Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge

We took a retreat to Lijiang this past weekend. We stayed in a really nice five room villa. We visited old town Lijiang, with its pretty little Chinese lanterns, smooth traffic worn streets, and quaint little shops. We enjoyed the western food available, because we can't get it in our town. We also enjoyed the humorous signs that had poorly translated into very silly sayings. Imagine putting signs that said this up in America... :) This Ice cream has a very interesting name that I will not comment on... just read it.

I found a very interesting hat that made me look like Raggedy Ann. (left it for someone else to buy) Some of our friend road little ponies around the town.

We also took a bus ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge. If you look carefully in the picture of the river you can see a tiger on the side of the gorge. The legend says that a mighty tiger jumped across this gorge only touching the tip of the cube shaped rock in the middle of the river. One sign proudly boasted that this is MUCH bigger then the USA's Grand Canyon. ;) Many signs warned that rocks often fall, people die every year hiking it. It was pretty cool. We flew home. Now we are looking forward to a week filled with parties, up until we leave. I don't think I will have time to post again, Merry Christmas!!!!! I look forward to seeing you soon.

Mount Suribachi???

I recently received an email about why women live longer then men. It involves many pictures of guys trying to do normal everyday tasks, only using extremely dangerous and hazardous methods. I have to say, it really reminded me of many sights I have seen while in China... ;) Like the time I saw these guys sledgehammering all the walls out from under them on the forth story of this building. And obviously there is no OSHA here, this guy is working without any safety protection at all... Or the time I saw two guys carrying a bunch of twenty foot long re-bar on their motorcycle. Or a huge concrete culvert propped in the back of a truck by only a few bricks. Or like the time I climbed on an unstable roof to get a Frisbee and... :P
In fact the other day....

Right here on the farm, they are installing a new basketball court. Who needs ropes or cranes or any of that? If you have enough hands... right? Apparently not. As we watched in dismay from the side-line, moving away small children, you can only guess what happened... As the raised the hoop with no one to stop it on the other side, of course it fell and badly bent the hoop.
Always do it right the first time! :)

Zoooie!

Last week was Manon's Birthday. We went to the local park and then to the zoo. For such a small rural city, we were surprised at how exotic some of the animals were. It only cost us 1 yuen each! (about a 7th of a dollar) One thing was for sure we didn't have to worry about the animals hiding in their "Habitat" all were in small pens within easy view. Close enough that you could easily feed the animals, some of the kids almost lost a finger... First we saw a little monkey showing off by doing flips in his 1x2 ft. cage. ( I think I would be flipping out as well) Then we saw three black Moon Bears... pretty boring. We saw some more monkeys.The snakes were in a cage we decided was not really secure (just thin screen between us and them) In another cage there were about twenty snakes all together...in a big slithery lump. We saw a big camel (similar to the one I sat on at the bazaar) which this particular type is on the endangered spicies list. If we had wanted to, we could have touched it. It looked mad, we were not planning on a camel spit shower that day...
We saw a big tiger next. It didn't like the cage eather, it paced the whole time. Next to it was a lion AND a genuine Germaine Shepherd! Yes , these to guys were in the same pen. We weren't able to tell if the lions food had gotten a little big or if they were play mates...
















The lion sat glaring at us with its yellow eyes. Then sweet little three year olds Judah walked over. It looked as if he was prepareing to pounce on his prey. Then as we were commenting, Manon (6) walks over AND ! !!!!!!!
Commercial break* just kidding.
As quick as a flash, the lion jumped against the cage and reached his sharp claws through the bars! Manon screamed! ...I hope that is the closest she ever gets to being eaten by a tiger.
Chelsea was actually video typing, it looks pretty scary.
There were wolves, beavers, an arctic fox, exotic birds, and... turkeys! Imagine seeing turkeys in a Zoo...wow.
We saw a cool little red panda, who seemed to really like us. The little girls kept saying, " this is the saddest animal in the whole zoo!" I think all those animals were pretty "sad" but we did enjoy looking at them.

Awesome pot head!

Just a little video I forgot about.
I think this guys spent to much time working at the happy frog nursury.... ;)

Cutting our prickly Christmas tree!

Thanksgiving has passed and there are less then 30 days till Christmas. That means its time for Christmas trees! Yesterday morning at the crack of dawn (well a little later, but that was the plan), all clad in boots and Santa hats, Chelsea, Amanda, Spencer, Hope, and I began our treck up the mountian. (or large hill behind our house)When finally at the top, looking below we saw an ocean of fog, except for the light touching the very tops of all the nearby hills. It was lovely! After several trips around the forest of some sort of spruce, we decided on a tree. Everyone got a chance to saw on it a little, until

we decided to karate-kick it down. Everyone got a kick.

