In Amongst the Clouds and Mountains

There is a Chinese idiom which goes like this: 水天一色. Literally, it means the water and the sky are one color. Figuratively, it is used to describe scenes of beautiful nature, like this:

I went on vacation last week and spent four days in Yunnan province. Yunnan is to the west, below Tibet and above Myanmar. I flew to the capital, Kunming, on Monday morning. Kunming is the city of eternal Spring, but it was a mite chilly when I arrived, so I acquired a hat while I wandered about.

I was meeting a friend in Kunming for the trip (she was flying in from Shanghai) and was the first to arrive in Kunming, so I went to the train station to buy tickets for the sleeper train to Dali, our next stop. The train ride was fine. Our car was mostly empty, except for the train attendant, who decided to sleep in the empty bottom bunk in our compartment. Goodness gracious, but that man could snore.
We arrived in Dali early in the morning and took the city bus to our hostel, the Jade Emu, where we showered, brushed our teeth, and ate some breakfast before heading back out to explore the old city.

Dali's Old City is quite pretty. I'm not sure how much is actually preserved and how much is recreated for the tourists, but it looks nice all the same. There is endless souvenir shopping, which I definitely indulged in, delicious local food to try (all delicious, especially the fried cheese), and some cultural points of interest, including a Daoist temple and a piece of the old city wall.

City Wall overlooking the Jade Mountains

fried cheese sprinkled with sugar

Our second day in the city, we were joined by another friend, arriving from Chengdu with a friend from France. We spent the morning exploring the Three Pagodas just north of the city. We didn't pay the 121 kuai entrance fee, but we did get some nice pictures from the little alleys and streets around the outside.

 

 

 

 

the third one is hiding

In the afternoon, we rented some bicycles and rode out toward Erhai Lake and poked around in some little villages. It was warm and pleasant and it made me realized how much living in the city drains the soul out of me. I miss blue skies and open views and seeing the stars at night. Ah, well. Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Thursday morning I had to catch the bus back to Kunming and fly back to Guangzhou while my friends, who had more vacation time, continued on to the town of Lijiang and possibly Shangri-la. I sat next to a man from Israel during the five hour bus ride, and we shared a cab and lunch while we waited for our various flights. It was a lovely vacation. I met new people, saw beautiful countryside, ate delicious food, and enjoyed four days of not thinking about work. I can't wait for my next vacation. Happy NewYear, everyone.

also, I may have found a stargate

Viagem Para Macau

Olá! How are you this week? We're only four days away from Christmas, now, and look what I found!

Of course, I had to go to Macau to find a religious Christmas display, but no matter. Yes, a friend and I spent Tuesday in Macau, the former Portuguese colony on the southern edge of the Pearl River delta that is just 2.5 hours from Guangzhou by bus. It was a lovely day, and there are many gorgeous places to visit in an afternoon (because that's what you've got, after you've spent an hour standing in two border-crossing lines to get in).

 

 

 

 

Largo do Senado

 Unfortunately, I spend the majority of the day being queasy and generally unwell. Family, remember that year at Sturbridge when I was suddenly, inexplicably, and horrifically ill on Sunday morning and you all joked about my "wicked hangover" while I lay in the grass and moaned? Yeah, it felt like that. I was still mostly mobile, but I had absolutely zero appetite, so the only culinary news I can give you about Macau is that they make delicious almond cookies and egg tarts. My traveling companion enjoyed a sardine bun and a wonderful-smelling waffle thing that was slathered with peanut sauce and condensed milk, as well.

Like Hong Kong, Macau is an interesting jumble of East and West, old and new. Also like Hong Kong, they speak predominately Cantonese and write in traditional characters, but Portuguese didn't seem to be as prevalent as English is in Hong Kong.

Art Park Graffiti

We visited the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Macau Museum (lots of dioramas; surprisingly interesting).

I have no idea who the person to my left is.

You may be asking yourselves, "Why are all those people wearing funny hats?" Well, we'd seen some signs announcing festivities for the 12th anniversary of the handover, when Macau was given over to China in 1999. We just didn't realize that it was the actual day. So, after taking this picture, we went into the museum, and about an hour later, we emerged to find a large group of people and a parade forming up.

little altar by the corner of a shop

Well, we didn't stay to see the parade. And we didn't actually go to any of the casinos for which Macau is famous (what with the mysterious illness, I figured my luck wasn't too good). But I did take a picture of the Grand Emperor:

It was all very fancy. There's also a Venetian, and MGM, and a Sands. It's called the Las Vegas of the East for a reason, but I don't think I missed much by sticking to the historic quarter.

Well, my thoughts have been drifting home a lot this Advent season, almost as often as you see fake snow in Christmas movies. Snow or no snow, it must be chilly. So here's a picture to cheer you up, direct from the courtyard garden:

December 21, 2011: sunny, 73 degrees

Next week's blog will be late, as I'll be on vacation. But for now, Merry Christmas. May your holiday be bright and full of cheer.

Even the Wise Men Went West for Christmas

Wednesday already? And another week bites the dust. Have I done anything? Let’s think back:

Thursday: work. Friday: work. Saturday and Sunday: work. Monday: work. Tuesday: sleep. errands. Wednesday: cookies. My goodness, how exciting is my life? Actually, the only thing I really did this week was resolve to write more interesting and profound blog posts, and it looks like I’ll be failing miserably at that!

           

Well, actually, I do have a few stories to relate. Last week at work, I had to cover a couple of classes for coworkers on vacation. They were, respectively, a class for 4 year olds and a class for for 5-6 year olds. Good heavens. It’s a whole different ball game with the wee ones, innit? It reminded me of my semester working a couple of hours a week in a kindergarten. As cute as they are, and as relatively easy it is to plan and execute a lesson for them, I’m rather certain that early childhood education is not for me.

