China Entry The Eighteenth: Wooden Tiger, Water Monkey, Metal Dog

To be honest, I have never been so glad to be in a Novotel, with its familiar bar, beds that approximate soft, a bathtub long enough for my legs and a staff that proudly displays only their English names on their name tags. Lisa and I watch French soap operas on TV and fall asleep in hotel robes. In the morning, I kiss Lisa goodbye adn tell her that I'll see her in Kenya in 2008. Isn't it odd that, most likely, the next time I will physically be in a room with Lisa is in 2008 when we have a trip planned to see Kilimanjaro?

Odd.

On the plane to San Francisco, I sit with a Phillipino coupleand their three daughters. They talk to me about how inhumane the lack of vacation time that American workers get is. I don't always agree with people who say that, but in this moment I definitely do!

On the plane, I'm re-reading the answers that we all gave to our trip-end questions in the airport leaving Guilin.

It was a great trip.

Thanks, Ho.

Thanks, Lisa.

I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Metal Dog, Water Monkey & Wooden Tiger Remember the Trip!
When the animals were deciding which animals would go where in the Chinese astrological system, all the animals had a race. The dog came in almost last because, well, he's lazy. You may think that the tiger should have won, because he's so speedy. But the tiger and dragon got into a fight halfway through and ended up in the middle of the pack. The ox was going to win, because he was very industrious and started out early and just kept trudging along, but the sneaky rat hitched a ride on the ox's neck without the ox noticing, and then he jumped over the ox's head at the last minute and ended up being the winner and the first animal in the Chinese zodiac.

1. What was your favorite place that we visited?
Metal Dog: Lijiang
Water Monkey: Lijiang
Woodent Tiger: Lijiang



2. What was your favorite site that we saw?
Metal Dog: 1a)The Li River Boat Ride, 1b)The trip to the wetlands, 2)Horseback riding on Jade Snow Mountain
Water Monkey: Horseback riding on Jade Snow Mountain
Woodent Tiger: Horseback riding on Jade Snow Mountain



3. Who was your favorite new person whom you met?
Metal Dog: The artist in Lijiang
Water Monkey: Debbie the RPCV from Liberia in the post office in Hong Kong
Wooden Tiger: Bo



4. Who was your trip crush?
Metal Dog: Country Mountain Flower
Water Monkey: Larry from the Wedding
Wooden Tiger: Paul from the Wedding



5. What was the best meal that we had?
Metal Dog: The Dim Sum breakfast in Lijiang
Water Monkey: The first meal the first night in Hong Kong
Wooden Tiger: The Dim Sum breakfast in Lijiang



6. What was the best hotel or hostel?
Metal Dog: The Camellia in Kunming
Water Monkey: The Grand Lijiang
Wooden Tiger: The Grand Lijiang

7. What was the worst meal we ate?
Metal Dog: The airplane meal from Kunming to Guilin
Water Monkey: The catfish dinner in Guilin
Wooden Tiger: Fried, dried salted beef

8. What was the worst hotel or hostel?
Metal Dog: MCA in Dali
Water Monkey: MCA in Dali
Wooden Tiger: Deer Source Inn in Lijiang

9. What was the best transportation we took?
Metal Dog: The bus from the Hong Kong airport into the city
Water Monkey: The bus from the Hong Kong airport into the city
Wooden Tiger: The bus from the Hong Kong airport into the city



10. What was the worst transportation we took?
Metal Dog: The bus from Dali to Lijiang
Water Monkey: The bus from Dali to Lijiang
Wooden Tiger: The overnight train from Kunming to Dali

11. What is the thing you will remember most about Metal Dog from the trip?
Water Monkey: That Metal Dog picked wonderful places to visit!
Wooden Tiger: The look on Metal Dog's face when I told Felix that Metal Dog's camera was nicer than mine and he looked so happy and smug!

12. What is the thing you will remember most about Water Monkey from this trip?
Metal Dog: The moment when Water Monkey was learning to count in Chinese from the horse guide on Jade Snow Mountain.
Wooden Tiger: The morning when Water Monkey got up at 6:00am and busted out into the streets of Lijiang to secure a new hotel.



13. What is the thing you remember most about Wooden Tiger from this trip?
Metal Dog: Easy. Snake wine.
Water Monkey: I'll remember how Wooden Tiger managed to work "The Legend of Zelda" and "TLC's What Not to Wear" into vacation conversation five times each.



14. What is your favorite trip souvenir?
Metal Dog: The painting by Zhao
Water Monkey: My vase
Wooden Tiger: Naxi scrolls

15. What was the biggest thing you learned on this trip?
Metal Dog: Two things. That I have to come back to this area again, and that everywhere you go, some things change and some things stay the same.
Water Monkey: How to count to 10 in Chinese!
Wooden Tiger: The history and existence of minority populations.

16. What's your favorite memory of this trip:
Metal Dog: The trip to the wetlands because it was such an unexpected experience
Water Monkey: Playing cards together on the last real night together.
Wooden Tiger: Playing cards together on the last real night together.



17. What was your favorite Mandarin word that you learned?
Metal Dog: Zou Huan (Walkaway marriage)
Water Monkey: Yi Bai (the number 100, formerly known as the number 20)
Wooden Tiger: Ni Hao (also known as the only thing Wooden Tiger could pronounce)

18. Favorite Quote from the Trip:
Metal Dog: "You know, you Americans really like to eat your vegetables cooked", said by Zhong the cab driver/guide in Dali while Metal Dog and Water Monkey were eating, the irony being that everybody ate their vegetables cooked because we were told it was unsafe to eat them raw.

Water Monkey: "The most joyous occassion is meeting friends from afar," said originally by Confucius and again by David the tour guide at Solitary Beauty Point.

Wooden Tiger: "Foreign devil says...", said by Metal Dog.

19. What was your favorite overall Chinese food item?
Metal Dog: Steamed Pork Buns in Lijiang
Water Monkey: Pork Dumplings
Wooden Tiger; Steamed Bread

20. (Group Question) Favorite mis-translated signs
1. Slip Carefully
2. Next 20 meters, notice rock slides, run about by cliff.
3. Enter the view area, strictly forbid the firework.



21. What have you done on this trip that you've never done before?
Metal Dog: Eaten herbal infused chicken at Wei's Pizzeria
Water Monkey: I've never slept on harder beds!
Wooden Tiger: Two words. Snake wine.

22. Which of the two was your favorite Chinese drinking game?
Metal Dog: The numbers game!
Water Monkey: The numbers game!
Wooden Tiger: The numbers game!

23. Which of the campy Chinese comedies they showed on the bus was your favorite?
Metal Dog: King of Beggars
Water Monkey: King of Beggars
Wooden Tiger: Seriously, I slept through every bus rid.

24. What song from the trip will stick in your mind when you think of the trip?
Metal Dog: U2 Covers & the balad by the Naxi baritone performer in Lijiang
Water Monkey: Cajun Moon
Wooden Tiger: "Bye Bye Bye" and the three Naxi girls who were playing Ya Ya So in Lijiang

25. What was the best scenic view you saw?*
Metal Dog: Scenes of the Li River from the boat ride down the river
Water Monkey: Erhai Lake from the mountain top in Dali
Wooden Tiger: Coming up on the temple entrances during the Sadistic Hike of 1000 Temples

*We believe had we gotten to the top, Victoria Peak would have won this category.

And in traditional closing style, here are the "Sometimes, travel is rough" photos.


Water Monkey naps it homeless style with the cardboard pillow at Tiger Leaping Gorge.


Believe it or not, Metal Dog does sleep sometimes!


That's KFC, and that's Wooden Tiger being REALLY excited about it.