Bring on the Night

12th July 2007 Yilan

Note: Pictures from this day can be found if you scroll down.

Up and about at 7.30am. C wanted to go to the nearby mountains for a walk, which I found pretty interesting. I haven’t had much contact with Chinese nature yet and this was a great chance to do so.

I bought new shoes a few days ago, but as they were still looking new, so I wanted to take my old ones instead. Unfortunately they were at my parents-in-law. So after a breakfast consisting of noodles and tomato/eggs, we called our number one electrical motorcycle taxi chick who arrived short time after. After the brief detour we were finally on track and towards the mountains right outside Yilan.

Well, mountains and mountains. That’s where C and I are on different tracks. They are above hills in size, and I guess you should categorize them as mountains, but the have nothing on for example Norway.

Anyway – we started climbing this long row of stairs. Newly made, but already falling apart. It was obviously a tourist trap that failed. Someone had calculated that building a pagoda on top of one of the “mountains” and some stairs that lead there would bring them the bread. Boy were they wrong. We were the only ones there the whole 1 hour trip. The stairs looked like they haven’t been used since they were built and the 15rmb a snout was way too much by Chinese standards. For us, it was no big deal, but being ripped-off is being ripped-off I guess. On the other hand you could say that as long as 2 people fell into the trap a day, it would be 30rmb, which should be enough to get some decent food here for one day.

As mentioned the walk was not too long and for me not that hard. For C it was though. She is easily turning into a whiner when it comes to heat and walking upwards. We managed tough, so it was cool nevertheless. The pagoda sucked. From a distance it was ok, but when you got close you could see that it was obviously built recently and cheap materials was used. The money and walk there was still worth it for us though. At the top/pagoda there was a clear view to all of Yilan. You could see the newer 3-5 floored buildings, but also the areas with the older one level houses. Close to the city the river flowed. According to C this meets the Yangtze at a later point.

I shoot a handful of pictures and we started walking downwards. At the bottom the couple who ran the tourist scam was inside a tiny hut. They came out when we appeared. Guess they were curious about the weiguren as all others here. We (C of course) talked a bit with them and I noticed that the husband had a slingshot. Maybe that’s how he scared the tourists away who knows. I inquired about it and was told that he shot mice with it. I would find something to do too, if I was the one sitting around there all day with no business. We had a few tries with it and started walking back to the city. On our way there we were driven by our new taxi friend, but the weather was great and we both didn’t feel that tired. So we decided to start walking.

As we walked I shot more pictures and heard a few “hellos” from passersby. A good 30 minutes later we called our go-to-taxi-girl and she arrived 10 minutes later. This girl is great. C was right about her. She is very honest and very polite. She refuses to take more money than she asks for, and she constantly asks for too little compared to other drivers. She’s even a help to good shopping for C and guides C to the cheapest spots in town. I better grab a picture of her soon.

Back to C’s parents to eat lunch. Great as always, but I have to admit that her parents ever watching eyes are giving me a bit of grief. The always check out what I eat the most and make sure something of my liking is always present among the dishes. Unfortunately the saw us ordering chicken feet on pictures from Beijing and since it was the first thing they served for us when we arrived, they now believe it one of my favorites. It’s not. I wouldn’t say that I don’t like the taste. I usually do. The look and feeling from biting into them is not that appetizing though. The thought that you now have a chicken “claw” in your mouth kinda puts me off. That’s exactly what I have here often. The chicken feet served here in Yilan haven’t yet been “manicured” so it’s a nail biting and spittingnexperience every time.

In the afternoon C’s father took us to a temple. It was pretty cool even though this too was a new build one. Actually it was renovated, since there had been an original temple there many years ago. I shoot plenty of pictures as always and afterwards we went home to C’s sister’s apartment. C and her sister yakked away while they bathed one of C’s sister’s children. I withdrew to the bedroom with the laptop and watched some episodes of Scrubs.

Time for dinner. Yet again we had been invited to a restaurant. C’s stepbrother was the spender today and food was plenty. This is the same guy who also invited me fishing and it seems that there is now actually a plan (surprise!). Tomorrow we’ll be going at 8.00am, so I look forward to that. Not much to say about dinner. Many people and lots of great food. The normal Chinese gibberish that I understand nothing of, and a few polite questions to the weiguren to make him fell at home. Then there was the usually tradition: Stuffing the fat Danish pig and toasts galore.

After dinner we went home to C’s sisters apartment and helped he sister prepare for tomorrow. Tomorrow C’s sister will teach the fine art of drawing to her students in the apartment, so we can’t stay here meanwhile anyway. C’s sister left and on the way out the door she told C about a public bath very close to this apartment. We decided to check it out and it was way cooler than the first place we visited. Newer and the spot seems cleaner too. There’s of course the usual flock of weiguren-watchers and laowai-lookers but so far it has only been positive. I’m ready to go there again.

Back to the apartment where I wrote today’s doings down in Word and afterwards will go to bed after a good long day of walking.

Tags: China, mountain, temple, walking