The Weekend

This weekend definitely had its moments, most of which happened on Saturday. Sunday is our one day off so I took extra special care to be particularly lazy. Saturday we got up around nine and headed to this huge museum on the history of Kunming and the Yunnan province. Just recently the remains of a kingdom were found that predated known records so there's been this huge push to excavate. I think my favorite parts were these crazy sacrificial jugs that all had the zodiac animals doing crazy things on top and something to do with human sacrifice....It seemed like this past Saturday every school in Kunming let their kids free in the museum so hearing the tour guide was pretty challenging. There was also this awesome hall full of small golden Buddha idols discovered from around the age Buddhism really grabbed a foothold in China.

After that, we went to this street market area for a traditional lunch and a look around. As far as the lunch went, I haven't a clue what most of the dishes were called but most were excellent. One of the professors from the local university brought her five year old daughter along who kept spinning the lazy Susan holding the food dishes. This translated us all needed to up our chopstick game in order to grab anything before the dish disappeared around the 13-person tables. We were given some time to explore after lunch so I went with a group of guys that continuously got smaller the longer we walked through streets full of cheap knockoffs. (There were building toys named "Lekos" which seemed to even be using Lego product lines.) 

This was all followed by an incredibly accurate tea ceremony in a dedicated tea ceremony house...We all sat at a very low table with gentle Tibetan music playing. The hostess was calmly telling us about the wonders of tea and the long history of Pu'er Cha (I think. 茶, Or cha, is tea. But the other bit I'm having trouble recalling). By the time the first part of the ceremony concluded we had drank about 8 cups each. It was supposed to make us feel relieved and warm and cleansed. I think the most I felt was a newly burnt tongue, but it was fun! Then a few of the staff pulled off this really intricate synchronized tea brewing that was...Interesting. we came back that night quite tired, and after a few hours began thinking of how to spend the evening. Duncan, Jonathan, and a few others went to a karaoke place with the program's local TA (The one from Yunnan university) while the rest of us just started ambling about. Somehow Matt, Julie, Mary, and I were separated from the group of about 14. This turned out to be quite fortuitous when we were able to finally get a booth in a bar with our smaller size. In Chinese bars (and most restaurants) you pay up front and then have as much time as you want to just hang out. We were able to buy some beer and just hang out playing card games for hours! And when we wanted to leave, we just got up. It's a great system!

Sunday, I rested. Until about noon then I got antsy. Duncan and I went exploring in the afternoon after getting coffee and cake at the Elephant Café. I ordered all by myself! We set out down a different street than we have gone down before, walking a long ways past a pretty decent outdoors store until it intersected with the main road of Kunming. Then, we walked to a hot pot restaurant in the climbing gym mall for lunch. Unable to decide on anything there, we got this crazy combo hot pot thing and spent about an hour cooking meat and random veggies in boiling soup (they had little pieces of corn on the cob to cook too?). The rest of the day was spent mostly studying and prepping for a new wave of daily verbal quizzes instituted by the professor who came with us from northeastern. This new mandate is neither liked by students or the local teachers.

Monday I was able to get back to the gym with Duncan and Jonathan, this time Matt and Kyongnam came too! It seems like Duncan is going to make it a 3 times a week thing which I'm definitely excited about, I even bought a month pass! It will pay for itself in 4 more visits...Should be there by next week! I definitely felt some improvement to the last time I went, feeling more comfortable on the harder climbs I had tried and willing to push myself a little harder. I really have to do more of this at home...