Christmas in Dali

This post is a bit weird. The paragraphs are not cooperating very well...

China (being a Communist country), does not celebrate Christmas the “normal” way.  But that’s been changing recently.   Nearly every hotel has some sort of holiday decoration, be it a tree, a Santa, or a sign saying “X-Mas Merry!”  Dali has everyone of these plus one more.  That small event is a gathering of thousands of people that have one common goal: to spray.         Every Christmas Eve and Day, residents from places as far away as Wisconsin (in other words, us) take part in getting sprayed with fake snow.  We had that exact thing in mind when we left our Centre in Xizhou.  The four of us (mom, brother and teacher) ate dinner at a café situated in an old clock tower.  My Christmas Eve dinner was a fried chicken sandwich with garlic bread. Maybe not your idea of a romantic dinner, but definitely mine.                                             We bargained for some snow, which was about 25 cents a bottle, and set out for mayhem.  I was clad in a bandana and a hood, with two spray cans.  I was ready to go spray!  Peter, on the other hand, had no clue about what to expect, except fear…                                                          Along our trip we spotted two foreigners, towering above the Chinese.  Their face, hair and body were as white as fake snow.  The poor guys probably could not even see past the white chemicals.  We felt sorry for them, and then sprayed them.               Then we spotted one of our friends.  He owns a local bike shop and has a 3 golden retrievers named Dumbo, Penny and Tandy who just earlier that day, visited us in Xizhou.  I couldn't recognize him until we were standing next to each other, when our eyes locked.  We stood looking at each other for a few seconds, then started randomly spraying in each other's general direction.                                                                         The last part of the evening started with the buying of a fantastic cookie in a local bakery. Then we started heading back to our ride.  Nearing our car, I saw a chubby-looking man shaking two cans at once, looking around for a target to spray.  He looked at me, and I (who must have looked pretty weird in my bandana and hood) stared back at him.  Then in a Christmas moment, we both burst out laughing.                                                                                       Christmas in Dali is certainly an experience.  Watching thousands of people get together in holiday spirit to shoot fake snow at each other is a sight to see.  But unfortunately, presents and carols have distracted people from the true meaning of Christmas: to give everyone a face full of snow.

Thanksgiving

From left to right: my mom, brother, Adrian, me, dad, Peter       

Happy Thanksgiving!  Time to start getting ready 

for Christmas now.  Put away your turkeys and set up our trees, it's that time of year again! While you're at it, you should also get your Easter Bunny costume, your fireworks and Halloween costume.  On second thought, just keep your Thanksgiving decorations out, that way you don't have to get them out next year!  Thinking ahead saves lots of time, doesn't it?  

Turkey Day isn't celebrated here in China (I wonder why...) and we've never done anything about it before, but this year we have our own chefs!  Our fantastic dinner consisted of almost 

everything an American Thanksgiving would have: mashed potatos, corn, beans, squash, gravy and a chicken.  No turkey in China.  But there's a saying that goes like this, "A turkey tastes best when it's a chicken."  Or something like that...

Hiking in the Mountains

Our (being me, my dad, brother and Peter) hike began with a tuk-tuk ride to the base of the mountain.  Actually, it wasn't really a mountain, just a big hill, rising about 2000 feet above the ground.  The driver dropped us off at a small temple where old ladies and young kids were preparing for a celebration of some sort.  We started climbing up the slopes, where water buffalo were daring us (with their big horns) to climb further.  They were bluffing though, and we continued upward.  We found what appeared to be a construction site, where workers were creating a pipeline, which we guessed would take the fresh spring water from the mountain down to Xizhou.  

The path then leveled out, and we decided to stop for lunch.  We had chips, crackers, wafers and oranges.  Not much of a lunch, but it was enough to keep us going.  After some more walking, we came to the end of the trail.  The only way to go was to turn around, or try to go down the riverbanks.  We picked the latter, but soon enough, we were stuck.  The only way was through some plants with thorns, and we didn't want to do that.  So we turned back.  But it wasn't as easy as that!  First we had to scale a few hundred feet of loose rocks.  It took awhile, with one of us going to a ledge, and helping the others, but once completed, we felt good about ourselves.  

After backtracking a mile or so, we found a way to get to the other side of the valley.  (Which we wanted to do, because going back the way you came sucks.)  The trail down was breathtaking.  A picture, of someone walking down that trail, would be National Geographic worthy.  Too bad we didn't have our camera.  Oops.  

This time, once we got down to the river, we could make it.  After some jumping and climbing, we were back on the trail to Xizhou.  Two miles later, we were at the foot of the mountain.  Another temple welcomed us with its group of men, woman, children and dogs.  They wanted us to eat with them and to sleep in the temple with them.  We politely said no.  

We were very tired, and the only thing between us and our Center was about 2 more miles of roads.  But with some of the luckiest luck we've had all month, a man pulled up beside us and offered us a ride.  You know what they say, "When life gives you a guy in a car to take you back to your Center after 6 hours of hiking, take it."  It's either that or "Don't talk to strangers."  But what could this guy do against 3 1/2 Americans?  Just then he took out a gun and demanded we give him our money.  We obeyed and he through us out of his car. 