Then when I finally cut a little more, it could actually be kicked down. ;)



Today I am making ornaments so we can make it pretty tonight. We don't have any lights though.

The kids here just got two Golden Retriever Pups. They are really sweet.
The farm also just got their two new cows. This one's name is "Lottie Moo" ;)

Thanksgiving and Head Wounds... 感恩節

感恩節 (Thanksgiving Day)
Before you read this post, I want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving!



We had the big Thanksgiving party last night for the locals. We did a play about the reason Americans celebrate this holiday. I was a Pilgrim guy that died on the Mayflower, then Chief Massasoit. I think my death was the peoples favorite part. lol So since Germaine's house was really dirty from the almost
one-hundred people that came, they all went to town today to get out of the way so their house helper could clean. I stayed to help her. After lunch I was playing Frisbee with a guy here and he threw it on top of this little awning. I climbed up on the hammock then the roof. As soon as I was on there, I knew it wasn't strong enough. It broke off, I tried to grab on but fell about 8 or ten feet. The next thing I knew, I was on my face on the concrete... they came over and
I had my hand on my head, when I took it away it was covered in blood.
As you can see from the picture...it was pretty deep. No foreigners were at the farm. The Chinese people wanted to take me to the Hospital, I said I didn't want to go because one of the Americans that lives in town is an EMT and I thought he could look at it. They ended up driving me to town and meeting Nick (the EMT) He said it was deep and needed stitches, he said he could do it. Monty came, they decided to take me to the hospital anyway. Nike took my vitals and checked my eyes, (at first I had a little vision distortion in my left eye, but it went away after about a half hour) they were fine. The Chinese doctor washed it and gave me local anesthetic, he cut the dead tissue off and then gave me three stitches inside, eight outside.














I didn't get to see it before he bandaged it up, but Nick and Monty said he did a really good job. They asked if I wanted a tetanus shot and I opted out because I had one last year, and I don't really trust that things are really sanitary there. Nick said it was OK. It wouldn't hurt but it wouldn't necessarily help. I guess I just had to wait until I went to China to have stitches... ;P















I had a bunch of other little scratches, but nothing bad. I am disappointed though. We are having a "Turkey Trot" then we are going to play football. I guess I will just have to be support from the side line... Can't risk reopening it. I am thankful for Nick, Monty, and all the other people who took care of me and that my head is not really broken. ;) Hope you all get to take advantage of your good health tomorrow, do something active.

First American!

