Hot Pot

Last night we partook of the traditional Sichuan cuisine specialty, hot pot. The food of Sichuan province is well known the world over for one particular special property:

facemelting spicyness

Our selected food items - fish, veges, several varieties of mushrooms, were dropped into what seemed to be a bubbling broth of chilli, peppercorns, and hydrochloric acid. The broth was the colour of blood.

The facemeltingness of the 'food' we attempted to consume I can confirm with three words:

Hot (temperature) - any item i dished into my bowl I had to leave for atleast five if not 30mins before I could let it near myself. The table had a built in gas element and the large bowl was sunk into the table, so the noxious potion bubbled madly right in your face.

Hot (spice) - not only the mega chilli hit, but some of the hottest peppercorns i've been in the same room as. These gave the hotness a roundness which produced a sensation much like a soccer ball coated in battery acid being inflated within the mouth

Hot (the above combined) - i was only expecting spicy hot, but the temperature factor inflated the experience to ridiculous levels. The soccer ball coated in battery acid was kicked in there by Satan, and as such was on fire, and so was my face. The tingling sensation usually typical of the chilli eating experience was more akin to a bunch of highly skilled rats playing soccer with the aforementioned ball.

 Em chickened out early on in the experience because she thought the whole fish they chucked in was alive at the time, and also because she feared for her life.  There was no sign of the fish within about 30 secs - I think it just dissolved. I did a bit better, but the main thing is we're still alive folks. Some young locals had their photos taken with us, and heartily said "Welcome to Chengdu!". The rest of the restaurant, including a little girl perhaps 7 who kept coming over to our table to try her english on us, a cleaning lady who came over to check on us a few times and stir our broth, were keeping close tabs on the colour of our faces with much amusement. 

Yet another factor confirming that these people are indeed crazy.

Chengdu Hotpot from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Blobbing

Taking it easy today. Both feeling a bit knackered, so recharging. Tomorrow we're going to see pandas. Tonight we're going to have Sichuan hotpot for dinner, so also psyching myself up for that. Meant to be some of the spiciest food available. Looks like we'll be here until Wednesday. Nice to be in one spot a bit longer.

Chengdu ' Gigs '

Last night we made it to an area further on the outskirts of town, to attempt to see some live music. We didnt arrive until about 9.30 and the bands were already finished. Looked like they were a Rock n Roll or Rockabilly outfit. Double bass and quiff hairstyles. Nevertheless we stuck around for a few beers and ended up talking for sometime to a couple of young local guys. The conversation was wide and varied despite the fact that their English was only a bit better than our Chinese. Turned out they were both art tutors at the Chengdu university. One was a fine artist, and the other a comic book artist and traditional animator. As such between us we managed to communicate with a mixture of broken english and Chinese, pictograms and written text. Was alot of fun, and we managed to discuss the music and art scene in Chengdu and the rest of China, their opinion on freedom or lack of in China, some international affairs, their own personal music tastes, 1989 as a turning point in China, 1 child policy - and how some families have 2 or 3 children depending on how well off they are, the earthquake earlier in the year, and the fact that their is still alot of poverty in China despite the amount of money that is also here. The bar itself was very nicely setup - some great art around the walls, lots of local magazines and some good music playing. 

Chengdu 01 - shopping around, pop stars from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

After saying goodbye to the guys we headed in a taxi to another bar a km or so away. We were expecting quite a different thing here, but the difference exceeded our expectations. Turned out there was some sort of Chinese Idol type thing going on here. Young local women were singing on the stage and dressed up in their best outfits and doing the whole Chinese pop star thing. A couple of them were bloody good singers. The whole thing was hosted by two enigmatic but cheesy MCs who took delight in including the only foreigners in the bar (Em and I) in the proceedings, and also including a few random english words for our benefit amoungst the announcements. "Hello" , "Thankyou", "Beautiful" . They sat with us at one point and introductions took place. Anytime they walked past from then on they'd shout at me "Jerry!, Hello!" in thick Chinese accent. Was a hilarious time. Some glamourous looking youngsters sitting at the front befriended us and we were obligated to join in the sparkler waving glorious pop singalongs. 

Chengdu

Arrived last night Chengdu. City of 4 million, and the ride  courtesy of our guesthouse pickup service from the airport confirmed the largeness of the place. The larger metropolitan population is 12 million. 

We're staying in what could be the best backpacker guesthouse we've come across. Its v

ery big, in the centre they've constructed a faux tropical area with streams, waterfalls, deckchairs, thatch roofed bungalows. They have cats, kittens, a puppy, chickens, and 3 large pigs which wander around the place during the day and are pretty tame. The owner of the place is Singaporean and he said to us that there's another

 guesthouse always copying his initiatives - 1st he got a dog, and they got one, then he got cats, and they copied that too, so he got chickens, but they couldnt because they didnt have room so he won. Guess he hasn't stopped thou

gh because its pretty bizarre seeing big pigs trotting about the place. Other than the wildlife, its a pretty good place to stay too. 

