Huang Long Qi/Xi/Qu/wat
I am really nervous about the Bluefly Closet Confessions contest - i can't upload my entry until i get home, at which point there will only be 10 more days until voting closes. If Johnny is going to look at all of the entries, then fine no worriez, but if he's only going to look at the top voted... well, i don't exactly have 100+ friends willing to click a button for me (except maybe on _skating, but i can't exactly make a post saying "HEY BROS REMEMBER THAT CONTEST FROM LIKE A GAZILLION YEARS AGO VOTE FOR ME NOW K"). Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
In China-related endeavors, yesterday we went to a town called Huang Long Qi/Xi/Qu (my grandparents speak with a Sichuan accent, so stuff sounds different from the way they're spelled. My parents do too, so some of the accent has infiltrated my ~pure~ school-taught Mandarin accent so what comes out is a strange hybrid that doesn't sound right to anyone in the end). It's preserved to look like a town from "gu dai" (ancient but not extremely ancient... unless you're referring to extremely ancient. Context, i guess) times - there are the wooden buildings with pointy corners that point up like an elf's shoe, and the stone paths and water wheels. Except then you hang around for more than ten minutes, and you see the English labels over the trash cans (oh-so-authentically designed to look like the water bucket racks people used to carry over their shoulders) and the fairy lights inside the trees.
The main attraction of the town is the 20ft-ish wide stream/river running through it - the town isn't a geographic blob like most towns, it's actually more like a line that follows the river. People wade along the river as means of walking through the town - the water is really shallow and mild and cool. I don't think it's manmade but the riverbed is indeed completely paved with stones for easy walking. There are sculptures of frogs and turtles everywhere that act as stepping stones, intermittent log/stone slab bridges for non-waders to get to the other side of the town, and decorative stones and boulders and smaller sculptures sunk at the bottom of the river (which was maybe 1ft deep at the deepest part that i went to). There are trees everywhere, intermittent islands full of meticulously natural-looking greenery that split the river in two for a few yards, and shop after shop (restaurants, musical instruments, clothing, stuffed animals, food...) along either side. And every here and there are different kind of water wheels for people to try their hands (OR SHOULD I SAY FEET?????????? EHH EHH EH????) at. So wading isn't by any means a ~rugged adventure~ - it's more a relaxing, slightly magical fun way to amble through the town (although tbh, i think everything is magical).
My grandparents didn't go in the river, but i, my uncle, and my brother (after some cajoling) did. My uncle and brother bought water guns (which look a lot like pogo sticks without the spring part) to shoot each other with, and i went into pseudo-nature-photographer mode and took a few too many pictures of unsuspecting children and storekeepers crawling under bridges/keeping an eye out for customers/creepers like me. At one point, i found a chain of jasmine flowers lazily floating along the river, and i nearly died from <3 (STEPH ISN'T THE ONLY ONE WITH A LOT OF FEELINGS, OKAY) - a few minutes later, a tiiiiiiiiiiny lily pad (like the size of my thumbnail) floated by me, and that's when i really died. After a lot of wading, we ended up at a restaurant to munch on little snacks (ong cai (MAY FAVORITE VEGETABLE/FOOD EVER. I THINK I KNOW THE ENGLISH NAME BUT I DON'T WANT TO SAY IT IN CASE I'M WRONG. BUT ITS OFFICIAL CHINESE NAME (ong cai is Sichuan dialect) CAN BE TRANSLATED INTO "empty heart [vegetable]" BECAUSE ITS STEM IS HOLLOW), peanuts, chicken feet, and edamame beans. There's no drinking age in China for beer (other drinks have one, though）， so my brother (who is 12, btw) and i got not-quite-drunk together (the beer was super super weak) for the first time ever. We then sang Lady Gaga together on karaoke - he sang with me for "Paparazzi", but was too much of a wimp for "Pokerface" and "Just Dance". Thennnnnnnnnn thunder started clapping, so we hurried back up the river (walking along the paths on the side this time) to get to our car and leave. But not hurriedly enough that i didn't buy three musical instruments on the way (a hu lu si, which is like a three-pipe flute with a curvy 8-ish shaped gourd on top, a tear-dropped shaped woodwind with which I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO PRODUCE SOUND, and a whistle that is the lame-o version of the second instrument). My uncle also bought a, uhh, kaleidoscope for himself.
At one point, two women passed by me on the path hauling a legit cart filled with bunches of grapes. And then later, an old woman walked by holding a wicker basket/bowl filled with sleeping white baby bunnies for 10 yuan each (a little more than $1). She had the kindest face and such a peaceful, quiet smile - and she was so tiny, but still managed to carry the bunny basket in her hands, another cylindrical basket on her back, and a few small baskets with some fingers filled with leaves for the bunnies to eat. Eric (my brother) was incredibly upset when i told him about her - he is an awkward 12-year-old boy who likes Avenged Sevenfold, but thanks to delicate coaching from me for the past decade, we both realize just how ineffable baby bunnies that we can't take back to the US are.