The moral of the story is "Don't talk to strangers."

The End

(The objects in this blog entry may have been altered to enhance the story for the reader's pleasure.) 

Lijiang

Lijiang, China, is a scenic city about 3 hours from our Center.  That's where we went with our group of Americans.  We were there for 3 days.  I didn't want to go because Lijiang is a place of bad luck, you'll here about that later though.  

The bus ride was pretty predictable, boring even, despite all the beautiful scenery.  At our arrival, we were greeted by 20'000 foot tall Jade Snow Dragon (add adjective here) Mountain.   Lijiang is a tourist town, just like Dali.  Chinese tour groups were everywhere, and the prices seemed 2 times the price of anywhere else.  The place that we ate at that night was (thankfully) Chinese, which meant that the prices were only 1.4759 times of any other restaurant.  

The following morning was studying!  Math, grammer, geography, reading, science, and spelling.  It payed off though, because our afternoon was free.  But there's less to do in Lijiang then you'd think.  Shopowners seemed to just buy shops without looking 5 feet to the shop next door because the order of the stores were: Trinkets, T-Shirts, Hats, Yak Meat, repeat.  The only thing worth seeing is the mountain; the rest of Lijiang is a black hole that sucks the fun out of everything.  Speaking of that, the last time we were at Lijiang, my brother and dad got sick.  On this trip, Peter broke their record; he threw up 4 times in a night!  To top it off, he lost his $500 camera.  He had thousands of pictures of the mountain, of the bus ride, of everything.  At least he uploaded them.  Oh, wait a moment, sorry about that, he didn't upload them. 

Back in Xizhou (again)

Here are some more random thoughts I'm being forced to write.  

After spending too much time in Kunming, I'm finally back.  But this time we have guests!  They are Americans that flew over a week ago and will stay until the 20th.  There are only 7 of them, (compared to the 32 from our last group), but they definitely add to the atmosphere around here.  I really like having more then just us and the staff here; the only thing we do is study, and play Uno and Dogopoly.  (Actually, we have a game of Dogopoly set up for later today.)

Today is great!  Sixty-five and sunny!  I'm glad the weather has gone back to normal after weeks of rain; it really makes a difference in your mood.  We took a bike ride to the lake yesterday.  It was beautiful, but since it's the rainy season, the water forbid us from going as far as we would have liked.

We also bought a TV.  A BIG TV.  It's 46 inches and great quality!  I can't wait to watch Lord of the Rings 2.  I'm so hooked on those movies now!  

Besides the TV, nothing else of much interest.  Except the TV.

Lei Lei's Wedding

We were at Kunming on November 1st for the day of our manager (of our Center) and friend, Lei Lei’s, wedding. It was also my birthday! The day of the wedding started with us dressing in our finest shirts, pants and shoes, and cramming all 5 of us in a taxi. We drove to Lei Lei’s house which was full of about 30 of her relatives and best friends. We knew that Tony (the groom) had arrived when firecrackers started to explode in the front yard. Traditional Chinese weddings are less formal then American ones. When Tony got up to the front door with his posse, he had to bribe his way into the house by giving red envelopes to everyone. Once his wallet was empty, they finally let him in. But they didn’t let him see the bride just yet. Lei Lei had to hide in her room, then Tony recited a poem (in the local dialect) about his devotion to her before she let him in. Just when you thought the games were over, the party moved to Tony’s house in his group of jeeps. The drive seemed to take forever because of (you guessed it) more bad weather. It was raining, and cloudy, and damp, and dark, and miserable. Great day for a wedding right? 

At Tony’s house, we met up with his parents, had a cuppa tea and Bryce (my 10 year old younger brother) jumped on Lei Lei and Tony’s bed with another girl. (I’d tell you why, but if you’re my friend you probably already know. If you don‘t, wait, no one reads this blog, so it doesn’t matter right?)
Yet another car ride took us to our lunch. It was set in a gallery-restaurant which was displaying an exhibit about glass sheep on tires. Lunch consisted of Swedish meatballs (not as good as Al Johnsons, you know, that place with the goats on the roof in Sister Bay?), mashed potatoes (as good as The Viking, that place across from our gallery-Linden Gallery), spaghetti, (I can’t remember the last time I’ve had spaghetti in Door County) and curry chicken (I <3 class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> The guests didn’t arrive for another 2 hours so Peter gave us a riddle, no he called it…The Ultimate Riddle. Here it is: 40 boats go out but only 39 come back, what happened? You could only ask yes or no questions, but by the end of the hour, I figured it out (which was really fast, according to Peter). If you want to answer/ask questions, just post in the comments. Actually, I don’t expect anyone to post anything, since no one reads this blog.
Anyway, the wedding commenced and went by without a hitch. Nobody smashed through a window, the cake didn’t explode, and no morbidly obese person died from a heart attack after singing a song. My dad made a speech, but it seemed like half the people there were more interested in eating the food, then the wedding. Oh yeah, my dad also wedded them. I guess it was cheaper that way. I was surprised at how fast the wedding was over, it seemed like only an hour of celebration and eating before the back rows stated leaving. Herd mentality kicked in and before we knew it, we were the last ones there. Lei Lei came to our table after changing out of her wedding dress. She seemed very tired. I would be too after a day of accepting bribes, playing wedding-trivia, being wed, and thanking all 69 tables for coming.

