I went to Dongshan Island again today with another tour group. My friend Amy owns a travel agency and I help her from time to time. Most of the group were Westerners and some had travelled as far as Shanghai. The weather was overcast and the rain threatened but luckily it stayed dry. In fact the cloud cover made it a perfect day for walking up the steep hill on the island. This week I have been walking up to the top floor of my apartment block and so this wee stroll up the hill at Dongshan was relatively easy and I passed many people on the trail as I made my way to the top and that included many young ones. In fact there was one young girl that was sitting at the top ready to retrieve her breakfast.

The climb is quite steep and you zig zag up through 24 stages until you reach the top. The reason for coming today was so that we could get the first taste of the Biluochun Green tea which is grown here. It is grown alongside loquat fruit trees and it is this combination that helps to give the Biluochn its distinctive flavour. You do get the opportunity to pick the tea but it does take quite along time to pick enough for a cup and so thankfully when we reach the top there is a lovely cup of tea waiting for us.

But before we can get to taste it you have to watch the process of roasting the tea and this is done by hand. This is how it has been done for centuries although now you can get a little help from a gas powered wok.

The tea must be dried properly before use and when it is the leaves are very curly, but they retake their previous form once water is added back into the mix and of course as all tea jennies know, you don’t use boiling water to make tea but you have it at 80c to make the perfect cup of tea.

Edit

This is the wonderful tea house at the top of the mountain.

Lunch is served using only seasonal and local foods. There are fish for the lake and fruits from the island.

This is eel served with ginger……

One of my favourite dishes, sweet and sour flower fish. The fish is made to look like a Chrysanthemum. Not sure how long it takes to prepare but I like it because there are no bones and the flavour is great. In fact it’s a good combination with the eel.

This is sticky rice with red bean inside, not one of my favourite desserts but it is very popular in China to have these kind of sweets.

After lunch we walk to the village on the opposite side of the island and we eventually come to Lijiang village and we are invited into one of the best preserved Ming Dynasty officials houses. This is the courtyard you come into after you have parked your Sedan chair which of course you can see in the pictures below. There are a his and hers, actually that should be hers and his. 

After we tour the house we head out through the garden and back into the busy narrow streets of the village as we head for the bus.

This woman is printing by hand paper money that’s used when you visit your dead relatives. It is burned at the grave to make sure they have enough money to look after themselves. Maybe buy some takeaway or a new mobile or something.

Suzhou buildings are mostly black and white and I think that even when they are old looking and a bit worse for wear they still have  great character. The courtyard above leads into another large home and has been restored and it does look magnificent. Although much of the Chinese culture and architecture can be elaborate I also think that they bring a certain elegance with their simplicity of the contrast with black and white.

Day 4 and I’ve completed 4 trips to the top of the apartment block although my legs are feeling a little worse for wear and my lungs are screaming at me when I get to the top ’cause I try to run up as many flights as possible but I can just about breathe again when I exit the lift to go back to my apartment. Then I need to take a nap😆

I’m living in an apartment block on the 4th floor of a building which has 24 floors. This morning I decided to visit the 24th floor via the stairs and I must admit I was a little bit puffed when I reached the top, but I’m going to try and do this every day while I’m living here. I shall keep you posted of my progress or if you don’t hear from me again then please come and find me.  

This afternoon I went with a couple of friends to a place called Mudu and from there we went to one of the Temples near Tianping mountain where we had lunch which consisted of rice noodles and mushrooms with bamboo. A little salty but not too bad.

I thought I was going to have relaxing afternoon being carried around like Lord Muck but there must have been a strike ’cause there was no bugger around to carry me. Anyhoo onwards and upwards.

The sun was shining and Spring is definitely coming. It didn’t take long to shed my jacket as we started to climb up the first hill.

It’s not the prettiest of places but it was good to get out from the city for a while. Underfoot it was very slippy, but going up the hill isn’t so bad, it’s coming down is the problem. When you reach the top of this hill it immediately begins to drop just as steep as the climb was. But going down as I said is a  bit more difficult.

The view from the bottom after I got down in one piece thankfully.But as you can see you no sooner reach the bottom that you have to ascend the next hill. But it’s really good. It’s the most difficult walk I have had to do since I was in Thailand in December and I think I will be coming back here again. There was one crazy guy on his mountain bike climbing up and down these hills, not sure what he was on but he must have been super fit to get up these hills. We stopped to watched him from one side of the valley, watching him traverse along the many paths that lead to the top before he would turn down another at breakneck speed. Hat’s off to him ’cause it was bad enough trying to walk at times never-mind being on a bike.

He came flying passed us on this section of the hill and it’s really steep. We were holding onto the trees to stop ourselves from slipping all the way down the hill. Mind you I found another way to travel and was to get down on me hunkers and just let gravity assist my descent.