P.S: There was also a hook+rack at a shopfront where you could pull a huuuuuuuuuuuge chunk of white taffy(it could stretch 10 feet and was as thick a small log when stretched), it looked really really cool but didn't taste too great :/
In China-related endeavors, yesterday we went to a town called Huang Long Qi/Xi/Qu (my grandparents speak with a Sichuan accent, so stuff sounds different from the way they're spelled. My parents do too, so some of the accent has infiltrated my ~pure~ school-taught Mandarin accent so what comes out is a strange hybrid that doesn't sound right to anyone in the end). It's preserved to look like a town from "gu dai" (ancient but not extremely ancient... unless you're referring to extremely ancient. Context, i guess) times - there are the wooden buildings with pointy corners that point up like an elf's shoe, and the stone paths and water wheels. Except then you hang around for more than ten minutes, and you see the English labels over the trash cans (oh-so-authentically designed to look like the water bucket racks people used to carry over their shoulders) and the fairy lights inside the trees.
The main attraction of the town is the 20ft-ish wide stream/river running through it - the town isn't a geographic blob like most towns, it's actually more like a line that follows the river. People wade along the river as means of walking through the town - the water is really shallow and mild and cool. I don't think it's manmade but the riverbed is indeed completely paved with stones for easy walking. There are sculptures of frogs and turtles everywhere that act as stepping stones, intermittent log/stone slab bridges for non-waders to get to the other side of the town, and decorative stones and boulders and smaller sculptures sunk at the bottom of the river (which was maybe 1ft deep at the deepest part that i went to). There are trees everywhere, intermittent islands full of meticulously natural-looking greenery that split the river in two for a few yards, and shop after shop (restaurants, musical instruments, clothing, stuffed animals, food...) along either side. And every here and there are different kind of water wheels for people to try their hands (OR SHOULD I SAY FEET?????????? EHH EHH EH????) at. So wading isn't by any means a ~rugged adventure~ - it's more a relaxing, slightly magical fun way to amble through the town (although tbh, i think everything is magical).
My grandparents didn't go in the river, but i, my uncle, and my brother (after some cajoling) did. My uncle and brother bought water guns (which look a lot like pogo sticks without the spring part) to shoot each other with, and i went into pseudo-nature-photographer mode and took a few too many pictures of unsuspecting children and storekeepers crawling under bridges/keeping an eye out for customers/creepers like me. At one point, i found a chain of jasmine flowers lazily floating along the river, and i nearly died from <3 (STEPH ISN'T THE ONLY ONE WITH A LOT OF FEELINGS, OKAY) - a few minutes later, a tiiiiiiiiiiny lily pad (like the size of my thumbnail) floated by me, and that's when i really died. After a lot of wading, we ended up at a restaurant to munch on little snacks (ong cai (MAY FAVORITE VEGETABLE/FOOD EVER. I THINK I KNOW THE ENGLISH NAME BUT I DON'T WANT TO SAY IT IN CASE I'M WRONG. BUT ITS OFFICIAL CHINESE NAME (ong cai is Sichuan dialect) CAN BE TRANSLATED INTO "empty heart [vegetable]" BECAUSE ITS STEM IS HOLLOW), peanuts, chicken feet, and edamame beans. There's no drinking age in China for beer (other drinks have one, though）， so my brother (who is 12, btw) and i got not-quite-drunk together (the beer was super super weak) for the first time ever. We then sang Lady Gaga together on karaoke - he sang with me for "Paparazzi", but was too much of a wimp for "Pokerface" and "Just Dance". Thennnnnnnnnn thunder started clapping, so we hurried back up the river (walking along the paths on the side this time) to get to our car and leave. But not hurriedly enough that i didn't buy three musical instruments on the way (a hu lu si, which is like a three-pipe flute with a curvy 8-ish shaped gourd on top, a tear-dropped shaped woodwind with which I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO PRODUCE SOUND, and a whistle that is the lame-o version of the second instrument). My uncle also bought a, uhh, kaleidoscope for himself.
At one point, two women passed by me on the path hauling a legit cart filled with bunches of grapes. And then later, an old woman walked by holding a wicker basket/bowl filled with sleeping white baby bunnies for 10 yuan each (a little more than $1). She had the kindest face and such a peaceful, quiet smile - and she was so tiny, but still managed to carry the bunny basket in her hands, another cylindrical basket on her back, and a few small baskets with some fingers filled with leaves for the bunnies to eat. Eric (my brother) was incredibly upset when i told him about her - he is an awkward 12-year-old boy who likes Avenged Sevenfold, but thanks to delicate coaching from me for the past decade, we both realize just how ineffable baby bunnies that we can't take back to the US are.
P.S: There was also a hook+rack at a shopfront where you could pull a huuuuuuuuuuuge chunk of white taffy(it could stretch 10 feet and was as thick a small log when stretched), it looked really really cool but didn't taste too great :/