Mu and I went to Jada's dorm expecting to transport both her and one of her roommates to her hometown of WenCheng (文成), but said roommate was apparently too lazy to pack and so we left her - thought that was a little harsh.
On a hilltop near the main part of 文成 we saw a pagoda, and near the pagoda we found a tree that I was able to climb - if you've seen some of the pictures of me through the years you might notice that I occasionally find trees to either climb or at least sit in
...arboreal nature of ancestral humans resurfacing I suppose.
Lunch included some diverse dishes, but the most memorable (and among the best tasting) were the animal heads: duck (enough for one each) and pig (a half).
A little further out in the country we came to a temple where a tour guide tried to relate some story to me and I couldn't help but laugh at the futility of his efforts (bless his heart for trying).Outside the temple we walked through a village and saw a group of kids. One girl among them kept following me, trying to communicate even though she spoke a dialect of 温州话 that was completely unintelligible to me.
Just beyond the temple grounds there was a lake that had been rendered a mudflat from lack of water, and one of the kids walked out there to scoop up fish using no more than his bare feet to walk and his two hands to fish.
We spent the night at Jada's uncle's house in a village far from 文成
and prepared our evening meal (and breakfast the next morning) with a woodfire stove.He was a very welcoming host and it was a cozy slumber... a Spartan place, but nonetheless comfortable.
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The next day it was raining, so we (Jada, her niece, her friend, Mu and myself) went to a nearby temple, and in that time the rain stopped.
We trekked along a road past level fields that were flattened and flooded for producing rice,
and sampled some fruit that grew along the road much like how blackberries grow along the roads in the U.S.Except this fruit was almost all seeds covered with a skin that was a lot like bark and could only be chewed for a faint flavor, not swallowed. To top it off, the fruits were coated with little thorns that had to be removed with our fingernails.
Next we hiked into a canyon/gorge that was festooned with vegetation on all sides of the (VERY) precipitous stairway (yes, stairs - no unexplored places in China anymore it seems).We hiked down several hundred meters to the plungepool of one waterfall, and then another. We would've gone for the third but we were pretty tired by then. We circled around behind the second waterfall where it had gouged a large passageway from the rock and proceeded to climb out again.
...not an easy feat when it's past noon, you've gone about four hours without food, brought no water with you, and are in a place where physical exercise produces sweat that chills you to the bone.
On the way back out we walked up and over several peaks that all had names - one in particular was easy to name because it had such an anthropomorphic quality to its structure. It was called "General's Peak" because it looks like a soldier with a helmet.
After climbing several hundred of some of the steepest stairs I've ever seen (which I didn't bother taking the time to photograph - such was my desire to be done with them) we at last reached the end of the climb sometime past 14:00 and after walking back to a nearby village we stopped at their convenience store and bought a bunch of instant noodles, pears and a couple eggs and got permission to use the family's own kitchen in the back of the shop to make some lunch.
While I sat waiting for Mu to prepare lunch (no one lets me help) I watched a chicken come into the room, sit in a box on top of a table in a corner, and after a few seemingly furtive minutes, stand up again, peck at something on the table, and leave.I discovered an egg had been lain in the box it had sat in, and the object it had pecked at was a dead rabbit.
...full of wonder this place is.
