Itchy feet finally got the better of me and I was practically jumping out of my seat and packing my bags as soon as our friends suggested getting out of town for the weekend.  Actually to tell the truth I didn't even know where we were going till Thursday night when we told our housemates we'd be gone for the weekend.  All I knew was we were taking a train.  At that point I decided I probably needed some details...

So the plan was: 

Take the train for 6 hours on Friday.

Arrive in Hechi approx. midnight.

Find somewhere to stay.

No more plan.

I'm a big fan of experimental travel.  A little over a year ago I read a book: Lonely Planet's Guide to Experimental Travel, and when my sister came to visit me in the US, we 'couch-surfed' at some random guy's apartment in New York City.  He wasn't even there (he just happened to be in China ironically enough).  But his room-mates were kind enough to put us up and show us around.  We met their friends, slept on their beds and couches, saw the places they told us to see and experienced NYC from a totally different perspective than we would have if we'd stayed in a hotel I'm sure.  

The point is the concept of Experimental Travel fits in quite nicely with our plans to live in China. So when someone said 'trip', that was enough for me.

We were really fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how much you like to sleep) to find a hotel right be the train station for less than $11 for 2 nights for the both of us.  A small double bed with the most amazing shower I've had since I've left California.  I took three showers on Saturday, just because I could.  

After arriving in Hechi at about 1am and not going to bed until 2, I awaken by the rather noisy trucks right outside at about 6am so needless to say, not a lot of sleeping got done this weekend. I dragged Jason out of bed at 8am and we were off to explore.  We met up with our friends and went to breakfast of steamed boazi & jiaozi (well actually I ate rice & veges cause boazi & jioazi almost always contain meat), then went to investigate a small bird and flower market that Jason and I had seen earlier.  


I had thought to myself earlier that I really just wanted to meet one person today that would make my weekend's experience all the richer.  You see, barely any foreigners come to Hechi -- its not even listed in my Lonely Planet guide as somewhere to go see.  So this is kind of 'real' China so to speak.  Not a village per say but definitely nothing like Nanning.  But I also realized my chances of meeting someone who spoke decent English were slim too.

As I was snapping photos, I saw a young girl with an umbrella and I thought, that's my picture! She had a beautiful smile and surprisingly spoke fairly good English to me!  We chatted till I'd run out of Chinese, and she'd run out of English, then we went to find my friends and my new friend took us out to see Hechi her way.  And this is what we saw...

(this is not her by the way)

She told us about her town's traditions ("A man can have 5 wives if he wants.") and we told her about our countries (she was a little surprised when we told her a man can only have one wife where we come from.  She though for a minute and decided that was a good thing because "wives fight too much with each other.").  She showed us where to get spicy potatoes corn on the cob (Jason's mouth is still on fire -- I didn't think it was that spicy!) and bought us spicy fruit salad (which is so good by the way!).  

It was pretty obvious by all the staring that they never get white foreigners here!  But it became very obvious when the souvenir photo taking ladies capitalized on us being at their town's monument by selling photos to people with us in them.  All the girls wanted their photos taken with Jason because he is 'gao' and 'shuaige' (tall and handsome)!

So if you ever go to Hechi, I'm sure our photos will be posted everywhere!

I did it, I finally ordered water for our house all by myself. The last few times I've tried to order water, I had to have our friend call them back because they were asking me something, but I didn't understand. But this time, our friend wasn't around, so I was flying solo. I'm sure I had a real thick accent, but they got the point because about 45 minutes later, our water showed up. And for those of you wondering, we do have running water in our place, but we don't drink it because we don't want to discover other meanings of "running water" if you catch my drift. So, we order water in jugs and have one of those water dispensers to give us all our drinking water. The title to this post means I (wo) want (yao) water (shui), but there's more to say when you're ordering over the phone. Well, I thought I would share a little milestone in my language study. I hope you enjoyed it.

Jason

Jason says they are pig faces I see in Wal-Mart not dogs.  

Firstly I will start out by saying that I am a vegetarian and while I am not necessarily vegetarian for animal rights, I do have some feelings for them and I don't advocate the consumption of animal meat especially if it's not free range and anti-biotic free (let alone a dog), but I guess its fascinating to some people so I thought I'd give a little background (with a little help from our Lonely Planet Guide).

