Days 169--173: Dali

Once we left Kunming, we arrived in Dali. I have to admit, when we first arrived, I wasn't very thrilled with this place, but it turned out to be one of the best places I've been in China so far.

Kerry, Elizabeth, Dean and I were all on the same flight to Dali. However, we had a problem right when we got to the Kunming airport: the ticket agent said that she couldn't match our ticket number to our passport (at least, that's what Dean told us she said....he interpreted for us). I got sent to seven different counters. At the last one, I was told that I had to call the booking agent or else buy a new ticket. I was ready to burst into tears or start shouting. Dean had to go then; he didn't want to miss the flight, even though we were afraid we were going to. So I went and spoke to someone else at the same counter. I managed to get my confirmation number to come up on my e-mail, so she found it, and said, "Follow me."  She took us to another desk, where he issued our boarding passes and took our luggage. I don't know how or why it happened, but I wanted to hug her. But we had to hurry...we were on our way to Dali. Fortunately, it was only a one hour flight. We made it to Dali pretty quickly and the airport was very small. We saw James and his wife there, too. All of us had cars waiting to take us to the Linden Centre; our hotel was at the Linden Commons, in the Bao Cheng Fu compound. It took an hour. We were in the same car with Elizabeth, who was bemoaning her illness. Once we got to the Centre, I was not impressed. "I thought it was going to be a resort," said Elizabeth, but it was far from a resort. It seemed like a little place in BFN. They assigned us a room, and they we were told that we had to walk seven minutes into town if we wanted anything to eat. Great. But that's what we did. Apparently the Linden Center is a bit of a walk from the compound we were staying in, so there wasn't officially a restaurant on our site. We walked to the restaurant had the Linden Center, where we had chicken and sweet/sour pork (and rice, of course). I was in a foul mood the entire time, and didn't really want to make small talk, particularly when the conversation turned to Donald Trump. I am so sick of hearing about him and reading about him that I just tune out when people discuss him these days. I met the owner of the Linden Center, Brian Linden, but I wasn't particularly friendly with him, and when he invited me to see the view from the terrace, I declined and went home with those who wanted to head that way. But when I got home, I had a bit of a nap, and then I was in a better mood after that. I was much more chatty during dinner, which was held at our compound.

Beautiful field on the way to the Linden Centre:

The next day was primarily a work day. I got to listen to a lot of "critical incidents" from my fellow Fulbrighters. Dean was denied the return of his passport initially; Brooks had to deal with a stalker; Keith had too many classes and students assigned to him; and Chris had to deal with proselytes interfering with a student group on campus. Fascinating stuff! I also got to listen to an inspiring talk from Brian Linden, the owner. Apparently he was a community college student and a carpet-cleaner and we worked himself up to work on films with the likes of George Michael and Bertolucci. Extraordinary! In the evening, we were driven to the Dali Old Town area and looked around. It was an eclectic mishmash of ancient and contemporary: a street vendor selling tasty apples; a temple that we climbed to the top of; taffy-pulling in the street; Bakery 88 (at which we bought cheddar cheese and baked goods); a McDonalds adorned with red lanterns for the New Year; a restaurant advertising "Wireless Network" and "Affairs"; and women singing at karaoke bars late into the night. We were also given a dinner in old town, with such dishes as rice noodles, a creamy dish with azalea flowers, beef, pork, and a soup served at the end of the meal (as usual). Then we were driven home.

Pics from our first full day:

Brooks and Kerry.

The Bao Cheng Fu compound.

Pulling taffy on the Old Town streets.

Wednesday, the following day, was a work day as well. The day began with breakfast (I often had scrambled eggs, french toast, or omlettes), and then I was first in giving my critical incident report: I talked about back in October when the Honors College at SISU asked me to start teaching my class every other week, all of a sudden. "Shouldn't you just stop the class since you've already been teaching it for eight weeks?" James asked. My sentiments exactly. But I explained that I continued to just keep teaching the class (I think I had only two-three more sessions with them after that). James talked about some of his family issues as well as one student who claimed that he "ruined her life" after receiving an 80 on a presentation grade. Elizabeth told her story about making friends with the cab driver in Chengdu after he initially didn't want to pick her up. For lunch, we had a cooking class and made something called xizhou baba--a kind of doughy bread. And we each had two, one stuffed with red bean paste and sugar, and the other with pork and chives. Both were quite tasty but quite carby--it was kind of cool making our own lunch, though! We had a roundtable about teaching issues late in the afternoon, which I participated in a lot--it seemed like we were finally talking about something helpful. In the evening, Brian and one of his helpers took us on a tour of the Linden Centre--it has been fully restored from the 1940s, with Buddhas and original artwork and other statues. We had dinner back at the compound--the standout for me was the Yunnan cheese. I love cheese.  :)

Some of the Wednesday fun:

My first xizhou baba (upside down--with red bean paste and sugar).

Image from the Linden Centre.

Me outside the Linden Centre--rapeseed in the background.

I can honestly say that Thursday, the cultural activity day, was one of the most amazing days of my life (but also a bit upsetting). We were taken to Cangshan mountain, riding up there in a cable car. The steps were very steep, so instead of walking up the Jade Belt Path like must folks, we walked down to a Chinese chess board and then back up to a river with a Buddha statue. Beautiful environment!  We had lunch in Old Town--organic hot pot with our own chosen spices--but Kerry said some embarrassing things during lunch that upset me a bit. We weren't speaking to each other for a couple hours after that. So when we got to Lake Erhai, we just didn't talk. And it was a shame because it was beautiful; it reminded me of being on the beach in Frankfort. They took a picture of us at the lake, but all I see now when I see that picture is how uncomfortable we look. And, unfortunately, that's going to be our permanent memory of that lake. We were then driven to Wase Village, though, that had a temple on the water. We were rowed out to the temple on a rowboat, and we made donations to it, and then we were rowed back. I managed to get a beautiful picture with seagulls taking off in the air. After the Village visit, Kerry and I talked and made up. Some kids wanted to take our pictures again, and this time I was  more in the mood for it. Then we were driven back to the compound, where we had our final dinner. After dinner, we had a Dongjing concert (local music) in the commons area. The local musicians performed about nine songs for us, including palace music and folk tunes. At the end, we all danced to the last song!  That was fun.

From the cultural activity day:

Going up Cangshan--view from the cable car.

Kerry at the river.

Lake Erhai.

Temple at Wase Village.

Dongjing concert--local musicians.

The final day was mostly just travelling. We had to get up at 6 am to leave at 6:40 am. Dean was on the first flight (to Chengdu) with us and came in the car. Dali was a very small airport and this time there was no drama. It was a quick flight. Dean said goodbye once we went to collect our luggage in Chengdu. We had to re-check it again to go to Shanghai, and go through security again. Then we had a 2.5 hour layover, but we went to a Pizza Hut in the airport and had a GREAT pepperoni pizza!  (Best in China so far.) The second flight was a longer flight, but not too bad--about 2.5 hours in the air (but about a half hour just sitting on the plane). We managed to get home by 5:30 pm, so Kerry still had time to go gaming. We had nothing to eat and the stove wasn't working, so I just had peanut butter and jelly for dinner. Still, I was glad to be home.