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Published: September 22nd 2011
What an amazing day including shades of Russian, Mexican and more mountain climbing. After a terrible sleep or non-sleep, I should write--une nuit blanche--as the French say, I rose up and drank my 2 cups of coffee and even with my snivelly nose and sneezing I actually didn't feel too badly and so I decided to haul my ass up the mountain with the crew, Diane and Rich, Dawna and Jim. Dawna and I tried for about 25 minutes this morning to catch a BRT train, but had to retreat and catch a bus after realizing that we were never going to get downtown in the morning's rush hour. The trains would stop but were jam-packed and nobody exiting at ALL and in the end we decided to "fugged-aboud-id" lol and we retreated and decided to bus it to make our morning rendez-vous. Then we made an error and got a bit lost finding the park. We realized that we left the bus too early but we did rendez-vous with the others who patiently waited for us at the entrance to the mountain park, whose name still escapes me! LOL Jim 'mountain goat Mcclellan' also had a cold and promised that he would be kinder to us in this ascent that our last one. And he was! Lol. On the bottom part of the walk we encountered the dancing ladies. Ladies here get together in public and dance. Usually this occurs in the evenings, but today it was in the morning. Old and young, babies sleeping beside their mamas in carriages they welcome and invite anybody who wishes to move her body with them! Many smiled and gestured at me to join them. The dancing ladies are graceful and unhurried in their steps. Sometimes the fluid movements remind me of martial arts moves, other times, they are clearly dance moves. The music they dance to ranges from traditional Chinese sounding music to western or Asian pop--quite the fusion! LOL There is something so beautiful about watching the ladies dancing and I catch myself smiling with them admiring them moving in concert.
Jut a little further on from the dancing ladies we encountered a Chinese band, including a saxophonist--lol--that really surprised me--and heard a singer and saw a few couples dancing to the band. It was something to see. It seemed that this crowd was of older people mostly, and women danced together (some things obviously cross cultural borders) and then Diane and Rich joined in, causing a flurry of pictures and photo ops for the Chinese who definately took advantage of watching this handsome foreign couple enjoying their Chinese music and dance!
The weather today was cooler and cloudy--perfect for our climb. I had brought myself a book and planned initially to climb and stop at a pretty little pagoda and spend some quiet time by myself thinking and meditating, but as it turned out, I was able to do the hour long climb--which was a full 1/2 hour quicker than last time, go figure? Anyway, the summit was just as beautiful as it was last time, with a rousing and fresh breeze and we were feeling good--so good we decided to live dangerously and try a new path on the descent. It turned out to be a fortuitous decision as it was easier to descend, not as steep as the climb, yet proved very scenic, with a number of graves dotting the mountainside. Now we know another way of accessing the mountain. After a bit of searching this way and that and back and forthing we found our way to a little hole-in-the-wall eatery and had ourselves a terrifically fine lunch! Mmmmmm, it was so good and a very cheap 11 Yuan or about $1.60 Cdn. Sated, Diane and Rich went on to do some business at the fabric market, and Dawna had opted to return home earlier, so Jim and I hopped on the BRT and rode home. We are all planning another adventure to go to the boardwalk by Jim's apartment tomorrow for a little look-see. I have been dying to visit the seaside and boardwalk since I got here and tomorrow's the day! I am looking forward to that so much.
After a nice refreshing shower and a little afternoon nap, Dawna and Joyce and I got dressed and prettied up and caught a cab to find ourselves a Mexican Restaurant! We had no idea what to expect. I admit to feeling a tad bit sceptical that one could find decent Mexican food in China, but I was so wrong! We got our taxi driver to drop us at the very RITZY Marco Polo hotel. Joyce did the research and its rooms are worth almost $ CDN 1000 a night! A doorman rushed to open our cab doors and another very well-heeled doorman opened the massive glass main hotel door for us and greeted us in impeccable English. His name tag said "Daniel", his Chinese name written above it. Very upscale with Luis Vuitton and other snooty type stores where it costs you money to even sneeze in the place. We decided to explore the hotel a bit before taking off to the "True Love" bar to ask the whereabouts of the Coyote Cafe and Cantina and roamed around taking in all the glitz, the gorgeous Chinese musician who sang beautiful love songs in English and the international faces. A tall caucasian man approached me, and said hello. I was delighted to speak English and he shook my hand, told me "You look great!" and said he was a Russian! WOW. He was accompanied by a woman and another man. They are partners in a health care business and were in China to do some business with a famous Chinese Doctor. We invited them to come eat with us after they'd concluded their business, but they didn't show up.
Coyote Cantina was a bit of a challenge to find, and we visited the 'True Love' Bar to ask how to find it, which our Magic Xiamen book had said to do (the people in the bar we spoke to didn't have a freakin' clue what we wanted! LOL) so we used one of our life-line calls to call to Elise--thanks Elise--lol, and she talked me through finding the unmarked side street entrance. WHAT a find! It is a cozy little retreat that feels strangely like home! One is greeted at the door in English and OMG, knives and forks, big glasses of wine and for me, Coke Zero! YAY! We had beef nachos and Joyce had quesadillas (sp?), I had a burrito and Dawna had Fajitas. CHEESE! Sour CREAM! Jalepenos. Lettuce--I have not eaten lettuce since I arrived and sorely miss it! The soft Spanish music in the background was perfect, PERFECT. We felt so at-home. AND there were a number of other ex-pats in there too, eating, drinking beer or otherwise cavorting....there was even a naughty young American kid with his dad in the booth beside us to create the perfect at-home feel! LOL We exchanged glances, smiles and waved to some of the other ex-pats like long lost family just checking in with one another.
Our meal was expensive by Chinese standards, almost 400 Yuan total, which worked out to 130ish each, which is still only $14.00 Cd, for a full meal with appetizer and 3 large glasses of wine. We managed to find a cab home, with the help of one of the Cantina's employees, who hailed it and then made sure the cabbie knew where he was going and off we sailed home, bellies full, and happy with the evening. It was cooler and I didn't even sweat! My make-up stayed on and I felt pretty and happy for the first time since I've come. 😊 It was a very good day to be alive.
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Debs
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Somehow had missed this blog. I liked hearing your laugh, even if it was at yourself after the wipe out! lmao. Thanks for the video footage from the mountain top! Lovely...I'd be climbing up there often, if I was there! :)