rice/cakes

We just finished our dinner. We found a lovely little bicycle in an alley. It was a deluxe bicycle with a wok and an umbrella. It gave us noodles. Well, the man on the bicycle wokked us up some noodles, but you get the idea.

You might be wondering what we've been up to. Well, the point of this blog is to tell you just that. We were at a place called Dragon Bone Rice Terrace. We stayed there for a few nights. It was really cool. We've been using too many words lately, and we have reliable internet now, so its time for a few pictures. They can help us tell the story.

These are the rice terraces. We got there just after harvest season, so there wasn't much in the way of growing rice, but the terraces were amazing. This spot has been harvested this way for nearly 1000 years.

Look how curvy they are!

This area is inhabitted by a local minority. They are in the Guinness Book of World Records for the village with the longest hair. Seriously. They never cut their hair. Actually that's not true. When their hair touches the ground, they cut off a few feet. But they keep it and weave it back into their hair-do some how. When it's all up it looks like a hair turban.

Along the way, we met a really nice lady. She is 50 years old. She led us back to her village (which is only accessible by foot).

This is her village. This village has never seen a car. There weren't even bicycles, and in China that is pretty significant.

This is her. She is looking good for 50! She's fit too. She carried our backpack much of the way.

Then she led us back to her house. This is it. Jason pet the cat and Corinne took photos and the nice lady whipped us up a delicious meal consisting of fried sweet potatoe, veggies, some egg-veggie stuff, and, of course, rice.

We had a very nice day.

That night, we went back to our original village (still only accessible by foot, but closer to a road). We ate dinner, but when we got back to our "hotel" (there were 2 rooms), we found the family that runs it sitting down to dinner. They asked us to join them and we felt honoured. We dined on some fish soup, which is basically boiling water, veggies, and fish pieces (all of them). This is where most of our last blog's quotes came from.

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After sitting down, our host promptly poured us a murky liquid from a gasoline container. You should have seen the look on Corinne's face when she tasted that it wasn't water! HA! It was quite strong, home-made rice booze. It burned pretty good, but after a while Jason started to like it. He finished Corinne's (twice), and had a little extra for himself. She did drink most of it though. We were cheersing with three grandmas, how could we not drink it! It was strong, and the servings were normal water glass sized. We giggled alot that night.

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The next morning we took two buses to a city and then a train to another city. That other city is Shanghai, where we currently reside. It is pretty amazing. After we rack up a few good photos or stories we'll blog again.

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Wait! A story just came to mind!

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So, we were walking along, trying to find our way, and we ended up under a bridge. There were several people selling what appeared to be birthday cake. Strange. Why are these dirty people selling birthday cake under a dirty bridge? Curious... perhaps we should buy some! Naw, it seems a little strange to buy birthday cake under a bridge in Shanghai.

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So, a few twists and turns later, we come across more 'birthday cake'. This was in a much more reputable area... on top of a bridge, behind a construction site. We must have some! We forgot to mention... these are HUGE birthday cakes. like 3.5 feet wide by 2 feet deep, by 7 inches high. Big. We ask, "How much?" He says, "It depends on the weight." We say ok. we'd like a small piece. We make the gap between our fingers the approximate desired size of birthday cake and he cuts. Nice! Finally we have some birthday cake! "How much?" After a pause and some careful measurements, we get the price.

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It turns out that the shocker of this story was not the contents of the birthday cake, but its density. Our "little" piece cost 57 yuan! For comparison's sake, our cheapest accompodation to date was 30 yuan for both of us. A beer at a restauraunt costs about 8 yuan. Jason just shelled out a massive 20 yuan for a new watch. Seriously?! 57 Yuan for a peice of cake! Most dinner bills are around 40 yuan. 57 yuan???!!

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We refused to pay, he said we had to (the cake was cut and bagged after all). After much drama and a growing crowd of curious onlookers, Jason emptied his pockets (pulling them inside-out for emphasis) and offered everything he had. A measly 18 yuan. The birthday cake vendor was not amused. He wanted to see Corinne's pockets too. She did the same, except that Jason keeps her on a tight leash. She only had 3 yuan. After several attempts to leave, a settlement was reached. We got half the cake and he got everything we had. We walked away quickly.

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How was the birthday cake? A little nutty.

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Until next time...

Jason and corinne