Entry number 3 of many. Eric has just told me that he’s decided that he’s going to take pictures of me writing this journal in every single hotel we go to…aiyo…Anyways, so lets review our day (which has been a really long one I might add). We woke up at like 6 in the morning and went to breakfast and then got on a bus to go to Yu Lu school. This “school” is over 1000 years old. Although I couldn’t really understand much of the stuff the tour guide was saying (our tour guide in ChangSha was a guy named Shen, but our actual tour guide is a guy named Ji Pei…same Pei as me…he’s the same age as my brother), I still took the opportunity to enjoy the sights (like the calligraphy and gardens and stuff). After we left the school we went to a museum in ChangSha where three tombs were dug up from a place called MaWangDui. What’s funny is that we were required to wear plastic shoe covers. The tomb was like 2000 years old and yet all the stuff inside was still in a very good condition, even the corpse of the guy’s wife. We saw how they preserved the tomb and the numerous artifacts they found inside the gigantic tomb such as wooden carvings of dancers and entertainers, clothes, pottery, etc. The ultimate gross-out moment for me was when we went downstairs to see the female corpse. Another funny thing is that the museum spelt visit “VISLT” =P. Anyways, before we saw the corpse, there was this display showing how they performed tests on the body and showed the lungs and intestines and stuff still in tact when they removed them from the body. In the next room, there was a glass window case that showed the actual internal organs they removed from the female corpse in a lower level. An interesting thing they found in the corpse was a bunch of seeds A bunch of seeds as in 138.5. not yet digested suggesting that maybe she died from them. The next glass casing was the female corpse, which was very well preserved for 2000 years ago. The basic shape of the body was still present, although the body was a bony white color and the chin detached from the jaw making it look like there was something in the woman’s mouth. Our last stop in the museum was the tomb casings and then it was off to the airport.

We took a propellered small airplane (only 13 rows) from HuangHua International to the airport in ZhangJiaJie. The plane was extremely cramped, humid and it looked kind of old. Of course, I slept most of the ride so my only experience was waking up all sweaty and nasty. When we got off the plane, the first thing all of us noticed was the scenery. The mountains in the background were very beautiful except that the fog made it hard to see. It’s weird that so far rain seems to follow us, but in a good way, because when we were in ChangSha, the tour guide told us that the city usually feels like a hot pot, but before we came it had rained so the temperature cooled down. Our new co-tour guide in ZhangJiaJie (last name Li) said the same thing. Well, after leaving the airport we went to eat lunch (which I really enjoyed…some other people didn’t really like it…maybe it was because the place setting wasn’t as nice =P). It was funny because everyone wiped their utensils with alcohol swabs before using it. I made a comment that from now on we aren’t trusting the cleansiness of everywhere we go; that is of course until we return to Shanghai). After lunch we decided to actually sing Karaoke this time (there was a Karaoke thing in the private room we had in the restaurant). Our tour guide (Pei Ji) can sing really well…we were all really amazed. It was hard finding songs that our parents knew so I decided to sing Yuki’s “Wo Shi Nu Shen”…hehehe…and dance to “Miao Miao Miao”, just to bring some more entertainment.

After lunch it was off to the hotel, which required some very skilled driving up the mountain with many hairpin turns. On the way, the streets and stores were fairly dilapidated, and I started thinking about how I could never stand living in such an environment such as this one. It just goes to show how spoiled many kids like me have become. I guess it’s all a matter of how one is raised and the life experiences they attain.

Sadly we have been degraded to staying at a 3-star hotel, which is still nice…just some failed electricity and stuff in some places. Well after taking a nice nap, we ate dinner and went to see this performance at some restaurant. It was a bunch of really weird dances and stuff with a group of drunken men watching. The funny part was when they did the “marriage.” Eric was selected to go up and he had to do all the bowing and drink a sip of wine too. The bad thing was with any place in China, you’re bound to find people smoking, and it was in full force tonight. Therefore, I had to hold my breath a lot and I was suffering the whole 90 minutes.

I’m still trying to get in contact with people back home (I already talked with Brett’s parents earlier tonight) except Terry’s sleeping and Brett’s at SAT class. Brett’s dad called again and said that he’ll tell Brett and Terry to call me later…hopefully I’ll still be awake. What I really want to be able to do is talk to people while they’re at the camp reunion…of course I won’t be able to talk long because of all the activities we have planned (I don’t even know where I’ll be on the night of the 18th).

Well, we’re going to be staying 2 nights here and tomorrow will be extremely tiring. We have to a lot of hiking and stuff, so I’m going to need some sleep…the amount of sleep I get depends on how much Eric wants to talk…sigh. China hasn’t been so bad so far…but now we have to bring out the “Off”…so we’ll see…

Eric's Commentary:

The plane was cool; the air conditioning looked like dry ice coming out and it fogged up the whole plane in front. O yeah, still seeing lots of pretty sketchy people along the way. Our new tour guide looks funny with the dyed hair but dark eyebrows look, reminds me of someone…she’s cool, seems to get disrespected by the rowdy adults when on the road sometimes when they are talking loudly, laughing like lunatics, and telling sex jokes. Meals are fine though. The alcohol-swabbing thing seems kinda rude when doing it in front of all those nice waitress ladies. I have incriminating video shot of Kevin dancing miao miao miao which I think will prove to be very interesting.

We went to go see some really HOT, cute, and (playful? Happyish? Hyper? Ooh, its cheerful!) Asian girls performing? Aboriginal? Stuff. Like singing in super high pitch, dancing, and fun stuff. Some dances looked like they were lesbians trying to lick each other while also ending on each other, it was all really cool and funny, the prettiness, the looks and facial expressions, and the great acting for the most part. They would totally kill off any competition in America. Btw The hint of lesbianish was totally in the acting I think… They looked like they were in their teens and could have been up to around WMACS counselor’s age. The marriage is all Kevin’s dad’s fault. (JK) I was like what’s going on when all these people with veils on came out and then I was like oh, when Kevin’s dad and terry’s dad was selected to be persuaded to go up and be husbands. I was laughing at Kevin’s dad…. Until he came up with a good excuse, I have to film, yeah, and then she started trying to get me to go. So after lots of persuasion and cause she said it’s just going up and walking around, I went up. I had no idea what was going on except that it was a marriage and just followed directions from my bride person. Bowed left right forward back or whatever and drank the wine stuff with that weird hand link thing and then went to the back to do it, get it on, whatever. Of course I didn’t know what was going on, until now. There were tons of alcohol bottle stuffs in the back and then there was like a garage thing where we were supposed to talk or whatever and trade stuff. The bride gives the guy a ring and the guy is supposed to give the bride a 5 coin/present for her to “remember him by”. I couldn’t understand a lot of stuff and was like I’m from the US and then she found out that I was 15 and there was no end to the giggling and laughter. I finally understood that I was supposed to give her something like 5 in China but I had 100-dollar bills…that could have suggested something else… Some other already one with stuff bride came by to help out but damn, why did I have to be so tall. Damn wish I understood Chinese. Lol She was hot, I think she was hot, I didn’t get to see her, and didn’t see any ugly performer girls. I got to keep the ring though, heh. Later, leaving, people were trying to figure out who their “brides” were and all the performers were lined up to greet you goodbye and that was kind of awkward (no idea who my bride was but she knew who I was), they seemed overly friendly to us as opposed to the drunk single men trying to get it on.

No luck staying awake, he passed out 5 times while I was playing loud punk rock. I had to hit him to wake him up in order to tell him he could go to sleep since it was pass 12. *evil grin* d'oh!