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大坪七牌坊 Da Ping's Seven Tablets Lane

(The official plaque saying this is a cultural landmark and that Seven Tablets Lane is to be protected. Placed in the year 2002.)

(七牌坊 Qi Pai Fang, Chee Pai [say: pie] Fahng.)

(The characters say something about a river. But even my Chinese friends couldn't really tell me why these were placed here.)

(Seven Tablets Lane, or Qi Pai Fang [Chee Pai Fahng] was almost destroyed in the demolishing of old government block housing.)

(James and I walked over those boards to avoid destroying our feet on the rubble. But...when you walk over the boards all the rats underneath begin to protest. When leaving the site I preferred the other route.)

(Construction workers milling about. That block of housing is probably demolished now.)

(James Spencer-Owen. I am not sure how willing he was to go with me on this adventure. But I　dragged him along. These tablets were pretty huge. The tablet on the far right says something about a river.)

(Just so you get an idea of how big these tablets are. Nowadays [May] I wouldn't wear that much clothing. I think James and I went to explore this in February...when it was still COLD!)

(We kept commenting on how the surrounding area looks like a bomb had been dropped.)

(Maybe this area will have towering apartments like that.)

(This is the market we passed through to get to 七牌坊 Qi Pai Fang.)

(Selling all kinds of pots and containers.)

(That big red character on those huge urns means alcohol. 酒 jiu3)

(Shelling peas.)

(More vege.)

(On the way home this little girl was staring at us. So I decided to take her picture. She is sitting atop the fire extinguisher in a public bus.)

七牌坊 Qi Pai Fang was originally meant to be a mild adventure. I had bought a small Chinese guidebook to Chongqing's historic and "touristic" sights. While I was flipping through it I found several pictures of a pleasantly shaded street lined by huge stone tablets. The neighborhood is relatively old looking but at the same time very Chongqingesque. Cobble stone alley ways, steps galore, people hanging laundry out their windows, some even placing bedding on the tablets.

I dragged James along with me. When we got off the bus we found the nearest magazine/drink stand to ask for directions to the lane. Fortunately our bus had stopped almost exactly perpendicular to the small street leading to the lane. However simple this may sound now, we didn't know this at the time. I asked the man watching over the cigarette-selling part of the magazine stand. His wife (I am assuming) sat in the far corner of the booth knitting.

"Excuse me, where is Qi Pai Fang?"

"Eh? You want to go to Qi Pai Fang?"

"Yes."

"[Insert directions here]."

"Well you'd better hurry. They want to demolish it soon. Oh, actually it's been demolished."

The wife sitting in the corner who had been quietly observing, set her knitting on her lap and piped up.

"It hasn't been demolished yet. They wanted to though. But the people of the neighborhood protested and complained. So now they will keep it safe."

"Who is they?" I asked.

"The construction company." the couple said, they looked at me as if I had just asked a really stupid question. Maybe I had.

James and I thanked them and were on our way. Even though those two had said the lane hadn't been demolished yet we hurried along the street leading to our destination. This street was packed with stalls of lettuce, alcohol, fruit, and various cooking items. The little corner of Chongqing we were in was not the most well-off area to be sure. Most of the people gawked at us as we went on our way.

The next part came as a shock. Once we turned a corner we saw that a whole chunk of the neighborhood had been blown away. It looked like a bomb had been dropped on all the government housing that had once occupied this now quiet space. From a small distance we could still see the stones, which looked intact. What a relief! For a split-second I thought that the whole adventure would have been ruined. The only thing in the way now was a strip of yellow CAUTION tape and a few workers smoking cigarettes. I tried crossing the line and then a worker said:

"You are not permitted. It is unsafe."

"Oh, but I just want to take some pictures. Is that alright?"

"Ok, but be careful. Walk along here..." he pointed to some boards.

The only reason he let us pass I think was because I spoke Chinese with him. He may not have expected me to be able to answer him back at all, let alone understand what he had said in the first place. It feels strange to think about all the things I would not have been able to do in China if I could not speak Chinese.

As James and I walked over the boards we heard the protests of various rodents: RATS! Quickly we hurried off. I turned only to see a few scurry out from under the boards, turn around, then scurry back under again. The rats were not very big but they looked filthy.

