Also known as Xiangyang

07.12.2015

I met a nice lady on the train back home from Beijing one afternoon and she invited me to her house for a weekend.

After a few unsuccessful plans, finally this weekend worked out and I went to Xiangyang in Hubei province. It's about eight hours away from Jiaozuo, and I arrived disoriented at about 3 a.m. Aurora and her husband Jack picked me up and I passed out in their guest bedroom.

In the morning, Aurora had to give some exams, so they dropped me off at Zhuge Liang's house nearby. I had visited his home in Nanyang before, I think, but I might be wrong.

He was a hermit and a political strategist that helped his emperor win a bunch of wars. He also invented those floating paper lanterns that people still send into the sky.

I was super tired, and none of the signs made any sense to me, so I just climbed up to the highest point of the hill. It was quite smoggy, so the view wasn't so great, but it was peaceful nonetheless.

I went back down and found Aurora at her school, I was a little early, so I took a little nap with the security guards at the gate while I waited for her.

When we went back, we had some noodles and I slept for four hours.

She woke me up with some fresh squeezed carrot/orange juice and then we went out for more Hubei food, including okra, but I'm not sure that's local. Delicious, just not local.

After dinner, we flew one of those paper lanterns and walked around old town. More like we rolled around, we were so full from dinner.

The next day, I was so lazy. Jack and Aurora went to work again, and Aurora came back home at about 11. We started making more fresh juice but Aurora cut her finger quite badly. So, we went to the hospital to make sure she didn't need any stitches. Jack came from work to pick us up. Then, he made some mutton soup and vegetable curry which we enjoyed.

We all took another little nap and then went to Aurora's yoga class at the Crowne Plaza hotel across the square from their house. I had a wondrous shower and sat in the sauna for a while. Jack met us for dinner at the adjoining mall, we didn't even have to go outside!

Earlier, I had asked about this cold soup I had in Jiangxi province in the summer, because I couldn't find it anywhere. Jack tried to order it for me, but it was actually ice cream or "pat bing su" if you know it in Korea... ice milk with fruit on top... not the cold soup I had before. I dunno if I'll ever find it again, such is life in China. If you find something good to eat, you probably won't ever find it again. I have come to accept this as my fate.

Jack went back to work and we walked back home. On the way home, Aurora realized she didn't have the keys, so we waited for Jack to bring them to us. Then we watched Intolerable Cruelty on the Chinese Netflix with tea, and went to bed.

View of the surrounding hills