(from k.d. lang’s Grammy-winning CD “Ingénue”)
Sichuan Day 6, Part 2
Across from the New Mexico women there was a narrow wooden railing.
I understand the admonition against sitting on the railing, but lying? Really.
After browsing through the goodies for sale, we crossed a bridge to the far side of the lake…
…to look at more rivers…
…and waterfalls,…
…along with everyone else.
[Postscript: Sometime between when we were there and now there was a serious earthquake at Jiu Zhai Gou, and a friend told me that this beautiful waterfall was destroyed.]
Lunchtime!!! Why is it that I’m ALWAYS hungry? Halfway back to our village we stopped at a little outpost where they sold instant lunches, and we bought a couple of these alleged “ready-to-eat” things.
I said “I’m starving. Let’s eat.” But then I uncovered instructions…
…that not even Einstein would have been able to decipher. (He could not read Chinese either.) A picture may be worth a thousand words, but if all those words are in Chinese, well…
So, X23 dismantled this apparatus and spread the various parts in front of her.
She gave me tasks that she thought I could handle, such as stirring the cooked-but-cold rice.
X23 then put the heating pad (loaded with toxic chemicals, no doubt) in the bottom of the container and poured the little bag of water over it.
She then placed the rice in the container,…
…covered the whole thing, then put that in the accompanying plastic bag.
The instructions say (so I was told) to wait until it puffs up, which it did.
X23 then assigned me the task of adding the goop…
…and mixing it in with the rice.
The lunch box came with a toothpick, also.
The food was good and so was the view.
After lunch, we followed the crystal clear directions to the bus stop to take us home.
As is very common in China, to get to the exit, you have to pass through a labyrinth of sales booths. In this place, we found butterflies in amber, …
…some stuff that looked like saffron, …
and the pièce de résistance, dried caterpillars. Yum!
DC's Asian Adventures 