(no subject)
TIBETAN BUTTER TEA
"1 tablespoon loose tea leaves (preferably a smoky black tea)
1/4 cup half-and-half (or half cream and half milk)
1 tablespoon butter
salt
Boil tea in 4 cups of water for about 10 minutes. Remove from flame.
Remove the tea leaves from the liquid by pouring through a sieve. Add
half-and-half and butter to the strained tea. Add salt to taste.
(Tibetans like it very salty!) This will cool the tea, so warm it briefly
over a low flame, making sure the tea doesn't boil. For a frothy tea, pour
it back and forth between two containers a few times."
We're here in LiJiang. Yesterday was an excellent day. We arrived in LiJiang and got directions from some French people on how to get to the Old Town (The bus dropped us off disorientingly, and there are two parts to the town, old and new, new being where all the cheap accomodation is along with all the charm!), which was a huge mistake! They pointed us in exactly the wrong direction and we wound up walking for about 3 or 4 kilometers with about 25-30K of stuff each! Man we are going to be buff after this month. Eventually we got good directions and found our way after at least an hour and a half of walking. We found the cheapest room we could for $7.5/night and ditched our stuff and went out to Black Dragon Pool park, where we were originally asked for 60 yuan (The same price as our hotel!!) each to enter, then eventually they dropped it to 30 (which was still 10 more than we should have paid we later found out) and we went in. It is filled with classical chinese architecture and beautiful landscaping. We took a 45 minute trek up to the top of one mountain (not too big mind you) then down and up another where there was a lovely pagoda FILLED to the brim with Chinese highschool students who were cheering for everyone who made it, and sitting up there singing songs. We sat up there for maybe half an hour or more just listening looking and smiling.
Several of the kids talked to us in either English or Chinese (they were excited to know we spoke a little) and eventually we started talking to two girls and a guy who were not there with the other students, but were university students from Guangdong (Canton). They spoke excellent English and were very polite about our poor Chinese. We walked down with them and took a bunch of pictures of the place with them as their camera was broken. They then asked where we were going and we said we didn't know, setting off an embarrassing chain of being treated to things.
CULTURAL SIDENOTE In China, unless you really know what you are doing, you are at a disadvantage - you are always the guest. So the fact that we are in THEIR country, and were willing to let them show us fun things to do basically means they had to pay for everything. This wasn't upsetting for them, as their inviting us meant that they were going to pay. It's just embarrassing for us as Americans who seek to always have the playing field level - we hate being clearly above or below someone. Anyhow, back to the story.
we got in a taxi and drove out to the base of a mountain to look at a NaXi cultural museum and a very famous pool/lake. We walked up to see calligraphy carved into an enormous rock and many other things. After that we went to dinner and TRY AS WE MIGHT to pay they insisted on buying dinner. Jerks. As such the only thing we could do to get back at them was INSIST we buy beer. So out we went and got beer - lots of it - at a bar, which turned out to be the cheapest beer we've had so far in China! CURSES!! It was all mortifying in the Ding Li sense and I'm sure my dad will be very pleased to know that they would have carried us to the hospital on their backs.
It's been raining since our taxi ride, and as such, Scott and I did not embark on our two day hike today as it would be miserable. We are considering going tomorrow, but as I have just received an email from our future employer requesting our presence in Beijing as early as the damned 21st (cutting ten days off our travels the bastards!!) we may have to rethink.
That's all for now
Good to be me.