I left on Thursday with with Deborah (her English name) for GM. We took a bus for 40 Yuan. It was about 4 1/2 hours to GM, but her village is up in the mountains. So we walked around in town were I bought some mandarins for them and candy. It is a cultural thing to always give something to people that have you too their house, besides it just being a nice thing to do of course. We left on a Tou-la-ji (the trucks here that they use for everything) there were about 6 people and only two seats, I wanted to sit in the back but they wanted me to sit in the front. I am convinced that they use more water to run then gas. When we turned off the main road and started up the mountain to her village, Deb and I left our stuff in the TLJ and we got to ride the quick form of transportation; a motorbike. We went up, up, up the beautiful mountain. We saw a mountain filled with caves! One was huge! The sun was just setting as we reached the village at the top. You could see far out over many other
mountains, the view was breathtaking! Especially with the wind blowing in my face on the motorcycle. ;) When we got to her house and said hello to her family, they did not speak Chinese. Only she and her brothers spoke Chinese and she was the only one that spoke any English, which was only what I had taught her through the Chinese I know. As we walked through the village, people would just stop and stare, and ask Deb where I was from. We watched the little Children playing Chinese jump rope. We had some things that the Mowerys didn't need anymore, to give to the people. It was so sweet to see how happy they were with a just a little doll or a pair of shoes.
Then we ate dinner which was really good, salted pork with green veggies and pepper, over rice of course. They gave me some water when I accidentally ate a piece of dried pepper, when I realized what it was I just swallowed so It wasn't too bad. The water is in big bottles (about three liter, soda bottles) which I think is just water from a well, that had been boiled. Everyone drinks from these, even people who are friends that stop by. They gave me a "new" bottle to drink from, although it was an old bottle that had been used several times.
Deb apologized for them not having a shower, which I knew would be the case. They gave me a basin of warm water to wash in. She gave me a tour of the house which her Mom and Dad, brothers and their families all live in, there were four rooms. One was the mom and dad's room. Which also had the last seasons corn in bags in it. Two rooms for her brothers and their families and for their kids. And a room that her unmarried, youngest older brother and she use when they are home. He was gone when we got there so that was our room. They all lived together and shared everything.
I did not know this going into it, but to our knowledge I am the first American or foreigner ever to go to this village...That night it started with just a few but then more and more came until there were about twenty young guys that came to "see" the American. They could only speak a little Chinese and the usual "Hello!" and "What is your name?" in English. They asked me my name probably ten times. They got closer and closer until they were all around me, ( I was sitting on a low little stool) they stayed and asked me about everything they could think of; where I was from, if I had a boyfriend, how old I was, was China nice, did I like Chinese food, etc. We went in our room to get ready for bed but some of them followed us. They continued to talk until about ten thirty one of them said that they would go home so we could sleep, because we were probably tired from traveling all day. some left but new ones came. They they just came right in and kept talking, after a long time Deb said to me "oh, you are tired. Go to sleep, its OK" But they didn't get the hint. At about 12:40 they left...
The next morning we slept until the roosters started crowing and then we just slept between crows until about 7:45. We got up and went to the "Xi shou jian" or public toilet. Which is on the girls side, four silts in the concrete with two foot concrete barriers between each. It was actually not too bad, compared to some were lots more people use them... and even better if you bring your own paper. :)
I ate "mi-shian" the normal Chinese breakfast. (sort of like chicken noodle soup)
Which is the only time they don't eat rice, because the noodles are made from it. It tastes good just takes getting used to for breakfast. We walked to the school, and played basketball. The little neighbor girl came over, couldn't help herself and touched my hair. lol
On the way back we saw some little girls not bigger then 8 or 9, carrying big bamboo baskets of clothes to wash. The baskets have a strap that comes up around their foreheads where the weight rests. After lunch I took a "shou xi" which is the Chinese siesta. When I woke up Deb was gone getting things for our friend that are coming. But I did not know this at the time because I can't speak their language. So I took a walk with the neighbor girls who understand a little bit more Chinese and can understand gestures. Near by their house is a clinic for people and apparently they treat people with HIV. All the bottles, syringes, needles, were in piles outside. The children played right there and with bare feet. : ( I also saw Children playing with the stuff...
Our friends came and we ate "guo zi" (sunflower seeds) and candy, while we talked. Deb's brother made "mouix-ye" (a rice and chicken dish) I happened to get the bowl with a chicken foot, it tasted fine, not much too it other then the bone. Better then I had expected. I was glad I did not get the bowl with the intestines in it, that I saw another friend eating, she was happy to have it and I was happy to let her have it. ; )
After they left, I ran up the hill to take a picture of the sunset. It was so beautiful, the picture doesn't do it justice. On the way home we stopped to "shou huo" (talk) with her friend. Her little kids were adorable and though I couldn't speak any of their language they started playing around with me and laughing.
The next day we went to visit the people who had come to visit us down the other side of the mountain. We again rode on motorcycles behind her other brother and a friend. They turn them off most of the way down to save gas. We had "mouix" again which I like, but they don't stop feeding you until you are bursting at the seams! I tried to eat really slow so I wouldn't have to eat more then one bowl, but they came over and filled it up again even though I said no. : P We walked to Y.G.'s village about a mile and a half away. Everyone we passed would stare, the girls thought it was funny. Their village was very different, it was a sort of like a bunch of condos all just separated by a wall in between, but from the outside looked like one long building, with lots of doors and windows. still pretty rugged.
We went to a little town close by and I bought some knock off converse shoes for 30 yuan or about $4.50 the lady was going to charge 50 but Deb and her brother and friend talked them down. ; )
I bought camera batteries, (couldn't take allot of pictures because mine went bad during the trip) That night when we got back I washed my hair. I wish I could have taken a picture, lol! I did it like they do, squat down, flip your hair over and pour water over your head.
Then wash it and do it again. The whole family was sitting around watching. : ) At least they make me feel like one of them. They got a hair dryer from somewhere but I told them I didn't use one. I think they just like to observe me.
Because I went to some of the language classes, when they sang songs, even though I couldn't understand what they meant, I was able to read the words and sing with them. : )
I don't know how I could ever complain again, thank You Father for what we have!
That night I asked Debs brother if he could read in their language, he couldn't. I read out of the song book and it was the weirdest thing to speak something I couldn't understand, to someone who could understand what I was saying but not read it.
I ate so much "mouix" that day that my stomach was still full at ten o'clock, but Deb made me eat a little.
We went to deb's uncles house where her grandpa and grandma live, to eat lunch. The Grandpa would just smile at me and then say stuff I couldn't understand, Deb would translate into Chinese and my words back to him. He said I should stay there forever, I should study their language and then come back so he can understand what I say. :)
Deb's nieces, ages 4 and 2, would play with me and stuff even though I can't understand them.
When I left I took a picture with them and they gave me some peanuts, and a purse that they hand make on these loom things they have.

On the way home I was questioned at the check point. The guy couldn't read my name on my passport. They tried to speak English, I understood them better in Chinese. : ) It was fine.

It was really a life Changing experience.