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Published: April 15th 2010
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Day 137: Tuesday, April 13th, 2010.
Ping An (Longji Terraces), China.
So cold. So very cold. It had to make it into the 40's during the night. There was a thick duvet on the bed which, luckily, didn't make me itch.
Later in the day, myself, Rita, Judy and Ling went on a hour or so walk around the area. It was only sprinkling, but still foggy. I declined to take a picture (aka pay to take a picture) of the women of the village but they are known for their
verrrrrry long hair. I can't imagine how long it takes them to clean it. The terraces were beautiful to see as was the lifestyle all around. Unfortunately, they're experiencing an all too common problem- their youngsters are taking off for the cities and therefore they are having a hard time keeping up with the land/crops. Not sure what the future holds for the Longji Terraces.
At one viewing point there was a coffee "shop" where we stopped to warm up. Our entertainment for that moment was some jerky guy who decided his girlfriend needed to be yelled at and jerked about in front of the tourists. He was shoving
her and grabbing her arm and someone said to me, "Don't look at them, look away." Fuck that- I'm going to glare at any man that does that to a woman, and if I had been in the States I would have gotten involved. Wish I could have done something this time. It's hard to imagine that that is just life for some folks (the world over.)
We head back to our hotel and have lunch and spend the afternoon playing Mahjong again. It is so cold in the lobby that they bring in a fire pit for us frozen Westerners. We are all wearing everything we brought with us (I had on 2 pants and 3 shirts and my rain jacket- red coat is back!) and Ling and I wear sharing a blanket while playing. They offered to put the fire pit under the table to help further warm us up but my fear of death by firing (which would have been very likely) prevailed and we just had them put it nearby. I honestly couldn't feel a difference- it was a big room. We had dinner and then played some Texas Hold 'Em with a Dutch couple
Us, freezing our asses off, play Mahjong again.
Note that you can see nothing at all out the windows. that was staying there as well (T.J. and Susan). I informed them about my moronic,
"Is Rotterdam Dutch for Amsterdam?" story. Americans everywhere should be very proud of me and my education.
I was going to pay to have the heat turned on in the room but Rita didn't seem happy with the idea. I wish I had just done what I wanted and ordered it anyway because it was fun to sleep that night. My feet took forever to warm up- a couple of hours at least. Plus, we were treated with karaoke from somewhere nearby. So, as we tried to drift off to sleep in the tundra, we were badly serenaded.
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