This morning as per usual Greg and I were running late.
For our 10 o’clock calligraphy lesson. So at 9:45am I went and waited in the lobby (Lilian was meeting us to take us to the calligraphy lesson), while Greg sprinted down the road to go to the bakery and find something that we could eat for breakfast. He returned at 9:55am with pastries and a little pizza bun for me.
As it turned out we only needed to cross the road and go down a little side street to go to the calligraphy lesson – so Greg was still eating when we arrived.
It was a little shop with a long table going down the middle. The table was covered in newspaper, and had calligraphy brushes and special lined paper set up on it.
For the next hour we spent most of the time perfecting the kindergarten art of trying to write the number 1 – 10. Apparently the number 1 – 10 contain all the brush strokes you need to construct more complicated Chinese characters. Number 1 – 5 use straight lines and number 6-10 use curves, so that they compliment each other (ying and yang). After the number we went through a couple of simple words: person, sun, moon, big, and too much. And then learnt to write our names.
All this was surprisingly complicated, and also really interesting because every character had an internal logic to why it looked like it did (listening to the explanations was quite an insight into the Chinese culture). I found it a really relaxing thing to do.
After calligraphy Greg and I went to track down the vegetarian restaurant again. Luckily it was open today. It was a really beautiful space inside, with equally nice food. We had braised mushrooms and beans, stir fried tofu skin (much better than it sounds) and rice. Amazingly I think the food here was even better than the vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai, but Greg might dispute that.
Greg and I then went wandering down towards the river. There were people there peddling boat rides, others fixing boats, and others washing what looked like sheets in the river. There were also market stalls all along the river selling scares, hats, jewellery, and other Chinese type knickknacks. Interestingly I saw exactly the same mirrors as my Mum bought back from Vietnam last year (confirming my belief that everything was being pumped out from one super factory for the entire south East Asia souvenir market). We yet again had to perfect the art of saying no to people trying to sell us things.
Down near the river there was a little water fall – which Greg duly went to photograph. And there we met our photo friend. He didn’t speak any English – but he also had a Nikon so he and Greg got along just fine. Using an elaborate combination of hand gestures and showing each other pictures on their cameras Greg discerned that he was to go six stepping stones into the water to get the best angle for photographing the waterfall. And I had my photograph taken yet again – but participated this time by taking a photograph of him as well.
After this we took the opportunity to head back to our hotel “Fawlty towers” and jump on the internet and post more pictures onto our website… before heading off to the cooking school at 4pm. While we went to the cooking class our bags were also being taken to our next hotel which was a 20min drive out of the city – in fact it was right next to where we finally had the cooking class.
But before we headed out of town we went on a walking tour of the local food market. The range of fresh food, tofu and meat there was staggering for someone used to shopping at Coles. The meat was so fresh it was clucking, and in some cases barking. You then had to take it home and kill it yourself, or take it to the slaughter people at the edge of the hall. Greg and I remained in the fresh food section. But our cooking instructor took some of the group over to see the meat being prepared – which included dogs – and most of them came back visibly shocked by the whole experience. But they had been warned.
We then piled into buses and headed to the cooking school. It was a beautifully renovated Chinese Farmhouse. The long kitchen had sliding doors which opened an entire side of the kitchen out onto the countryside. Directly outside the doors was a verandah shaded by two large grapefruit trees, and just beside that was a beautiful veggie garden (with the karsts rising up in the distance beyond). In fact at one point Greg jumped the veggie garden and the fence so that he could photograph just how scenic it was. When we were ready to start the next part of the lesson he was still missing – so I had to practice my vocal skills and go looking for him. Luckily he was found.
Greg and I cooked the vegetarian version of all the meals. All up we learnt to cook: stir fried eggplant, lotus root with Cashew nuts, tofu braised in a beer sauce, steamed stuffed vegetables, and green vegetables with garlic. It was a feast.
Now we just need to work out where we can buy some of the ingredients like lotus root, and black bean and chili paste in Australia.
After eating we walked the 100 metres to our hotel, and checked into our rooms. The Outside Inn, where we were staying, rivals the Ger camp in Mongolia for my favourite accommodation of our entire trip. A dutch man has renovated our farmhouses into guest rooms and a private restaurant. Our room was on the second floor, had wide windows, a comfortable double bed with mosquito net hanging above, and a neat and tidy bathroom.
We went and joined the others sitting in the courtyard near the the restaurant, and had a chat and a beer before heading to bed. It was probably at this juncture that I decided we absolutely had to come back here and spend some more time learning some more calligraphy, Mandarin, and cooking thrown in for good measure. Luckily there is a huge demand for english teachers in this area because of the tourism industry – so I may just be able to orchestrate our return. Stay posted.
Alice
