through the looking glass

the day began early with pictures off the dripping balcony. not a pretty day on the water, but it cleared up enough to go exploring soon enough. wandered down the river, into the city for a safe lunch. which of course was not to be found for many, many blocks. apparently no one in the city eats out. a piece of bizarre spiced chinese fried chicken provided enough energy to push on through the growing holiday shopping crowd. veered off down a little side street back towards old town and saw beautiful mutton at a muslim vendor. ordered up and chatted with the 15 year old chef and his older sister. he spoke little mandarin so we had a lot of fun attempting communication, but his sister spoke more and eventually spoke up, finally asking for a picture with me. it took 15 minutes to figure out the address of the apartment building behind them they inhabited so I could send copies.

wandering down an alley turned into an afternoon of shopping, filled with traditional ribbon sugar candy fresh from a woman pulling it on the sidewalk and conversations with a talented batik maker from anshun with a passion for african art. many gifts purchased, a few friends made. on through the streets, past hotel row along the water, on to the edge of old town where the tomb of a famous writer/archeologist, who of course I’d never heard of, supposedly lived. found and captured by a sweet old man with green eyes (!) and few teeth who produced a complete history of the man and his works (of which I could understand perhaps every tenth word between his missing teeth and hunan dialect). the government provides him with 800 kuai a year to tend the grounds; traditionally the family would keep the caretaker but apparently no longer, the most they did was make sure he kept his job. we gave him a little gnosh as thanks, but he still would not let us explore on our own, so we headed back to town for a dinner of baozi (our first bread of the trip) and then off to the bar.

open bar
a walk across the river back to the bar to find owner and bbs travellers drunk and dancing to 80s music and chinese pop. ordering a jack and coke yielded a glass of jack and a can of coke, but finding a tall glass I mixed it up myself. I was videotaped from every angle laughing. despite protests our money was no good this night, no one’s was, and after the jack poured away a bottle of red wine was proferred for the first american guest, turned quickly into their own wine spritzer concoction and passed generously around to numerous ganbeis. slurred philosophising and sarcasm ruled the eve. we were invited along on a free day trip the next day to sanjiang, a town we thought to lie over 350 km south. insanity. we were invited by the sichuanese teacher for family breakfast which we gladly accepted. they practiced their english reading my postcards. they were it seems the occupants of the rest of our hotel, so I felt marginally less guilty about our 1am return.