After about 3 hours of walking we finally came across a road, a real road which was a relief because no one really knew if we were going in the right direction. To our right there was a wee hut and this was the back entrance into this place below.

We had come to Dragon Pond scenic spot where there was the Phoenix Pool, where you could hire a Bamboo Boat or one of the really awful looking communist boats that just looked like really sad rip offs of some western character.You have to admit that these are some of the saddest looking creatures on boats you would have seen for a while. These are all the rage in North Korea I believe.

I think we walked around 11 kms or so which is quite far for the first walk in a while and my calf muscles are talking to me as I sit waiting for the taxi to take us back to our car which is somewhere over the mountain. They don’t use Uber here, they use Didi which of course is all done from your mobile phone and is very cheap. For the 15 or 20 min journey back to the car it was around 30 rmb which is very cheap. Generally transport is cheap here considering the fuel prices are not. And so tonight I pigged out on dumplings and a kind of kebab which is filled with spicy meat and vegetables ’cause I think I deserve it.

Lunch today was chicken and chilly. ….

Today I thought I would have a wee bit of steak. The bit of meat I bought today was just a big lump form the local supermarket. 500 grams to be exact. The red meat at the local supermarket is displayed in the way we would buy a whole rump or similar and so when you ask for a piece of meet you are relying on the butcher to cut a piece as close as possible to the amount you want and hopefully it’s not too far away. I asked for 400 grams today and got 500 grams and so I thought that I would have a steak and then make the stir fry tomorrow. I need some protein.

A simple meal was being had, this was two bits of steak with chilly and melted cheese over the top. Now the smarter folk reading this will say, “but there are three bits” yes there are that’s ’cause I ate one half of one of the wee steaks before. OK?

It was clear to me very quickly that I am lucky I have my own teeth because there is no way you could eat this steak if you had wallies. My jaws were getting sore from masticating this wee steak. It put up quite a fight. It certainly was not a tender and I didn’t want to cook it medium rare, which I prefer, simply for the fact that you hear so many stories about food safety here in China and so I did cook it more to the well done end of the spectrum.

I’ve walked around the Suzhou Moat before, but yesterday the sun was oot and I decided to get a bit of sunshine. I still wore my thermals, but I’m glad to say that I think that winter’s bite has weakened a little and so tomorrow I will have no thermals on my legs, I’ll let you know how I go.

I had only been walking a short time when it came clear to me that my choice of clothing had been a bad one, more so when I got to the Western side of the moat, because of the sun and the lack of wind , it became very warm indeed. I even sported my new hat today, well it’s not too new but I haven’t had many opportunities to wear it.

For summer I’m going to have to get something a bit bigger that will give me a little more shade, but you know it has to be cool as well as functional. It’s all about image 🙂

As I walk around the moat you can start to see the first signs of spring on the way. Many of the trees are beginning to sprout new leaves and the naked trees will soon be fully clothed once more. Mind you some of the blossoms have already begun to wear this seasons new look. Even the bees were out and about sticking their noses into the new flowers.

There were many people out and about enjoying the winter sunshine and many of them had their dogs with them. Many of the dogs are small Poodles or a Labradoodle or whatever the hell you call them. Most had their designer clothes on and I must apologise at this time for not being able to provide any pictures of the dogs, however if I can in the future I will update and share. Now yesterday for the first time I saw a Poodle with a nappy on, yes a nappy. I can’t see this being helpful in anyway, not to the Poodle and especially not to the owner, after all they will still have to clean up  the dogs shit and possibly by having a nappy on it’s going to be a lot worse, but you know it’s all about image. Whether it’s practical or not, that wee Poodle was different and people were talking about him, you didn’t have to understand Chinese to realise that.

This reminds me of a conversation I had a few months ago with a Chinese friend, Patrick, he told me that he knew the guy that had bought the only machine in China that is designed to manufacture “Doggy Nappies” and do I know anyone in Australia or Scotland for that matter that might be able to introduce these into either market. At this point I am still in tears with laughter at the mere thought of trying to introduce “Doggy Nappies” to either markets. Can you imagine walking down Argyle Street in Glasgow with your Labradoodle with it’s tartan nappy on, fuck me I’m not sure how long either of us would last before the bears came in for the kill. He had no idea why I was laughing so much, even after trying to explaining the culture differences.

Every day you see clothing tragics that make it very obvious that having lots of money does not mean to say you are stylish by any means. But the Chinese don’t care and don’t seem to judge in the same way that we do. People wear what they want and do so without the fear of ridicule. Now we may all think that we can dress any way we want to but you know that’s not true if you live in the west. Many of us will cave in to peer pressure or social pressures and dress in a more conservative fashion rather than run the gauntlet of ridicule. We have fancy dress parties where we can be a tragic or let our hair down, but in China you can do it everyday. And yes I know there are some folk that don’t give a fuck about what other people say and let me put on the record now that I will still ridicule these folk under my breath sometimes ’cause it’s funny.

