July 25 - Badda-Bing Lake‏

Hey, everyone!

I haven't sent one of these out for awhile - there just wasn't much to say: "Yesterday, I picked my nose. The day before, I lay on the bed and stared at the wall..." Hahaha! I wanted to wait until there was something interesting to say. :)

And boy howdy, are there interesting things to tell you today.

So yesterday, we went with this touring group (via a travel agency that Summer found) to this lake called Baiyangdian Lake. I call it Badda-Bing Lake. :) We met in front of some hotel for the bus and got acquainted with the other Baoding folk who were going on this leetle excursion. We also got acquainted with three lady street vendors in front of the hotel. They were so in love with Gage that they left their grill unattended and got yelled at a couple of times by people who were trying to buy some food from them.

One of the ladies that went on our group wore whitish face makeup; I've noticed in the stores that, along with face wash and moisturizer and other facial care products, there is stuff that kind of whitens your skin pigment, and white-ish foundation. It's opposite in the U.S., eh? Everyone wants tanner skin, and buys bronzer. So funny.

So we got on the bus, and our little guide spoke a teeny bit of English, which was nice. He was a total sweetheart. We were joined by a local guide once we got to Badda-Bing Lake, and once we got there, she kind of took care of the rest of the group, and he was our constant companion. He kept offering to carry our 75 billion pound backpack and always made sure we were with the group. I just love the people here. Hearts of gold.

May I just say something about the music here - it SUCKS. I mean, when we were at the lake and walking around, I heard traditional Chinese music coming from speakers, and it was fantastic. You know, the stuff you hear when you watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which has a whole new meaning to me, now that I have to crouch to pee all the time) or Hero. Beautiful. But everywhere else - in restaurants and especially in this bus - they play the cheesiest, worst music ever. And they play it REALLY LOUDLY. Like, you have to shout to talk to each other in restaurants and in the bus yesterday. The music reminds me of church music circa the early nineties. Really over-emotional, kind of soft-rock like. I could actually understand some of the lyrics, which made me excited. It was stuff like, "You say blah blah blah....goodbye...I don't understand...blah blah blah..... I know....." So I think the lyrics were just as cheesy as the music itself. They also play a lot of the Carpenters and Kenny G, which is funny to me.

So we rode on the bus for about two hours, and in all that time, we never really left city. There were a few corn fields here and there, but it was major urban sprawl.

So we got there and got onto a motorboat-type thing. The boat reminded me of those boats you get on for that ride at Disneyland. I can't remember the name of the ride - Jungle Cruise? Something like that? Where you motor around in a boat, and the boat operators say all these funny puns, and there are plastic hippos who wiggle their ears, and plastic elephants who spray water out of their trunks, etc. You know the one I'm talking about? There were all kinds of boats on the lake - high-speed boats, old-fashioned Chinese rowboats, etc. And there were fishermen everywhere, as well. We even saw a guy with trained birds on his boat - each bird had a perch, and it would dive down into the lake, snatch fish, bring them up, and give them to the guy. Amazing.

It felt really wonderful to be on that boat - the lake smelled just like the lakes at home. And it was nice to feel the wind on my face. There are reeds all over the place, so you can't see the full expanse of the lake, but I'm pretty certain that it was huge. So we rode for awhile, then got to this enormous area that had lotuses everywhere. It was like 50 times the size of the lotus pond here in town. There were boardwalks all over the place, and cool bridges...you just walked around and looked. It was really pretty. The heat started to get really, really intense, though, so it was hard to enjoy as the day wore on. We walked and walked and walked... There was a little area with indigenous deer, a little duck farming area, etc.

After a few hours walking around, we got back on the boat and went to an island with a building on it where we ate. I don't know if any of you remember Karate Kid 2, but there is a part at the end where they go to this show and the girl does this fan dance - the building we ate in looked just like the building on that movie. It was very cool, but not very....cool. It was stiflingly hot. And they weren't turning on the air-conditioners, which I couldn't understand.

And here's another thing I don't understand - at more formal restaurants, they serve drinks with your meal, but everywhere else, they don't. When we ask for drinks with any of our meals downstairs in our hotel, they look at us like, "Why would you want to drink with your meal??" So there were no drinks to be had in this building. And no air conditioning. Gage was drenched in sweat. I felt really badly for him. And he was just getting passed around and passed around to all of these adoring waitresses. He really is such a good sport. The meal was a typical Chinese meal - gross. :) There was rice, thank goodness, so we ate rice. And we had brought water bottles with us, so we drank from those. By the time we left, I felt like I had been in a Native American Sweat Lodge.