The stones were large sturdy slabs. They were much much taller than me. Possibly three times taller than me. But then again some of their bases were covered in construction debris. On each stone were carved large characters. I recognized a few but when I put them together I did not get the meaning. I do know now, that one slab says "Fierce Loyalty," or "Strong Virginity," depending on how you'd like to translate it. The other slab says the name of a Festival or a shrine (that is located in Taiwan). That is if you read the characters vertically. If you read them from right to left (from one slab to another) it just means "Virginity" while the bottom would read "Strong Filial Piety." Interesting, huh? (Mind you I had to find out all of this by myself, my Chinese friends weren't much of a help).

Next James and I looked around at the barren landscape. It was an oasis of empty space surrounded by overcrowded apartment blocks (be they government-built or already-looking-dirty newly built). The sun was high. I started to sweat. We took pictures, looked around at the tablets for a while. Wondering out loud what the characters etched into the stones meant. Venting about the Chinese. James had just gotten to Chongqing from England a week or two before so we mutually vented about cultural differences between the west and the east.

We finished taking photos and exploring. The weather was getting hot. James ran over the boards infested with rats while I took the slower way of tip-toeing over small construction debris. I was lucky to not have had a nail go through my shoe. We bought cold drinks from the magazine stand where we had asked for directions, told the couple how it went, crossed the busy (lacking a stop light or crosswalk) street, then proceeded down the street to find a bus returning to Shapingba District. An interesting adventure to say the least.

貝迪溫泉五月一日 Beity Hot Springs

(Entrance.)

(Flowers outside the hot springs.)

(Lake/pond in front of the hot spring entrance.)

(Indoor portion of the hot spring.)

(One of the many pools outside.)

The beginning of the day started out a bit rough. It was drizzling outside, and I convinced myself that if I didn't take a shower now I would regret it later. I popped into the tiny closet sized bathroom, took off my pajamas, and balanced myself carefully over the porcelain hole in the floor that serves both as a shower drain and a toilet. In this house, the shower head actually stays put when the water is running. Whereas in the prior family's house, the shower head would have fallen.

After I finished showering, I quickly put on my clothes. Packed somethings into my messenger bag given to me by the Ngan family in Hong Kong and went downstairs. The stairs groaned under my feet announcing to all downstairs that I was awake. I looked around the living room. No one really appeared ready. My host mother asked me why I was ready so early. I told her that the night before my host dad had said that we were to pick up Ben around 9am. She looked at the clock. It was five to nine. She called to my host dad who was in the kitchen making breakfast.

"You didn't tell me you planned it like this! Aiya, Ben is waiting for us! Why didn't you tell me?"

My host dad something inaudible, something he grumbled.

"That's no excuse!" my host mom responded.

She popped her head out from between the kitchen door and the door frame.

"Yaoxia, go get Ben. Tell him he can have breakfast with us."

I nodded then slipped on my black sandals.

It was cool out. Which is not unusual for Chongqing weather. Chongqing has a problem deciding on whether it really wants the seasons to change or not. I have been through rainy periods, foggy periods, sunny hot scorching sweaty humid periods, and warm drizzling periods. Today it was overcast and drizzling.

Ben was already waiting outside his apartment's lift lobby. Like me, he didn't carry an umbrella. I lost mine, Ben just refuses to have one. He is from England after all. It seems like whenever it precipitates outside Ben insists that it is "spitting" and not actually "raining" hence the lack of an umbrella. I told him what was happening. Then we walked back across the wet and green campus to my family's apartment for a breakfast of noodles and egg.

The car ride to the hot spring was a bit more time consuming than we thought. We ended up waiting in the car at the front gate of Chongqing University for over half an hour. We were waiting for my host dad's older sister to arrive so her car could drive in front of ours and take us to the hot spring. She finally arrived. Much to the frustration of my host mother and the embarrassment of my host father. I do not think my host mom enjoys my host father's older sister's company too much. In the end there was no point in her coming because after ten minutes on the freeway her car sped off. We were lost.

It took us an hour longer to get to the hot spring than originally planned. In fact the hot spring is quite close to Chongqing. The journey back lasted for about forty-five minutes to an hour.

Our caravan of cars eventually met up at a conference center/ hotel near the hot spring. The plan was to get some lunch. However, the restaurant wait was too long. Time was short already because Ben and I needed to be back in Shapingba (the district in which we all live) for a birthday party. There was a wedding ceremony going on in the middle of this huge restaurant. The restaurant building looked like one of those huge glass topped indoor plant nurseries you sometimes see off the highway.

