July 8 in China

Remember the bridge we walked across to get to the square with our home stay families?  This is it the next morning...

and here it is from the side...

and from inside!

Deana, Adam, and I were standing outside our home stay home...and the man of the house pulled up in the car.  His wife got the green beans out of the back and spread them on the car???? 

We had breakfast with our families about 8 am or so... Then instead of going out to help the farmers (Way too muddy from the rains they had earlier), we all made 'oil tea' with our host families. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being LOVING it, I would rate the oil tea about .001. You'll have to ask your world traveler what they thought of it. I could NOT even get down one bowl.
Here's how they made it...(just in case you want to try it at home!)

First you pick some fresh tea leaves...then you put them in a wok like skillet over a medium high flame, along with a few heads of garlic and a chunk of fresh unpeeled ginger.

You stir and beat it with a mallet... (This is the part we got to help with)... You do this about 20 minutes or so. Then you pour in some oil...yep, oil. I don't know what kind it was...Effee thought it was some kind of vegetable or canola oil. Then you keep stirring and pounding another couple of minutes.

Now you start adding some boiling water, and keep stirring...she let it bubble about 5 minutes or so, then pored into a basket set over a bowl so the liquid would drain through.

Next they put something that LOOKED like Rice Krispies, but certainly didn't taste like them, into a bowl, then scooped some of the 'oil tea' into that same bowl, and served it with a smile.

Like I said, for me, it rated about .001 on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being good.

Below is Deana, the grandmother of the home, and me.  The grandmother was very outgoing and took us next door to show us another 'home' they're building.  It didn't have a kitchen...and it did have a huge room upstairs (on the 3rd floor) that had huge tables it looked like they were going to build into the room.  We think this 'house' is going to be more like a hotel type...and a place to have meetings/conferences.

These were taken from the deck of that house...this country is just so gorgeous!

This door was one they were installing in the room that we thought must be like a meeting/conference room...isn't it beautiful?

 The 'mother'of the home, her husband, Adam, the lady who made the oil tea who we think is the husband's sister, Ricky, the grandmother, Deana, and me

See that picture above Ricky's head?  Its a cross-stitch that the mother of the home did.  She had many thoughout both homes...and they took her 1/5-2 years each to complete! 

About 11:30 am, we presented our gifts, said our good-byes, and took off for about a 40 minute coach ride...then lunch.

Confucius' temple, built in 1410 was our next stop. This temple is 4 years younger than the Forbidden City in Beijing. It's also the most popular place for people to come visit and to come pray in this area.

These are 'instruments' they play...

Our guide said to show respect to Confucious, you kneel down in front of his statue and bow down 3 times. If you really needed something, you also light some incense.
I don't think anyone bought any incense to burn, but quite a few decided to pay their respects.

More 'instruments'...

We walked a short walk to another temple...and their we entered a little side room where we painted masks...Nuo Masks...we had about 40 minutes to paint. There are some great looking masks!

These are just photographs around the grounds of this temple..

THIS was sad to me!  I asked Effee what 'Red Bull' was...I was curious since we have the drink by the same name.  Well, he said it's one and the same.  Red Bull paid x-amount of Yuan (money) for advertising rights!  So many of these lanterns had their name on them.  This is in a cultural center...one that's been there since the 1400's...

 Once they sat In the sun...(HOT and humid today!!!) to dry, one of the Nuo Masks dance masters came to show us how to do part of the Nuo Mask dance. We had to have quite a few rehearsals before we actually put on the masks and danced. I took some video which I'll put up with all the photos from the trio once I return from Colorado.

After our dancing...we had a 3 hour coach ride back to this hotel.this is the 2nd time we've run into Sandy and her middle school delegation. They're about 2 days behind us on the schedule.

Today is the 8th...and we leave on the 15th! I don't see how we've done as much as we have...but oh man, is the time flying by! This is SUCH a great group!

I'm going to try and send this (fingers crossed) and then write another one of some tidbits of information/observations!

~judy