Here is a view of some terrace farming...a beautiful view like this was very
common on our walks. This was the view from "our house".
Here is one farmer taking his cattle out for a stroll and lunch.
Here is "our house", the house we saw abandoned and we loved it.
One interesting aspect for me (a suberban girl) was to see the whole process of my dinner...stating with the live pig, then the butchered pig meat for sale, then the pig fat being cooked into oil, then the buckets of oil, which they used to cook the pork we had for dinner. These particular pigs were staying in our friend's basement.
When they say, "How about lettuce for dinner?" they mean LETTUCE!
Here's a typical dinner (or lunch) fixed by Lily's mom. They don't just bring out sandwiches...oh no. Lunch and dinner are full-out meals. The dish front and center is my favorite Chinese dish- "Cucumber fried pork".The others are tofu, fish, and some kind of vegetable.
Here is a typical set of apartment buildings out in the countryside.
What we saw was a small gathering of these apartment building (a 'town') then nothing for several kilometers, and then a few more apartment buildings. Each town seemed also to have a hairdresser and a convenience type store. (No grocery stores of course...everything is FRESH).:)
Here is Lily (our 'angel') and myself,
before the weather got a warmer.
The picture to the right is Shane playing badmitton, with all the neighborhood kids watching. In fact, he was a little like the pied piper- they followed him everywhere!
A while ago, Lisa and I were able to travel out to the country-side to visit the house of our dear friend Lily. (You can see her from very early posts.)We were going to see another friend originally, but that fell through. Then, Lily called us out of the blue and asked if we wanted to go, so we thought it would be really cool to see the country-side and visit her family.
The picture to the right is Shane playing badmitton, with all the neighborhood kids watching. In fact, he was a little like the pied piper- they followed him everywhere!
A while ago, Lisa and I were able to travel out to the country-side to visit the house of our dear friend Lily. (You can see her from very early posts.)We were going to see another friend originally, but that fell through. Then, Lily called us out of the blue and asked if we wanted to go, so we thought it would be really cool to see the country-side and visit her family.
The journey there did not start the best though. I was tired the night before and did not do any packing. Since I am a morning person, I decided that I would wake up early and pack. Also though, I had been slothful and had not done the dishes from a couple days ago that also needed to get done. (Dishes have been my enemy over here. My displeasure for them has been compounded on the fact that the kitchen is in the back of the apartment, so it is cold in the winter-time. Also, our old faucet used to leak, so water would get on the floor. Finally, the cabinets are built chinese style, which means that they are low and that I have to stoop a little to do the dishes. This still doesn't mean that I shouldn't put them off as I usually do unfortunately.)
So, I got up early and did those, but Lisa ended up packing a huge duffle bag. We were not to be gone for that long; I had only been thinking of a bookbag for BOTH of us. We ended up having both the duffle bag AND a bookbag. It was really funny though in some ways because of our fears of going out into the country-side. Lisa was thinking it to almost be some like ninth-world remote village with no modern things at all. She wanted to bring this heavy blanket, but I said no, so we resorted to a thin blanket.
It is good that we brought so many clothes in some regard because it was indeed really cold at night, and we were wearning like 5 thin layers over another. (I did not bring really warm clothes over to China because I knew that we were going to the southern part of China) However, I did not know how extreme the climate over here gets. Really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, especially since we live in what I call our "concrete cells." :)
So... we had a fight from all the luggage that I had to carry. (I should have communicated better though.) It didn't make matters any better when Lily commented a lot on how much luggage we had also and then that we had to carry it all the way down to the buses, and then from there...
Lisa taking over the blog, per Shane's request. SO..we made it to a VERY crowded train station- you couldn't imagine the crowds, and onto a long bus ride. I am very glad we went with Lily, because we never would have found it on our own. The bus dropped you off in the middle of some country town, where most people speak the local dialect, not mandarin. Lily got another small van to get us the rest of the way to her home.
