Jingdao Gorge

Ni hao!

Last weekend the office of foreign teacher's sponsored a trip to the Jingdao Gorge. The gorge is about 60 km away from Beibei, and on our way we stopped at an old historical town to look around and have lunch. The town, Pin Yian, is very picturesque with its narrow cobblestone roads and ancient architecture. After lunch we took the very steep and windy road up to the gorge. For the first part of the gorge walk you go down about 500 steps, then you go up about 500 steps and then over a rickety wooden boardwalk that is somehow attached to the cliffs of the gorge....it's quite adventurous! It was a truly beautiful walk along the stream that carved this magnificent gorge. The water is crystal clear and we were either surrounded by steep cliffs or bamboo forests for the whole journey (which took about 4 hours). Towards the end of our walk we spotted some monkeys! We were watching for a while when a man came walking by us with some fruit in a bag. He would have been safe if the bag hadn't been clear, but those monkeys spotted the bananas and ripped the bag off of him and devoured the bananas. It was pretty funny to watch. We continued our walk and finally took a boat out of the gorge to our bus. It was an awesome trip!

A few monumental things have happened recently in my life. 1. Blue sky has been discovered in Beibei. I was beginning to doubt its existence, but on Friday a breeze swept through Beibei revealing a clear blue sky. This wind also pushed the fog/smog out of the air to reveal the mountains that surround my city, it was amazing! Unfortunately this only lasted one day, I'm back to rainy/foggy/smoggy China :) 2. I have been reunited with two great loves in my life, cheese and vodka. All the foreign teachers took a trip into Chongqing to visit a store called Metro, which is like a Costco except for foreign goods. The prices are quite high, for Chinese standards anyways, but it's worth it. We're able to find just about everything we miss from back home. And 3. I think my apartment is finally de-moused. I've been having a bit of a mouse/rat problem recently. A word on Chinese construction: Buildings here are constructed very quickly not with the best materials. It's just sort of a get it done, and get it done quickly sort of philosophy. So our apartment building has many holes and open areas and such for bugs, dirt, mice, pretty much anything to get in. So a few had decided to make home in the panels above my bathroom. And they did so by collecting rice grain either as food surplus for the winter or as a nest. Either way the food/nest easily fell through my slotted ceiling panels, along with their droppings, turning my bathroom into a rat's nest. Plus they are quite talkative at night. At first this was just annoying, but then one of them scuttled across my feet in the kitchen as I was chopping food, and another took a sun nap in my laundry room. Well thanks to my landlady and her mother, most have been disposed of. And some workers collected all the rice nests from my ceiling so I haven't had a problem in my bathroom recently either. So here's to hoping I'm mouse free!

Today I met up with some of my students at a grocery store called Yong Hui (young way). We took the goodies back to my apartment and they taught me how to cook! I now know how to make: Gong bao ji ding (kung pao chicken, one of my favorite dishes here), sweet and sour ribs, Beijing duck, Beijing pork, pork meatballs, egg and tomato soup, an eggplant and pork dish, and stuffed lotus root. It was all soooo delicious and I got to break in my new rice cooker as well. I'll be sharing recipes next time I'm back in the states!

I haven't been able to upload photos for some reason so I'll include them in my next post. Zai jian!