Then we went to another island, which I call Freak Show Island. Freaky Deaky. When we signed up for the tour, they said that we would see some traditional Thailand dancers. Um.....no. They were transvestites from Thailand!!! Hahaha!!! They were men. Who have had boob jobs. We were late for the show, so we only caught the tail end, but they were singing songs. We sat down and waited, because we thought there was a second show, but there wasn't. The singers were going around posing for pictures, and I just couldn't stop STARING at them. Neither could Micah. He loved them. He kept saying, "Princess." It was funny. I didn't tell Dylan or Sadie that they were men, and I don't think they could tell. Hahaha! So we were sitting there waiting for the second show, which never happened, and billions of people kept coming and taking pictures with us. I mean, it was nonstop. I just can't get used to that. Finally, one of the transvestites comes up to me and says, in English, "Don't let them take pictures of you unless they pay you." I was like, "Oh, okay...." And he/she said, "You are just so beautiful." And he/she kissed me on both cheeks. It was funny. And then he/she said, in Chinese, basically, "Shoo. Leave these people alone."

So then we went to another little area and watched a show where this guy did these things with alligators - his main trick was sticking his head in a crocodile's mouth - obviously, the croc was trained or whatever. But it was cool. Oh, and there were these synchronized swimmers who swam in this totally disgusting-looking pool. I'm not joking. It was greenish and mucky. When they came out, I thought, "There is no way they're getting in that water," but they did. They didn't look Asian - they looked European. They were really good swimmers. And then the last area was an enormous round cage where a guy in a motorcycle rode around and around - like in Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. But get this - the guy didn't have ARMS. I didn't see it, because I had to leave and feed the baby, but Ben and Dylan and Sadie couldn't stop talking about it when they came out. I guess he used his head and neck to drive the motorcycle - I just don't know how he did it.

Ben knew where to find me when they left the motorcycle area - he just had to find a crowd of people. I had gone to this covered, shaded area to feed the baby, and immediately, I was surrounded by women and men. They were fascinated by the baby. There was a little gal who looked to be maybe 14, and her English was pretty good. So she was kind of translating for me. This old lady poked me and grabbed her boob and said something. The teenager said that the lady was asking why I wasn't feeding the baby milk. So I told the girl that, in the U.S., we do only milk for the first four months, but then after that, we add other foods, but still do milk. I didn't even go into the fact that I use formula. Didn't want to open that can of worms. This one lady offered to hold the baby while I fed him, and she was thrilled to do it. So then they all wanted to know what on earth I was feeding him. So I pointed to each bowl and said what they were, and when the girl translated "rice" into Mandarin for them, they all gave a grunt of approval, like, "Well, at least this crazy westerner has something right..." When the baby's meal was over, it was time to change him, so I laid out his changing pad and got down to business, and everyone leaned in anxiously, like, "What is she going to do now???" When they saw a diaper on the baby, they were so bemused. "Why would this crazy foreigner put something on the baby's butt???" When I removed the diaper and wiped Gage down, they all gasped when they saw that he was circumcised. And then they all nudged each other and said, "Jew!" "Jew." Like, "Oh, she must be a Jew. Why else would she circumcise her child?" These people crack me up. I love it.

So, we took the boat back to the area our bus was in, and then we drove home for another two hours.

It was a long, hot, hard day. It was so interesting, but I seriously feel like I got run over by a truck. I really, really think we need to save the rest of our touring for when the weather is less hot. I just can't take it anymore. I think I'd rather be bored in my hotel then having heat stroke. It was hard on all of us.

Dylan has an idea that he cannot let go of. Surprised? Neither am I. They had all these areas where you could buy souvenirs, and a bunch of guys were selling teeny little pet turtles with their own little cages, etc. Oh, how the kids loved those turtles. Dylan has been begging me ever since to let him get a pet turtle. I really don't know how I feel about that. First of all, there's the feeding and the cleaning. And then Beads told me that her childhood friend, Bethany, had turtles, and you really can't handle them too much, and that they die easily. So, if they don't die while we're here, we'll have to find someone to give them to when we leave. It just sounds like a big old headache to me. We'll see. Maybe I can get him a cool toy sword or something instead. :)

We got a call last night from Professor Han - our apartment will definitely be ready by Sunday to move in. We have to go pick out sheets, comforters, and dishes and cookware this week. I cannot wait to get into a proper apartment.

We'll upload some pics to smugmug today or tomorrow of our adventures at Badda-Bing Lake and then send a link to you.

We hope everyone is well and having a fantastic end of your July. Love you!

- Kar