So let’s get back to the “Doggy Nappies” it’s for this very reason above that you can let your dog wear a nappy or anything else for that matter. You can buy your dog some shoes to match his coat and yesterday I even saw one dog with a coat with a hood, so why not a nappy also? Mind you I have seen many dogs over the months here that seem to have more dress sense than their owners because when you look the poor beast in the eye you can see a hint of humiliation, embarrassment and sadness even. The dog is saying to me “I had no choice honest, it’s not my fault his taste is in his arse” Some dogs seem to revel in their new found passion for fashion but there are a few that do not.

I passed this new exhibition house which has a replica of one of the traditional boats that used to be used in Suzhou and many other parts of China. No matter where you go in Suzhou you are never too far away from it’s history. When you walk around the moat you will see many of the original walls and there have been a couple of the old gates reconstructed for you to get a sense of what life was like many years ago.

And so as the weather gets better I am looking forward to getting out and about a bit more without me thermals, gloves, scarf and beanie and to enjoy Suzhou.

A day by the fire, well I would if I had a fire……..my small apartment is cold but modern. It has air conditioning but I don’t really want to spend the whole day with that rumbling in the back ground, although I might have to as my fingers are beginning to feel quite cold and you know there is a limit to how much tea you can drink. All you end up doing is running to the loo most of the time.

I haven’t gone for a shower yet and so I’m still sitting in me thermals which I may add are comfy, but my hands are cold. Once in the shower it is so difficult to get out, but of course the water will begin to run cold as it’s only a wee tank and I don’t think that is really environmentally friendly to do that either. Mind you I could plant some trees…….

I have to go out later this afternoon to meet Carol, she is looking for an English teacher and well I do speak English……..

I heard that the going rate is 300 rmb for a lesson and well I can live with that, mind you it depends of course on what or who you end up teaching. My first thoughts are, “why are they paying well above the average rate?” More money is not always a good thing, it can also bring with it too much stress and sometimes grief, or am I just being to pessimistic and looking at this from my usual negative, what’s the catch kinda thing. Carol even asked me for my TEFL qualification so she must be serious. Most folk here just say” well your English is better than mine, so that will do”

Today I will also try and do some Chinese study, although I am finding this to be more and more difficult to do, but tomorrow I am meeting a Chinese teacher and so I will be having at least one professional lesson a week. I think my Chinese is getting better and most days I learn a new phrase or character and I think I can understand more of what is being said to me. I promised Julie in Australia that I would have a conversation with her only in Chinese on my return and so I am definitely not up to that task yet and I only have 4 months before I return to Australia for a quick visa run. Shit time is running oot…………….

The reason for not being completely fluent, is that every one I meet wants to improve their English and so I end up correcting their speech and talking more in English. After all there are more of them than me, but I find that when in conversation I can begin to get the jist of what is being said but I could not translate word for word. Then again I could just be a lazy bastard that needs to pull his finger out and get on with it.

I think the latter is more accurate……. I have been a bit of a social butterfly the last few weeks and so you know when you actually have to do some work it does become quite difficult. But I have practiced how to ask for many different types of food. The first thing I did was to try and learn the menus because in many place there are no pictures and certainly no English. At least now I can order off the menu even although I am unable to speak the words. I just do it in the usual western fashion, grunt loudly and point…………no I’m way more sophisticated than that because I can say

我不知道怎么说，但我可以有这个

and then I grunt loudly and point………..

I go to one local Muslim restaurant, they come from the west of China and the food is really good. My favourite is the potato and beef but sometimes I mix it up. I’ll often walk in and they will say “Potato and beef?” and I go no! much to there amusement. I think they have bets on what I’m going to order before I walk in. I see many foreign students in their small restaurant, they are usually from Africa or India. I know that most of the Indian students are studying medicine but I’m not sure what the African Students are studying. And they really stand out over here……

Well I think with all this talk of food I might have to go and have some lunch, luckily I am well prepared. I got some noodles last night which I can re-heat….mmm delicious or I can go for a piece ‘n’ cheese with Tuna. Which reminds me, I bought some Bega old vintage cheese last week and it cost $8 for 250 grams or whatever the small size is. Western products are well over priced, but it’s good to have a them as there is only so much Chinese food one can consume. Coffee is also double the price, but at least I can get it easily enough. I need my cheese and coffee and chocolate. I go to Hong Kong next month for a visa run and so I will have to buy some more whisky as I only have enough for a wee swally and that is very sad considering it’s still winter and I should be consuming way more. When I return to Australia I shall buy some duty free Isle of Jura whisky as this is one of the best single malts money can buy.

Right that’s it, am beginning to ramble and I could eat a scabby heeded horse