The history of dog meat (gou rou) consumption in China dates back millennia.  Famed among Middle Kingdom residents for its medicinal qualities, canine flesh is especially popular in winter months, as the meat is believed to generate heat and promote bodily warmth.  They tell me that after a spell in Guangxi, I'll get used to the sight of freshly skinned mutts being blow torched by the wayside, or man's best friend -- limbs stiff from rigor mortis -- hanging rigidly from hooks in night markets.  Or how about the fresh skinned dog faces I see when I walk into my "friendly neighbourhood store" Wal-Mart (that would be Big W for the Australians but they call it Wal-Mart here)?  I personally don't think so.

Dog meat may make it to the menu across much of China, but not all Chinese participate.  Many here are dearly devoted dog lovers with pedigree pooches that are well trained and wear Nike shoes (yes you read that correctly).  In our complex alone, we have Poodles, Huskies, Samoyeds, Chows and little lion looking dogs that I don't know the real name of.  You will never see any of them on leashes or tables.  Gou rou is a special breed that is farmed entirely for consumption, although I don't know how one can go to the market and look at the puppies alongside the chickens and ducks and think, "I'll have that for dinner!"  In fact sometimes, if the dog meat isn't selling, they'll chop it up and mix it in with the goat because apparently it looks and tastes very similar. 

There is a people group though -- the Manchu from China's northeast -- that eschew dog meat because a much-revered pooch once saved the life of Nurhachi, their leader (or founder -- I forget which).  

And now, I will leave you with a much nicer image in mind...

We found a new Bird and Flower Market much bigger than the one by our flat (don't worry, they only sell animals for pets at this type of market -- it's when you see dogs at the wet market that you know they are meant for consumption).  I couldn't really drag Jason any further than the baby bunnies...

And I have to throw in a picture of the kissing fish.  They really needed to get a room!

This is my new friend that keeps finding me where ever I go!  She is the cutest thing (mostly because she thinks I'm the most beautiful thing she's ever seen -- that's about all the English she knows too).  She hardly speaks English and I hardly speak Chinese so we get along famously!

Hey Vicki does this photo bring back memories or what?!  You should come here -- bunnies are totally legal.  Which reminds me and I'll close with a joke:

Q.  What do Australians think that Chinese built the Great Wall for?

A. To keep out the rabbits.

Baibai (Bet you can't guess what that means)!

Sorry there's no picture to go along with this, but I didn't think you would want to see a picture of me falling into the mud, with my bike. I was invited to go on a ride just yesterday, Saturday, and of course I said yes. So me and 5 other guys head off to find some trails. They actually take me right around the corner of our place because we have a mountain right there. We head off on some dirt trails and we're having a good time. We live in the city, but just a short 10 minute's ride away are small communities tucked away in some beautiful landscapes. I was too busy riding and following the leader to stop and take a picture. Some of the trails were rideable, others not so much. Some of the trails were the access roads to get to these small communities, other trails were pretty narrow single-track trails with rice fields on either side. So we're riding along and the narrow single-track becomes impassible, so the leader stops. I'm about the third or fourth back and when it comes time for me to stop, I can't get my foot out of my peddle. I'm used to unclipping my right foot when stopping, but this stop required my left. It just so happened that on the left side of the trail was nice little 3 ft drop into a ditch filled with water. You can see where this is going, rather, where I went. Right into the ditch. I had a blast though. I hope to continue to get out and ride the local terrain with the locals because there is no language barrier when you're riding (or falling into ditches). 

Jason

Well, I hope this entry finds you better than it does us here in the Southern part of China.  We're kinda holed up sick right now.  Jason is seemingly over it but its only day two for me.  Its a culmination of a bug, food poisoning and body shut down (they snuck meat in my already burned spicy tofu.  I thought it was just the burned tofu skin until Jason realized what it really was so we knew it was only a matter of time after that, since I'd already felt somewhat lousy...but I'm sure you wanted to know all that!).  So since I've some time on my hands and no matter how many times I try I cannot pick up and knit 52 stitches across the sleeve of the same sweater (jumper for the Aussies) I've been knitting for 2 years now, I thought I'd try and find my happy thoughts and blog a little.  Or maybe just post some photos.  