Xizhou

My teacher made me write it, but I didn't know I would post it.  Just random thoughts, nothing special.  

We are now here in Xizhou.   I like being back, even though it's raining and we can't go anywhere.  Quick recap of what has happened.  I've been watching the Indiana Jones series; it's great.  We have no school books, so we do everything on the Internet.  We had a massive Uno battle yesterday.  It lasted 2 hours, yet no one emerged the victor.  We also went to Dali, the town 15 miles away from us.  We stocked up on bread, sweets, more DVDs and computer games.  I was pretty happy the rest of the day.  Right after this we will play Dogopoly,  a dog version of Monopoly.  Tomorrow we have no school because we're going back to Kunming.  Hooray!!

Kunming

The flight to Kunming was tolerable, except that our chairs couldn't recline and the food tasted like rubber and that halfway through Indiana Jones our computer decided to take a nap because it can't last longer than an hour on the lowest brightness setting.  We seemed to be carrying some "Portable Bad Weather in a Can" because it was raining in Kunming too.  

Our hotel was actually an apartment building that was being rented out as an hotel.  The designers or the room apparently thought it would be a good idea if they used glass instead of concrete as a wall for the shower.  That's when we thought of a new phrase: "It's China."  Things in China don't always make sense, such as a bootleg DVD store (my favorite one) next to a police station.  So if someone asks about how they can get away with that, we just answer, "It's China."  We have now officially adopted those words as our official catch-phrase.  

After we got settled down in our apartment/hotel room, Peter just could not resist the temptation of 1 dollar DVDs (at my favorite DVD store).  We went on a shopping spree and have accumulated: the complete seasons of Lost, all the episodes of Seinfeld, every James Bond movie, and a DVD titled, "20 of the Best War Movies Ever Made."  I think that's enough for around 3 years (give or take a few months).  

After being back in the fresh air of Yunnan, I started to feel better despite the rain.  Kunming is a big city, but with significantly less people and pollution then Beijing.  It still has its fair share of traffic though (I hate traffic), so I was thrilled to finally go back to our house in (traffic-less) Xizhou.  

Plane Ride/ Beijing

This plane ride to China was probably the easiest (after all, it was my 5th time).  I was with my mom, brother, Peter (my home school teacher) and Adrian (a friend of our parents who works with us and has been to China with us before).  I was glad that the plane was a 777, thus having screens on the back of every seat which allowed you to watch whatever (bad) movie you wanted.  One of the movies on the plane was Hancock, in which a troubled man with super powers (Will Smith) gets help from a failing business man.  I gave it an "okay" because it strayed too far from its original storyline.  The rest of the time I switched between playing with my Nintendo DS, listening to music, and reading 1984.  Since we left at noon, and the plane ride was 13 hours, we would arrive at 1 am Wisconsin time but 3 pm China time.  

The weather in Beijing was horrible, absolutely horrible.  Smog filled the air and I whenever I took a deep breath, I started coughing.  We conveniently started driving at rush hour, making our car ride an hour long.  Once I saw my bed I wanted to crash since I was so tired.  My parents thought differently though.  They made me to walk all the way across the street to eat.  I can't remember what we ate that night, only that it contained tofu, lots and lots of tofu.  In China people pick out individual dishes, for example tofu, and when the food comes, they set it in the middle of the table for people to pick whatever they want.  That way, no one gets too much and there is a bit more variety then mashed potatoes and steak.  

We stayed in Beijing for three more days, which which were full of pollution, traffic and nothingness.  After those three days, I've decided I don't like Beijing that much.  That being said, I was glad to be on the plane back to the fresh air and blue skies of Yunnan.

From Wisconsin to China

Leaving my house in Door County, WI, was surprisingly easy.  I was feeling excited, nervous and sad at the same time.  I couldn't wait to get to China and see our house, A.K.A. The Linden Center.  Our "house" is a cultural retreat in which people can go there to take educational courses. (Full info on lindensgallery.com)  

Packing wasn't as bad as it could have been; I just grabbed everything in my dresser and threw it in my suitcase.  I made sure I had my MP3 player, lucky socks and mint chocolate bars.  I love mint chocolate bars.  We left for Madison on October 20 and the next day, after a tearful goodbye from my Grandma, boarded our plane to China.  

Back at Xizhou

This is my first blog!  Hooray!  The reason for writing this blog is because I'm being forced to by my teacher, Peter.  We've arrived in Xizhou, but I will start by recounting the events that led up to us being here.