Hiking on Shibaoshan

September 6: Shaxi, Yunnan

Today was the last full day in Yunnan and we spent it hiking on 石宝山. I think my main concern for the day was having to use a bathroom...so I made sure not to drink too much. It was an hour at least ride up to the mountain.

We first went to visit and look around these temples and such. I guess I didn't take any photos. Then we took the bus again further into the mountains.

There are certain mushrooms that people come to pick and they HAVE to pick it at the right time too. Crazy! Like not a day early or late. 

Ummm the next two photos I technically wasn't supposed to take photos to preserve the place and whatnot...but everyone was doing it...

Some vagina that people pray to for fertility. Can't really see it that clearly, but why would you want to? Pervert.

Lunch...I ended up eating the entire box of noodles and was scared I'd need the bathroom :X Luckily I didn't. 

When it was time to leave, we had the choice of hiking back down to Shaxi (about an hour) or taking the bus back. At this point it was raining a bit already and only two or three people were planning on taking the bus back, but then they had to carry all the trash and containers back. And it just pissed me off that even though everyone had their hands full already, one of the girls hiking asked one of them to carry her bag back. I told her it might be better for her to just carry it herself because they already had a lot to carry and she's just like no, it'll get wet. Whaat really. Kind of selfish imo. In the end I ended up taking the bus because I felt bad that they had to carry everything, and also it would've been an issue if I had to use the bathroom :X

Later that day we had dinner at the Old Theatre Inn. Probs my favorite meal, especially the potatoes yummmmm (first photo)

After dinner, there was a musical performance by uhh these old men. It started to all sound the same after a while lol.

They performed on that stage and I think it's a pretty old one too.

Still have more to spam, but I just wanna post this and get it done with haha. So that's it for Shaxi! Next post will be basically just food from the last day in Lijiang again. :)

Until next time!

Shaxi's Friday Market

September 5, 2014: Shaxi, Yunnan

Roosters at the Li Family outside of the bathroom.

We trekked through like the fields basically...I guess to take a different route and see other parts of town? I swear our tour guide did this out of spite because she knows I dislike wearing my boots/shoes and I wore flip flops again, and before we went through the fields, she called me out for it >< 

 Outskirts of town

 They have a Friday's market every week and we were lucky enough to be here while it happened! 

They sold all sorts of things, such as phones, clothing, socks, food (a whole market section as well), bedding, toilet paper, probably anything you can think of (kinda, not really).

This guy was trying to sell some sort of oil. Apparently it burned through his lighter so it started fizzing. He also has a live snake and a chicken, but I couldn't tell what they were there for. 

I didn't really buy much aside from a pillow case because my pillow in the apartment was disgusting so I was trying to buy a new one.

After looking through everything, my stomach wasn't feeling well so we went back to the Li Family and ended up skipping out of the rest of the afternoon's activities because we ended up napping for like four hours. 

We walked about 35 minutes to the Orchard Pear Temple for dinner and saw rainbows (not sure if it was multiple or the same one) on the way! We got there right as people were leaving, but we still had enough time to eat and catch a ride back. 

Not a very productive day for us...I felt bad since we skipped out on the activities ><

Cooking & Farming at Pear Orchard Temple

September 4, 2014: Shaxi, Yunnan

We got up to go to Pear Orchard Temple. On our way there, we saw a funeral ><; 

I was put into the cooking group..towards the end of preparing the food, I cut my index finger with a cleaver :( So I sat out for a bit and did everything with my other hand because I didn't want to get my blood all over the food lol. It's healing fine though; the first few days I applied Neosporin to it religiously and kept it bandaged up.

The one complaint I had with this activity was that during the prep we were told to wash the veggies 2-3 times. Two girls were doing that since there was only so much sink space, but they only washed it once, so I told them that if they only washed it once, they should do it again. One of them responded that they've already washed it thoroughly and it can't get any cleaner than that. Apparently a while later, when our guide was looking at the veggies (while I sat out), she told them that it wasn't clean enough, but by then it was too late to clean again since we were on a schedule. 

I was able to help out with the cooking still. We made eggs & tomatoes, salad, tofu, egg-battered goat cheese, traditionally steamed rice, potatoes, and probably another dish or two that I forgot. As you can see, we used GIANT woks to cook :o

After lunch, we had like two hours of free time and a few of us went to this meditation room and just fell asleep there :X It eventually got too breezy so I woke up.

Next it was time to switch off for the farm work. I don't remember if I actually was (since it was a month ago) but I remember being kind of cranky for this..hmm.. I know when our RA demonstrated it to me, I didn't expect him to do it so all I saw was an axe being flung toward me and it scared the fuck out of me D:

I hated this in the beginning because I had so much trouble with being able to cut down each stalk. Even when hacking it like 15+ times, it didn't seem to do much.. so I kept switching tools. Eventually, I got the hang of it with the machete sort of cutter. And it was quite fun actually. We only did this for about an hour or a bit more.

When we got back, we took a break before making mooncake! It's not like the lotus one that I'm used to but rather it's a more.. dry kind with a very sweet filling inside (sugar, peanuts, and other stuff).

 We had this professional mooncake baker come in to show us how it's done :O

Saw a rainbow right before dinner! It was such a nice view too!

Dinner that the second group made. 

I think that was it for the rest of the night. At midnight we sand happy birthday to one of the girls from the group.

Shaxi: Around the Town

September 3, 2014
Wednesday, we set off for Shaxi. It was about a 2.5 hour bus ride there and we had a homestay at the Li Family in Xia Ke Village. Shaxi is an agricultural town, so if you think of 乡下 kind of lifestyle. You can see the sewage throughout the town and there's lots of crops everywhere.

Kind of a shabby room for the seven of us. I mean it does its job, but not what I was expecting. Though, given the environment, it is expected. I'm thankful that the Li Family has Western toilets.

We got settled in for about 15 minutes before heading out for lunch. We had a guide who brought us around. It was about a 20 minute walk into town.

Lunch:

I was kind of annoyed with having to wear my boots because we were strongly, strongly advised not to wear flip flops or the like, but the roads didn't seem too bad and I didn't care about getting it dusty or slightly muddy so I just changed into flip flops.

After lunch, we walked around Shaxi for a bit and I tried this rice drink (1.5¥) and it was pretty good.

We continued to tour the town some more, looking at local street food and checking out the buildings.

To: 小倩

希望你看到这些字的时候是和你心爱的人一起

(Xiao Qian, I hope that by the time you see these words, you are together with your beloved)

Woman making carvings. Was tempted to buy a fan-shaped one, but didn't think I should hoard so much.

This dog followed us around for a bit and when he(?) saw us getting friendly with other dogs, it would BARK at them sooo much. 

Had some free time, but ended up going back to the Li Family. 

The roads in Shaxi were generally like this, think very village-style

Dinner was buffet style, so no pics. But we saw a lot of locals getting this noodle bowl, so we were able to try that as well.

Since this post is already pretty long with lots of photos, I'll end it here ^^;; Until next time!