Today we decided to check out the shops. There must have been 1 million people doing their shopping today, I dont recall the streets of Beijing or Shanghai being that busy. 

Just like in other cities we've been to in China, it is common to see disabled people begging for money on the sidewalk. It is quite hard to see, as these people obviously are incapable of supporting themselves. Sometimes its hard to tell what the problem is - we saw a teenage girl, crouched head in hands with a sign in front of her on the path. Many people were standing around reading the sign , and many giving her money. Perhaps she had lost her parents and was unable to support herself. So many things about this place are so different - but the sight of such things amoungst the backdrop of Western chain stores and outlets within massive glitzy malls is interesting. I guess it's similar in some developed countries anyway.

We're going to try and see a gig tonight - if we can find the place. Some skaters in a clothes store gave us directions. Will update about it tomorrow China time. 

At Lijiang airport.

We're in a cafe at Lijiang airport. Seems to be free wireless everywhere in China. Around us Chinese men are playing cards and smoking like chimneys, whilst the waitresses stomp on cockroaches. We're surrounded by tacky souvenirs generally ripping off local cultures, ala plastic tikis. We're flying to Chengdu in an hour.

Today we visited Black dragon pool, which was very nice. Will put up some pictures later.

Got a bit tired of being tourists with the hordes sightseeing at all the attractions, so we're both looking forward to disappearing in a big city again and just seeing normal and real life, not a blatant simulation of other peoples' culture. The portrayal and usage for tourism is very heavyhanded. Must be somewhat like how it was in NZ up until I guess the 70s/80s - with regard to portrayal of Maori culture for tourism. However we've found interacting with people here - locals and tourists - alot of fun. A girl perhaps 8 years old was chatting to me in Chinese, and I managed to say "I dont speak Mandarin" to her in Mandarin. She proceeded to give me a lesson, pointing at things and telling me the words for them. Fish in the canal, statue of dragon etc. She was entertained by the fact she was smarter than me I think.

Black Dragon Pool - Lijiang final day

Here's some pictures from our final day in Lijiang before our late flight. We bought a beautiful portrait off an extremely talented local artist, and 2 charcoal portraits by his wife. The Woman with the baby on her back is Hayfan who runs the guesthouse we stayed at. The couple in marriage garb were having photos taken at Black Dragon Pool.  Much of the local cuisine includes grubs, stick insect, dragonfly in the dishes. 

China06_Lijiang05 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

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Our last day in Lijiang today. We have a late flight to Chengdu tonight.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

China05_Lijiang04_JadeDragon from tgoodwin on Vimeo.











Headed out of Lijiang about 30mins bus ride to the base of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Joined a horde and a half of tourists in the queue to get up the mountain. Was quite a process. Ticket, queue, bus to somewhere else, another ticket, queue, until finally on the cable car. Was worth it by then. The car took us up to about 4300m, then an exhausting walk (due to altitude and not unfitness of course) up to about 4506m. Everyone had cans of oxygen, as did we, which helped us get up. At the top was magnificent view of mountain, glacier and the area below. Something different for us - interesting considering we were in the tropical heat and humidity of Laos only on Sunday.

Naxi Ancient Music

And dinner beforehand consisting of Vegetable hotpot, potato cake, and fried Yak meat. Yak was very tasty. A little chewy, but pretty good. Flavour comparable to kidney maybe - not so strong though.

After feasting we headed into the old town to go to a concert of ancient Naxi music. They hold the show every night and half the musicians are as a

ncient nearly

as the music. Five of them

in their mid 80s. The man who put

the orchestra together in the 80s gave an interesting talk regarding the philosophy behind putting it together. It is apparently a fairly pure and untouched artform - rare in

China, which he remarked on. To western ears familiar elements

of Chine

se folk music a

re

there, but the exe

cution is probably more

raw than we might be used to hearing. Lots of clang, bang, plonk

, often sounding quite arythmical and some

very high singing by the Women. Very

interesting music to listen to. Also included a Naxi operatic number - a more comedic one. A great show.

China04_Lijiang02_02_music from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

2nd Day in Lijiang

We're still in Lijiang, Yunnan, China. Took it fairly easy today - had a wander around the town again, with a couple of drink stops, before deciding what we'd do with remaining time in Lijiang. 

China04_Lijiang02_01 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Lijiang 1st day pictures and videos

China03_Lijiang01_02 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.