Cup of Tea

Yesterday as I wandered aimlessly around Shanghai, this time in a direction I hadn't been before, I found bootleg dvds (which cost less to buy than they are to rent in the US), Chairman Mao stationary, and much more, including tea shops. One tea shop that I went into was in an "L" shape, with the longest side being about 7' long. Meaning it was tiny. I felt like a bull in a china shop with my messenger bag on my back...every time I turned around I listened for the sound of falling china or ceramics.

The woman working at the shop was incredibly nice, but geiven the amount of chinese I speak right now there was a lot of repeating what she said, but not a lot of comprehension. I found a ceramic container that said "black tea" and gestured that I would like to buy some. She took one bag (probably weighing a kilo) of tea out of the container. Oh crap, that's a lot of tea. But how do I convey "less"? Apparently the gestures I meant to convey "less" were more indicative of "try," so she and I sat down on two little stools and she began a wonderfully intricate tea tasting process.

To start, she poured some of the tea leaves into a white bowl which we then both smelled. After that, water was heated in a kettle, the tea leaves were poured from the white bowl into a ceramic container that would hold about 1/2 a cup of water, and water was poured onto the leaves. From there the tea was poured through a strainer into a mini-tea pot. She and I smelled both the tea leaves that had been soaked and the tea in the pot. She poured tea into my cup; it was the tiniest cup I've ever seen, equivalent to about 1 tablespoon made of thin white china. Both she and I tried the tea that had been prepared, and she refilled our cups until the mini-tea pot was empty. Then the same ritual was performed to try another kind of black tea.

At the end of all this I was still struggling to convey that I wanted to buy somewhat less than 1 kilo of black tea. She took out a bag, and I filled it with the amount I wanted. I attempted to ask how much it would be, and she declined my money. She smiled and indicated that it was a gift (at least I hope so, because I didn't pay). I said thank you numerous times and walked out feeling wonderful.

I think I'll go back and buy (really buy this time) some more tea from that store, luckily I took a business card so I could find it again.

Trek It Out

I just got back from a jam-packed 6 day trip to Hong Kong (almost 2 full days) and Chengdu (almost 4 full days). I'm posting pictures in reverse chronological order...starting in Chengdu and working back to HK.

Pagoda in a bamboo park in Chengdu...it was a very peaceful and quiet park, probably because there was an admission fee.

Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu (probably as close as I'll get to Tibet given the fact that no visas are given to foreigners). These are people playing an intense game (of what I couldn't tell, but it did involve tiles) on the sidewalk.

Tibetan monk regalia.

Pandas at the eco/research center in Chengdu...these are the baby pandas after they had their bottles...actually the one on the top right still seems to be working on his bottle. It's amazing how cartoon-like they were.

Temple at the top of a sacred mountain.

Tram up to the top of the mountain. The tram covered the middle of the mountain, but the beginning and end had hundreds upon hundreds of stone stairs carved into it.

We visited a place where there were thousands (literally - believe the actual number is somewhere around 2400) buddhas carved into a rock wall overlooking a river. This is the picture one of the kids took of me in front a rock carving...you can sort of see me, you can sort of see the carving.

HUGE Buddha...apparently the tallest in the world - 71m high. If you look at the Buddha's feet, you'll see lots of little Liliputian people.

HK sky line -- tall buildings that go on and on and on and on. Then there's a break (because of the water) and then more tall buildings on islands. Pretty incredible.

In HK we took the tram up to the top of Victoria's Peak (apparently one of the must-do things)...on one of the foggiest days ever. There wasn't much to see, but this is the tram's track, and from the post cards the view's spectacular on clear days.

And that's my trip. I have much more to tell -- little stories, observations, panda videos, but for now this will have to do!

Digging to China

It took a 13.5 hour plane ride and a grueling stop-and-go 2 hour drive from the airport, but I arrived safe and sound to my new abode here in Shanghai. So on my first full day, what did I do? Well, I started by putting the boys on the bus to school (it picks them up at a brutal 7:20 every morning…luckily this morning I was up at 6 all on my own!). After spending a bit of time unpacking I went with Mr. Wu (the family’s driver) to…IKEA…!! And while Ikea is pretty much the same as it is in the states – the first floor is all displays, the bottom floor is all of the stuff, and it winds around like crazy on both floors -- there are two big differences I noticed: first, that there are tons of security guards, they were scattered all over the place! Second, Ikea is bumpin’ here! I went at 9am on a Tuesday morning, only to learn that the restaurant opens at 9, but the store part doesn’t open until 10. But at 9 in the morning, when the store wasn’t even open yet, there were tons of people, milling around, eating breakfast, chatting, Ikea seems like quite a social scene. I may have to go back and meet some new people…

I also took myself on a little walk down the street to huge shopping area of town to buy a voltage converter. The place I ended up was an indoor mall, but it was completely full of kiosks; 4 floors of kiosks selling everything electronic -- from video surveillance equipment to ipod ear buds to computers themselves and much, much more! And all I had to do was find one where I could successfully communicate that I needed “a voltage converter…from 110 to 220.” That’s definitely in my phrase book. In the end I managed to figure out that the power cord my computer has is a universal voltage cord; which meant that I didn’t need anything. Luckily I got a rocking walk out of it, and a bubble tea drink to boot (I opted not to have lunch at KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, or Starbucks…all of which were in the mall).

And now my early morning/late night/the international date line are all catching up with me! Luckily, there’s tomorrow (not to mention the 2 months after) for me to visit the park at the end of the block, the French Concession, and so much more!

Oh! And this weekend I’m going to Hong Kong, and then onto Chengdu, woohoo!

TFT

TFT: Tanzanian Flex Time ...meaning that sometimes things don't happen in the time frame that you'd expect. For instance: I wanted to post pictures about 3 weeks ago, but it's only happening now.

But hey, the pictures are the same as they were 3 weeks ago!!

After climbing Meru, Tim and I went back to Moshi for a night and then continued onto Mombassa, Kenya. After we spent a few days in Mombassa with our fellow volunteers Dana, Michelle and Lou, we headed down to Dar es Salaam and then took a ferry to Zanzibar. Whew, there were a lot of buses involved in all that travel.

Once in Zanzibar, I abandoned all buses in favor of my own two feet (for anywhere in town), shared taxis (to get between towns), and finally a plane or two (to get back state-side). Zanzibar had more mzungu than I'd seen since getting to Tanzania, and it took a little while to adjust to that, but the white sand beaches and beautiful turquoise water really helped. Here are some pictures from Zanzibar:

Here are some pictures from Zanzibar:

Market in Stone Town.

Girls walking home from school in Nungwi, on the north coast of Zanzibar.

Tim and Dana playing frisbee in the Indian Ocean.

Part of our Spice Tour...who knew that so many spices came from here? Vanilla, cinnamon, cardomon, cumin, cloves, and on and on!

Dhow, a traditional boat, coming back in from a day of fishing...if I liked fish Zanzibar would have been the place to eat it. Fresh octopus, squid, swordfish, tuna, baracuda, and more!

And, as promised weeks ago,
here are pics from the trek up Mt Meru:

Here's Mt Meru...just a little bit to go...

I've fallen and I can't get up...

If you look closely at this picture you will see green spots painted on the rocks...that's the path that we climbed at 2:30 in the morning...the green was not visible at that time.

Another part of the path cutting along the mountain's edge up to the top.

View of Kili, you can also see the path we walked up to the summit.

Apparently I no longer have the strength to keep my body upright. But by golly I'm throwing a thumbs up through all my black outerwear.