As soon as Ben and I got out of the car to go into the restaurant we were greeted by two small girls. Well, they didn't really greet us. They sort of pointed, said "wai guo ren" (foreigners), walked up to us, and stared. This happens often, but not when the children who are staring are the children of your host family's friends. Ben and I ignored them, as we have learned to do now.

"It's funny how in some countries this place would be full of plants. But in China it's a restaurant full of people and a wedding." Ben said while my host mom inquired about the wait for a table.

The wait ended up being too long. Everyone piled into their respective sedans and drove out of the well landscaped conference center towards the hot springs. I was expecting some sort of indoor hot spring, possibly dirty.

I definitely did not expect marble floors, showers with nice water pressure, unlimited towels, hairdryers, an internet cafe, acupuncture salon, massage parlor, free fruit bar, 68 yuan all-you-can-eat-buffet, or huge lazy boy chairs with televisions attached! Not to mention a wonderfully strange pool where small fish eat your dead skin!

The host family paid for our entry and left. They had all decided to find a bite to eat since the all you can eat buffet was too expensive. 68 yuan per person is a lot for three people. My host mom asked Ben and I if we wanted to join. We politely declined saying that we could feed off the free fruit bar.

There were many different kinds of pools in the hot spring. A large beach like one that would change into a horrible-high-pitched-techno-playing wave pool. All of the pools were shallow enough for people to sit on the bottom without drowning. You could buy a drink from the bar and sit in the spring marveling at the condensation off your coke can.

Another was a fish pool. The water itself wasn't so clean...it was filled with little bits of fish poop. But it must have been cleaned regularly because you couldn't smell it. I didn't mind, we could just pop into another pool couldn't we? After sitting down in the fish pool one must remain still in order to entice the small brownish fish to have a nibble. Once they had a bite all their other friends would join. The feeling was tickle-ish. I heard many Chinese people exclaim "Yang si wo! 癢死我!" or "Hao yang a! 好癢啊!" meaning "I am being tickled to death" and "So tickle-y!" We went back to that pool several times.

Due to our hunger we eventually caved in to the all you can eat 68 yuan buffet. Which was glorious! I had noodles, cakes, coffee, pastries, spinach, chocolate from a chocolate fountain, and a real danish! The best 68 yuan I will ever spend. I met another American lady there from Texas. We talked briefly. She asked all the questions. I was too giddy from all the good food to remember my manners and ask her in return!

We returned to the pools to digest our food.

Later Ben and I ran into my host mom, host dad, and Rose (my host sister) in the fish pool. Rose was having a hard time sitting still and therefore having a difficult time understanding why this pool was so special. We chatted for a while, admiring our little finned friends.

Hot springs are really nice! I hope to return soon!

Lamma Island 南丫島

(Flags on the pier, as well as fellow tourists.)

(Boats in the harbor near the pier.)

("Creek" between houses and restaurants on the main street through Lamma.)

(Postage on the way towards town from the ferry.)

(The main harbor, yes that is a power plant. I think it is hydro-electric though. Sort of a reminder that you are still in China.)

(Main street.)

(Handwritten menu of the restaurant where we ate.)

(Vege.)

(Fruit.)

(Coke machine near a curio shop.)

(Roadside shrine on the way to the beach.)

(Part of the walk to the beach.)

(No cars are allowed on this island. Only small tractors. 6000 people live on the island.)

(I really love signs like this in Hong Kong. This style of lettering really gets me! This restaurant was on the way to the beach.)

(Big flat leaves, also on the way to the beach.)

(And finally we arrive at the beach. There is an old Francophone with his granddaughter playing in the water. We rode the same ferry.)

(Our cicada friend that frightened us at first. The noise was really loud at first, it startled Baddi and I. Then we got up from the table and looked around only to find it here!)

(A fellow table-sitter.)

(Leaving the beach, a white wall around some one's property.)

(This is what some of the houses look like on Lamma.)

(The main harbor by the ferry.)

All I have to say about this place is wow. Nam'a Doh (means "South Forked Island") is a really interesting, not to mention relaxing place. The weather was wonderful and the water looked so clean! I don't think my Icelandic friend Baddi agreed about the clean water part, but I am used to dark green water so to me the semi-clear blue water was good enough.

