breathless

in so many ways, this word for me describes the entire 5 day experience we had up near zhongdian. as i get older, i realize just how much like my mother i am...the 6 hour drive had me ducking under the seats, clenching the seat in front of me and leaning away from the cliffs we were driving along, to make sure the van was tilting the right direction. i tried to sleep, but at almost every bend, i jumped awake into a frenzy thinking for sure we were up on two wheels. breathless. 

once i got my feet back on solid ground, i thought i was home free. at the start of our long trek, there were donkeys available to ride up the trail, or to haul your bags for you. hah! are you kidding? we're way too tough (and proud) for that. we're athletes, we're americans, we're perfectly fine carrying our "lightly" packed backpacks. we even walked past one local donkey owner who said to us in mandarin "you DO want a donkey" ... but we laughed it off. we hired a local guide so not to get lost up in the mountains, and off we went. jon & I, our friend windy, and our tibetan guide. the air was cool & slightly crisp, and there were faint drizzles dropping on and off. we were about 20 minutes into the hike, when windy & i stopped & looked at each other with glassy eyes, bright red cheeks and hands on our hips...completely breathless. our guide (cigarette in mouth) turned around and looked down at us (because we were lagging behind him already), and insisted he carry windy's bag for her. she quickly obliged and she and i began 30 minute rotations of carrying my backpack. the transport donkeys continued to walk past us, some heavily loaded with hikers bags & some loaded with hikers themselves. i began asking every single one of them if i could rent a donkey for the rest of the (7 hour) hike. but to no avail. so i changed my tactics and started asking windy to translate, "how much to buy your donkey?!" still nothing. i was knee deep into this hike and i was going to finish it, donkey or not. 

i can't even explain how steep this trail was...it was muddy, there were 'land mines' of donkey poo everywhere, so you had to really watch your step, and if i stopped and leaned back a bit, my backpack would most certainly tip me over and i would tumble downhill for an hour. it was intense. after the first 2 hours, we approached the ironically named 'Easy TeaHouse'. it took me 10 minutes just to feel like i could breath normally again...i guzzled a bottled of water, we ate some dove chocolate, chatted with a couple fellow hikers, and just when i was thinking, 'i honestly don't know if i can make it', our guide jumped up and prompted us on. this continued for about  3 more hours. uphill.  

in the midst of my suffering, however, i began to stop and look around. though i watched my feet as i walked, i began to stop frequently so i could appreciate the vast expanse of beauty that surrounded us on all sides. i had never seen in person, anything like these sights. the mountains literally engulfed us and begged us to stare at them. closer to us, there were patches of every color of green you could imagine, and in the distance, stood boldly, and often covered by passing puffs of bright white clouds, meili mountain & her family. snow capped and touching heaven, there are two tall, almost perfectly cone shaped peaks, which are the mother & father...and between them are their 5 'children'. the sky was blue with ocassional clouds moving slowly across the sky. we just had to stop and soak it in. even between my gasps for air, i was almost brought to tears at the beauty God had plopped us in the middle of. it took my breath away. 

so we climbed up for about 5 hours...and finally hit a spot of level ground! it was quite a sight actually - the trail is part of a pilgrimage that buddhist monks make annually...so it was draped with prayer flags of every color. it felt almost like a celebration for us to enjoy this 45 minutes of flat walk...which ushered us into 2 hours of downhill!! praise the lord. as we approached our destination, i realized we had hiked to the very top of one mountain, and then down the back side, to reach our place of rest for the night - lower yubeng village - at the foot of meili mountain. our tibetan style guesthouse welcomed us happily and for a moment, we just stood there and looked at the view. it was outrageous. it was breathtaking. and that's when i fell in love with the mountains. 

what followed was two more full days, and many more hours of uphill battles, downhill reprieves, and views that couldn't be painted more perfectly. i will never forget this experience. the valleys, the mountains, the green, the snow covered peaks. the struggle it took to get there, and the reward that outweighs any sore muscle, or struggle to breath, that i could think of. check it out for yourself...