Also, it’s gotten a bit chilly in Guangzhou. I think winter has finally arrived.  When I say it’s chilly, I mean it’s been in the 60s during the day and the 50s at night. Now, that isn’t really cold, I know. But be honest: it is the temperature at which you start running the furnace. And there’s no heat at work. There’s no heat in my apartment. It’s cool enough in my apartment today that I’m wishing for my fingerless typing mitts.

Even running the oven all morning didn’t really warm it up (likely because my oven is the size of a breadbox). But add coffee, tea, company, and cookies, and it was a warm and cheerful morning. I had a few friends over for some Christmas cooking making today. We made sugar cookies and vegan gingerbread cookies.  Here is my tip of the day: use fresh ginger in your cookies. Seriously, the flavor is outstanding. The spices, the sugar, and the bite of the ginger, yum. I have leftover molasses, and I think, as soon as I dispose of the four dozen cookies I now have in my apartment, that I might try making gingerbread. I’ll need to find a baking dish, though. (The cookies were made on a sheet of tin foil placed directly on the wire rack of the oven. It worked fine.) We listened to some Christmas carols, watched last year’s Doctor Who Christmas episode, and decorated the cookies with white icing, crushed up candy canes, and mini M&Ms. I couldn’t find food dye or colored sugar, not that I looked very hard, but I think they came out pretty well. They’re certainly delicious.

I was going to make smörbullar, too, but I figured we’d made enough cookies for one day. I’m going to take the remaining cookies in to our school Christmas party tomorrow. And if I’m feeling particularly nice, I might make some cookies next weekend for my Christmas Eve classes.

I’m getting excited for Christmas, but I keep having flashes of memory, at random moments, about all the things I might be doing at home this time of year. The kids at school will be gearing up for finals. LL Bean will be decorated and having fun events. The various Bowdoin choral and musical groups will be holding concerts. The First Parish bellringers will be ringing their way around the local churches. I can close my eyes and be in a thousand moments: breathing in cold air, sipping too-sweet cocoa, scraping snow off my windshield, testing the thin ice on the muddy puddles whilst in search of the perfect tree.  I can recreate a lot of Christmas here: cookies, tinsel, candles, carols. But I can’t make it snow and I can’t make it smell like evergreens. There’s a tree and decorations in the lobby of my building, now, but I can’t make the people in this city feel Christmas joy. There’s no connection. It feels like Christmas in July – all the trappings, none of the spirit.

Well, it is as it is and that is how it is. I’m looking forward to Spring Festival. Maybe that will make up for sense of emptiness that I just can’t shake.

I’ve gone and made this post a tad depressing, haven’t I? Well, let’s dispel these gloomy clouds, and sum up this surprisingly long blog post, with a great joke for your next party. Should you find that the rum is all gone (or the cookies, or the cake, or the little carrots, whatever) you should turn to a friend and remark, “Maybe if we stop observing it, it will appear!” That’s right, Copenhagen Interpretation jokes*, FOR THE WIN. Why yes, I am currently reading a book about Einstein, Gödel, and early 20^th century physics, why do you ask?

*This joke was told to me by an online friend, after I wowed them with the classic math pick-up line: I wish I was your derivative so I could lay tangent to your curves. Math and science humor will never not be funny, and you know it.

It's Christmastime in the City

Good Tidings

Ok, kith and kin. I've got 164 Christmas songs loaded onto my mp3 player and Pandora holiday stations queued up. I've trawled Netflix and Hulu for seasonal movies, and holiday decorations have been procured.
 

Seasonal, right?

In case you ever doubted it, all the lovely cheap plastic holiday decorations are made in Chinese factories, and over in Haizhu Square, we found a tight little alley full to the gunwales with Christmas decor. All that was missing was loudspeakers playing tinny Christmas music.

It's an Advent wreath. I just need some candles.

We're not the only ones in the holiday spirit, either. I was exploring a new mall today, called the Taikoo (It's across the street from OneLink, which is next to the Grandview, which is next toTee Mall, which is next to the Grandbuy. Yes, there are five giant malls all in a row. I know. It boggles the mind.). Anyway, they (all) are decorated for Christmas, and I would say about half of the stores are playing Christmas music. At Taikoo, you can even visit Santa Claus at his home in Finland.

Really. Santa lives in Finland, according to the sign.

In other news, I bought some cute new shoes. There are Buddhist shoes. What does that mean? Well, they're made of cloth and they are super comfortable. A coworker recommended them and we hit up the shop on Changshoulu yesterday. She was picking up some boots she had ordered. Apparently, other people think it's getting cold. I admit, last weekend, the mornings were a tad nippy. I was happy to wear my sweatshirt on my walk to work. But yesterday and today were back in the high seventies. There are flowering trees in bloom in the courtyard garden. I keep wondering if I'm still going to be waiting for it to get cold when Spring arrives. Ah, well. I have always wondered what a year without shoveling is like.

I'm ready to hike a holy mountain. Or go to work. Whichever.

Last, but not least, you can check off another item on the list of things I've never tried. A few friends and I went for some cupping on Monday night. Cupping is a TCM practice in which a flame is held in a glass cup, which is then quickly applied to your back, where it forms a mild vacuum seal. It's not particularly painful, and I did find it a bit relaxing. It does, however, leave a few ... well, calling them bruises makes them sounds painful. Hickeys? Yeah, they're like hickeys. The depth of color of said marks can then be interpreted to make suggestions for better health. Mine apparently tell me that I've got an overabundance of fire in my body, and should avoid deep fried foods and spicy foods.

Creepy looking, but painless.

That's really all I have to say this week. I hope all of you are getting into the Christmas spirit, regardless of where you are. Remember, Christmas is not a place, it's a frame of mind.

18 Days to Christmas!