DAYS 5 & 6 - JES GETS TOO LAZY TO TYPE

15:02BST 7/14/08
THE BIG CITY TO THE SUBURBS TO THE COUNTRYSIDE

so yesterday we woke up early and went out for a fun day of sightseeing with sunny, keisha and robo. we went to lake dianshi, kunming's famous landmark. its supposedly so beautiful that a king made a lake in beijing and called it kunming lake. yesterday, however, it was overgrown with vegetation so it looked like a gigantic swamp. it was also a little hazy out so it was hard to see the pretty mountain backdrop. whatever though. we walked along there for a little bit and then went to sunny's dad's construction site. he is overseeing the construction of this huge A-list complex that will house a meeting center and have sassy residences for big whigs. we ate lunch there even though it wasnt built yet. i think the sassiest thing on the table was this cool flower root that was sliced like tostone and fried, it was sooo good.

afterward we went to this chinese nationality park. there are fifty something nationalities in china outside of the han and 26 live in yunnan province. the park, as per usual was HUGE. of the villages in the park that i can remember, there were the dai's that were basically thai people in china; the mongu's, the misuo that are a matriarical culture; the lahu's that have the hottest guitar players ever; and many more that i cant recall at this time. oh, when we were entering the park, sunny asked us for our student id's so that we could get a discount. i only had my highschool ID (dont ask) but rob laughed and told me that he uses his work ID because, again, they dont know the difference.

oh, before i forget, when we went to korean food the other day, on the menu one of the selections read fresh steamed crap. i really wanted to take a picture but the fu wu yuen (waitress) came and i didnt want to be rude. back to the story.

at the nationalitie park, most villages have their traditional music playing. so when we went to the mongu village i couldnt help but laugh when they had what must have been traditional music with crazy techno in the background. so traditional, so good. about an hour and a half after the giant lunch, we were walking by some food carts when keisha bought a big thing of noodles... omg they were hungry! why are the people thin here?! all they do is eat!! ugh. anyways, robo got tired and we headed for the entrance. there, we parted ways with sunny and took a taxi back to town.

danny took robo and me out to dinner on the north side of kunming. we went to an upscale sichuan restaurant with danny, his dad, his mom, his grams, her sister, and her husband. the food was crazy good. there was i think its call mung fish, its really expensive. i tried some and it was sooo good. so thee, i ate fish in china. there was also pork elbows, a couple fungus dishes (yum!) and a whole bunch of other stuff. we drank this warm corn juice that seriously tasted like corn on the cob. aside from this really interesting davory pinapple, that drink was probably the most interesting on the menu. after dinner i came home and fell asleep almost immediately.

i woke up really early this morning to shower, clean up my bathroom and room and repack. robo and i were to go to a house in the countryside and i didnt want to bring all of my bags so i rearranged stuff and packed a smaller one. wang laoshi picked me up and took me to robo's apt (which is actually her son's school apt - an apt that most kids have bc its closer to school) which is where i will stay when we get back. luckily, that building has an elevator (dian ci) so i dont have to cart my giant ass shingli (suitcase) up nine flights of stairs. and then we were off. it was me, robo, wang laoshi, yang laoshi and her little one. we drove about 45 minutes out of town and into the mountains toward a crazy different stlye of living than what ive been used to.

when they told me that life in the countryside wasnt the same, i thought maybe it meant a more rudimentary bathroom and less clean or modern quarters. i didnt think that when i walked inside i would be covered in flies lol! also, in china, almost every house ive been to has a water cooler bc you shouldnt drink the water. my waterbottle was only half full so i went to fill it up before we went hiking... OMG the water from the bottle wasnt clean! i think what they do is refill the jug so that it gives them hot water for tea. so i ruined that bottle of water. for a minute, i thought i wasnt going to be able to drink anything for two days, but luckily, yang laoshi brought big bottles for us.

we are staying with yang laoshi's family which consists of what looks like a mom, a 15yoa, a 5yoa nanhai (boy), grandma and pops... i think? we ate what was finally a reasonable sized lunch (which was still too big lol) of brazed cabbage, beef stew, zuccinni, SMOKED PORK (YUM!), fried small fish that you eat whole, rice, and spicy red beans! i was able to eat rice and beans in china, i was sooo happy. unlike everyone else so far, they didnt force a ton of food on us, so i finally feel like i had a normal lunch (that was still totally delish).

afterwards we hiked 3k to the small mountain town to check out the schools there. robo's research compares urban and rural school systems so hes been traveling around and surveying principals of schools and whatnot. we saw the xuexiao (elementary school) and the zhong xue (middle school) btu they werent in session so we didnt do much.

i think we will be here until wednesday and im not really sure what we wil be doing. after this update i think i will work on some homework. this i think will be a small pause in the vacation for now though. zai jian!