Zhongdian Trip (Part 1)

We will never be able to express (in a way that feels adequate) how amazing our latest trip to zhongdian and beyond was, but you can bet we will try!  There is no better place to begin than with the journey there.  First, we took a 7am flight that lasted all of 45 minutes to the city of Zhongdian.  This city and it’s mystical mountain ranges are thought to be the fabled paradise of Shangri-la. (For more about that, read the 1933 James Hilton novel, Lost Horizon.) Anyway, it is a sleepy mountain town at an elevation of 10,500 ft. and served as our launch point into the beautiful Mei Li Snow Mountains, the natural border with Tibet and home to Yunnan’s highest peak, Kawagebo (22,112 ft. unclimbed virgin peak).  The drive there was an adventure passing through mountain ranges and the deep gorges formed by the yangtze and mekong rivers.  Here’s a video from the journey with more about the hike to come. 

hello dali

we just returned from spending a couple days up in beautiful dali. we took the 7 (was actually 9) hour day train on the way there, and soaked up the gorgeous scenery on the way. we rumbled through countless tunnels, practiced chinese with fellow passengers that we were cozily seated next to, ate noodle bowls (of course), and played some handheld yahtzee. it was a great way to start our exit from busy city to relaxing dali. our guesthouse was nestled between the cangshan mountains and the enormous erhai lake. a close walk to the (touristy, but inviting) old town of dali made our place just perfect. we are certain we found the best breakfast (a bakery run by a german woman), and the best pizza we've had yet in china. to be honest, we did not have a single meal there that was not western! the options were so great we just had to indulge. the weather was impeccable our first day there, so we rented bikes and leisurely made our way down to the shores of the lake. it could not have been a better day. any direction we looked held a view worthy of a framed photo...we could hardly capture it. of course, jon also dragged me along on some shopping time, and we found countless cups of yunnan coffee to keep us going. time well spent.

chewing the fat

most of you have heard the phrase, "chewing the fat". for me, the phrase used to conjure up images of friends sitting around at a coffee shop discussing issues and talking about life. since living in china, the phrase has taken on a new and much more literal meaning.  it takes some getting used to as evidenced by the pictures of elissa and me enjoying a pork barbecue with friends. the longer we're here, though, the more our culinary boldness increases.  lately, we have found ourselves eating more hot pot and tofu, more spicy lamb kebobs and lotus pudding, more duck and chicken parts, more bitter roots and mystery stuffed dumplings.  and as we frequent more street-side restaurants, i'm beginning to realize, there's a reason why people eat this stuff...most of it's pretty darn good! 

the garden of kunming

most of our days here are filled with studying chinese, meeting with people, prepping for our next english lesson or just taking the extra time it requires to get normal things done here in china...but last friday, we had a little bit of time to go out and enjoy a fun site in kunming - the Expo Garden. flowers everywhere, a fantastic bonsai garden that even mr. miyagi would appreciate, and dozens of wonderful little corners to sit and enjoy the great day together in kunming. jon especially enjoyed the beautiful hanging baskets (see photo). and it didn't even rain...until we got home.

cheapa

although it is quickly becoming more and more expensive to live in china, there are some things that are still so cheap that i do a double-take every time i hear the price.  take for instance this bunch of flowers that elissa is holding.  these 3 dozen roses put a real dent in my wallet at a whopping 8 yuan! (that's a buck twenty-five for those of you without a currency converter handy.) at that price every man can be a hero!  Anyway, in case you're interested, here's some other notable cheap stuff...

big dinner for 2 with plenty of leftovers - 4 dollars

one hour hair wash, head massage and haircut - 2 bucks

new pair of kicks - 5 big ones

16oz Coke - 35 cents

cab ride across town - 2 big d's

tenwest english camp

Originally, we were going to bring a team over here to run this camp, but since that didn't work, we basically had 3 teachers, and the two of us to run the whole sha-bang. so jon and two other american guys shared the classroom teaching, while i managed all the afternoon & evening activities (of course i recruited jon as my sidekick).  with our past castaway camp and youth camp experiences to glean from, we created some memorable moments for the kids - our own tenwest olympic games, an afternoon of relay races, and of course an amazing race around camp. we also had a movie night, a game night and a chinese favorite, the talent show - complete with fashion show of the guys dressed in the girls clothes...very interesting. the weather cooperated every day, and it only rained our last day there. we are so thankful for some small seeds that were planted as well - and hope to maintain those relationships.