The weather that day was warm and humid. After we got off the boat we walked down the main drag of the island, past several seafood restaurants and a small post office. Baddi and I were both starving and on a budget so we settled for a slightly cheaper noodle place off the beach. We had Shanghai noodles, funnily enough the island's specialty is seafood but neither Baddi nor I likes seafood. along with my wonderful Shanghai noodles I had a lemon coke, which I have only had in Hong Kong (and nowhere else in China as that sentence already implies).

After paying the bill we sauntered on down towards the nearest beach (25 minutes away). I was seriously regretting not bringing sun screen. When we arrived I retreated to the coke machine and then on to the shade. The beach was so clean, and the changing facilities, bathrooms, and lifeguard station were really tidy. Baddi and I sat on a bench under a tree and commenced our people watching. The beach was fairly empty. Most of the people there were foreign. Some French and some Americans. The rest were Chinese. In total this may have been 12 people.

Our presence was later graced by a big cicada. Looking back on it we should have named him...but we didn't alas.

On the way to and from the beach we were surrounded by foliage. Green green green foliage! It was lovely. Occasionally we passed a house or two. Maybe even a Filipino maid getting after her mischievous western charge. We passed that sort of thing twice actually. There is an international elementary school on the island, so there are westerners about.

It was a sad thing to leave this place, I think Baddi and I both enjoyed it. Vowing several times that we must move here when we are older. We could be neighbors! I suggested to Baddi that he spread Icelandic by opening an Icelandic International school on the island. He thought that was amusing.

At the end of the day we paid our fare and boarded the ferry to head back to the wonderful hustle and bustle that is the city of Hong Kong.

西貢 Sai Kung (Xi Gong), Hong Kong

(Sai Kung Pier)

(People having tea and chatting next to the little park of us Sai Kung pier.)

(Circle K, the place to get cheap chilled coffee. Oh, and practice your Cantonese. "Yat ga feh, m goi." One coffee, please.)

(Me playing tourist.)

(Fisherman handing off cuttlefish guts to be used as bait. He had just finished gutting and cleaning a cuttlefish before selling it right off the boat.)

(Fisherman's boat off the side of the boardwalk.)

(People fishing [illegally] off the pier.)

(I love these lovely neon signs around Hong Kong.)

(Fisherman selling their catches off the boardwalk.)

(Crabs outside a seafood restaurant in front of a hotel.)

(Fishing boots.)

(Grandma and grandchild passing time out on the pier in Sai Kung.)

(Sam pan boats.)

(A worker taking care of the Urine Shrimp, a local speciality.)

("Aren't those guys up there illegal?")

(This seafood shop was one of the first things we saw in Sai Kung.)

(Shops leading to the boardwalk in Sai Kung.)

On Monday afternoon Baddi and I made a trek to Sai Kung. Sai Kung is in the western part of Hong Kong, and it means Western Tribute in English. I had seen a picture of the harbor in a Hong Kong guide book that I had bought recently. I decided to drag Baddi with me. (Baddi is my friend from Iceland who is living with the Ngan family in Hong Kong. He came here with Hong Kong AFS. The Ngan family took me to Macau. See last post!). Nelson (Baddi's host brother) helped us find the minibus on his way to school.

When we got off the bus in Sai Kung it was already late afternoon. The fisherman were out selling their daily catches for local peoples' dinner. Baddi and I spent more than a half an hour watching people haggle (in Cantonese, so this time I wasn't doing the translating) over cuttlefish. Off Sai Kung Harbor are many different islands, I didn't realize this until I looked at a map afterwords. The islands definitely contribute to the great view that is this harbor.

I really enjoyed resuming on of my hobbies since I was three: catch watching. When I was little my Uncle Rusty used to take me to the local pier (in California) to see what was lurking in the buckets of the fishermen. I did a lot of the here, but it was a bit more convenient. The fish were already displayed in tanks for sale, while other fish were still in the boats of fishermen.
This was mostly a people watching one. I really enjoyed it. Baddi was fascinated by the gutting of the the cuttlefish. He also liked to listen to the haggling of the locals. It helped me with my Cantonese numbers.

(This morning I discovered how horrible my Cantonese is. Cantonese not only has 6 tones. It also has three pitches. High, middle, and low. I tortured Nelson this morning by having him repeat these pitches over and over again. Last time I visited Nelson, and his sister Kathy, couldn't even recall the tones specifically to give me a listen. When I visited this time they had brushed up!)