This is the Textile Market.  Its my new favourite place to go!  I am already planning my list of clothing items that I wan the tailor to make me.  The only thing more fun that making clothes myself, is having someone else make it for me!   And a tailor is pretty cheap too!

Metres and metres of fabric for ridiculously cheap!  Its a dress maker's heaven!

All the ribbons and buttons you could dream of!

And I couldn't resist this one...parents will get a kick out of this one!  Its how they save so much money on disposables and potty train quickly!  

Well it makes us both laugh!  They dress them in little Eskimo suits with splits like this in the dead of winter too.  No wonder they are potty trained by the time they are one year olds!

Our first week of lessons went fairly well.  We are having issues with one of our teachers not showing up to class.  She (or he) skipped out two days so we only had two classroom days of three hours each and to be perfectly honest, that was plenty for me!  Hopefully next week will be a full week and we'll feel like we're getting somewhere!  

Well, we had our first day of school today. We have 4 days of language schools for 3 hours a day every week. Nine am to 12pm, Monday thru Thursday. At first we were supposed to have 5 days a week but the school dropped Friday off our schedule and offered to replace it with a painting or tai chi class instead and I'm so glad they did. The language experts weren't kidding when they said that Mandarin is the hardest language on earth to learn. Basically every word has at least four different pronunciations and at least 4 completely different meanings. Example, the phrase "Qin Wen" means basically "can I ask?" if pronounced one way or "can I have a french kiss?" if pronounced the other way. Imagine walking into a restaurant and asking for the menu but receiving a slap from the waitress? So tones are extremely important and incredibly difficult and already the teacher keeps asking me to repeat it again and again and my head was hurting after just 3 hours this morning. "No, its Cao. Say again." Meanwhile I'm thinking, that's what I said already.  So I repeat it a million times because the teacher won't take "let me practice it on my own (...later...by myself...at home...)" for an answer.  Plus today's teacher spoke only a little English so we found it really hard to keep up.  (By the way, 'Cao' is pronounced 'ts_h_ow'. Sorry that's the best I can come up with cause there is definitely a 't' sound at the beginning and a 'h' in there somewhere and 'ao' says 'ow' as in 'cow'.)

There are 4 of us in the class -- one of our housemates, and another guy from Switzerland -- and we are all brand newbies. I think the teacher was surprised that we knew no Chinese at all. She opened the lesson by speaking to us in Mandarin.  It was a lovely little opening speech which she ended with a question that apparently required an answer because she looked rather expectantly at the class while we looked back at her rather dumbfounded.  I did feel sorry for her because apparently they hadn't told her we didn't speak ANY Chinese at all.  Or perhaps she didn't really clue in to the fact that the manual says "Book #1" or perhaps she thought that we are doing "Book #1" just for fun or review, not because we need too.   So after the look of "Dang it!  This is worse than I thought..." cleared from her face, we, the four brand new expectant minds were suddenly plunged into a world of strange sounds where the written word doesn't make any sense at all and drill after drill...are we singing???  Although my book refers to Middle C and Eb when trying to help me find my correct pitch.  We are using a book called "Chinese made easier"...um...easier than what?  When I figure that out, I'll let you know because its by far the most difficult thing I've ever done to this day. And I'm thinking whoever wrote Pinyin (Chinese in the written Roman letter form), didn't actually speak English either or they'd have realized that "q" doesn't make a "g" sound and "c" doesn't sound like "t". I can't help but feel a little overwhelmed right now!!!

Anyway, knowing full well its heads in the books for the next couple of months, yesterday I took advantage of a group going to see a village often overlooked by foreign visitors to our area -- the ancient town of Yangmei.  It was established sometime during the Song Dynasty (960 -1279 AD) and reached its heyday during the Qing Dynasty (1636 - 1912 AD) because it was a major port on the Yongjiang River. It was quite influtential during the revolution of 1911 -- few people realize that's its the home to a number of famous scholars in Chinese history.  Its a fascinating, peaceful town but people don't really like you to take their photo here unless you buy something from them!

  

And just a friendly PSA! If you were thinking it might be a good idea...DO NOT wash your food, swim and most emphatically DO NOT DRINK THIS WATER!!!