Religion and Food.

Yesterday morning took a short taxi ride out to allegedly the largest miao (I'm not sure if that means temple or monastery) in Asia, or at least in Jilin Province. It was chilly but stunning, flying eaves and everything. It was so silent, and you could see your breath rise like smoke from incense; my cousins and I made a lengthy climb up a tall mountain, I figure around 224 steps, to the peak (no Mt Everest, but it felt like it), and there was a eye-opening view of Donhua mountains.

It's nothing like I've seen before. The mountains are gentle, the leafless trees are spare and ethereal, the lake, an ice field. It was surreal, to say the least, climbing up granite steps lined with young birches. It's one of those places where your mind plays tricks. You feel like you are flickering between someone's imagination and sensual reality. A somewhat unsettling setting for a film, if I were to ever film. After climbing down from the peak, my lungs were having some kind of asthmatic reaction to the air. I think it was a little too cold for me. Later, my cousin's husband (my jie fu) got my cousin and I matching water crystal bracelets, and we took a 20 minute taxi ride back into town.

For lunch, we had the uncommon common fare: ban ban (aka "half mix," bibimbab), egg/potato pancakes, la cai (kimchi), mi chang (rice sausage), and grilled pork. Oh yes, and this excellent beer (brewed in the city of Donhua!) called Bing Chuan, or "icy fjord."

Afterwards, I went with my cousin Miao Miao (did I mention that all my cousins are soo pretty?) to this teahouse that our uncle's wife works at, and we both unwittingly feel asleep on the heated tatami. After several hours of slowly rising and falling back asleep, we finally got up and headed to a bathhouse. For only 15 rmb per person, we took hot showers, sauna-ed, and were washed with exfoliating gloves on massage tables. Basically, I got a total scrub down by this old woman. Three times. After about an hour and a half, soooo fresh and clean! Makes me want to open a bathhouse or spa of my own.

For dinner, the whole family got together (fourteen of us) at another restaurant. Walking in, we were greeted by a large tank of frowning arrowanas at the entrance (five, long silver ones), and later, ordered an enormous meal of silkworms (crunchy and delicious), vermicelli dishes cold and hot, warm potato kimchi dish, bean and beef dishes, spicy squid dishes, cold mixed dog meat, dog meat soup (takes some time to get used to), ming tai fish (a traditional Chao Xian-Korean-Donhua dish), everything mostly spicy. Then, I got drunk with my uncles on beer and northern Chinese sweet soju, much to my gramma's discontent. We separated, and taxied it back home, and I fell asleep quite fast.