but the restaurant's cesua was pretty raunch so i thought i could hold it. oh GEEZ! we were stuck in traffic hardcore for like, at least an hour. i thought i was going to die. when we got back to the city sunny, keisha, robo and i went to play majong. oh god i love that game. keisha's renties were out of town so sunny stayed the night - this ended up being a really good thing. there was a giant cockroach in my room ON MY BED. the room has a lot of nooks and crannies so i was afraid it would try to kill me in the night. sunny came to the rescue and tried her hardest to chase it out and kill it while keisha and i huddled scared in the dining room. too much excitement for one day i think.