It was really great to meet her family- and we saw a lot of her brother especially (who is around 19). I think I was expecting a wooden house with straw roof..but infact they are concrete apartments surrounded by farmland. The weather turned out to be unusually warm- enough to wear only a few layers- and no coat during the daytime! Of course, the house itself was still very cold, so we stayed outside as long as possible. We were able to enjoy full-course Chinese dishes everyday for lunch and dinner from Lily's mom...once she taught me how to make my favoite dish "huang gua chou rou" or cucumber fried pork. (I make it when we got back- it was still good!).
So, I got up early and did those, but Lisa ended up packing a huge duffle bag. We were not to be gone for that long; I had only been thinking of a bookbag for BOTH of us. We ended up having both the duffle bag AND a bookbag. It was really funny though in some ways because of our fears of going out into the country-side. Lisa was thinking it to almost be some like ninth-world remote village with no modern things at all. She wanted to bring this heavy blanket, but I said no, so we resorted to a thin blanket.
It is good that we brought so many clothes in some regard because it was indeed really cold at night, and we were wearning like 5 thin layers over another. (I did not bring really warm clothes over to China because I knew that we were going to the southern part of China) However, I did not know how extreme the climate over here gets. Really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, especially since we live in what I call our "concrete cells." :)
So... we had a fight from all the luggage that I had to carry. (I should have communicated better though.) It didn't make matters any better when Lily commented a lot on how much luggage we had also and then that we had to carry it all the way down to the buses, and then from there...
Lisa taking over the blog, per Shane's request. SO..we made it to a VERY crowded train station- you couldn't imagine the crowds, and onto a long bus ride. I am very glad we went with Lily, because we never would have found it on our own. The bus dropped you off in the middle of some country town, where most people speak the local dialect, not mandarin. Lily got another small van to get us the rest of the way to her home.
It was really great to meet her family- and we saw a lot of her brother especially (who is around 19). I think I was expecting a wooden house with straw roof..but infact they are concrete apartments surrounded by farmland. The weather turned out to be unusually warm- enough to wear only a few layers- and no coat during the daytime! Of course, the house itself was still very cold, so we stayed outside as long as possible. We were able to enjoy full-course Chinese dishes everyday for lunch and dinner from Lily's mom...once she taught me how to make my favoite dish "huang gua chou rou" or cucumber fried pork. (I make it when we got back- it was still good!).
Most of the time there we walked- EVERYWHERE, because the weather is nice and also becausewe were in the countryside, there are not many activities besides walking, boardgames, or working. So we walked for hours each day, exploring the nearby fields and farms. We also did play a lot of boardgames (ticket to ride) and cards. I was glad to really explore- because if you walked far enough you got to see very isolated and lonely looking places indeed. Shane and I found a more traditional chinese farm house, made from brick wood, and straw (sounds like the three little pigs lol) overlooking a beautiful countryside. It also happened to be sunset, which was very beautiful indeed. We decided that, as it was abandoned, we should buy it, fix it up, and move in. It was very traditional- having a huge iron place for cooking and sections of the inside of the house for the animals! (You know how I"m a romantic at heart). OF course, its easy to think that way when the weather is nice, but no electricity for lights or warm water (or even running water) would present a problem eventually.
I think the saddest thing was the amount of rubbish tossed into the streams and by the farms. There is not really an organized system for waste management, so they either burn the trash or toss it outside. I am not usually a staunch environmentalist, but I do love the world we have been given, and it made me want to start a campaign to help this community. However, inspite of it, we were able to see really amazing "terrace farming" and countryside. We hope to visit again in the spring when the rain brings new and green fields for rice farming. Overall, it will be one of our most memorable trips, I think.
I think the saddest thing was the amount of rubbish tossed into the streams and by the farms. There is not really an organized system for waste management, so they either burn the trash or toss it outside. I am not usually a staunch environmentalist, but I do love the world we have been given, and it made me want to start a campaign to help this community. However, inspite of it, we were able to see really amazing "terrace farming" and countryside. We hope to visit again in the spring when the rain brings new and green fields for rice farming. Overall, it will be one of our most memorable trips, I think.
