20100619 张家界

On the 2nd day visiting the Zhangjiajie Park, we visited different parts of the mountains. There were streams... there were parks... there were people singing for you...

Hunan people eat a lot of spicy food. This handsome guy is selling freshly chopped chillies.

We had a wrong perception that mainland Chinese don't eat spicy food. Well, it depends on the geographical area. Yes, in Hokkien Province, you can't find chilly and garlic there. Cantonese people also don't eat spicy food in Guangzhou. But, in Hunan, bcoz the place is humid, they need to eat spicy food to chase away the "wetness" 湿气. This reminds me of my roommate in Dayton. Huh... his level of spiciness is 天下无敌，I'd say.

Catching a boy doing homework in such a cooling and scenic environment.

The singers really know their audience well. They have a very good acumen on identifying the groups of tourists, as if they have a detector to identify the places of origin of the hordes of tourists. When we're approaching, they sang songs we're very familiar with, such as 高山青，绿岛小夜曲 etc. When another batch of tourists came in, just when we were leaving, they sang songs I've never heard of before. I eavesdropped the conversation of the new batch of tourists and noticed that they're from northern China.

十里画廊 requires different entrance tickets.

5.8 km per way. To-and-fro, it's 11.6 km. Hence, it's 十里. Bcoz of the picturesque scenery, thus, the word 画廊. When you cruised along the 11.6 km scenic journey, it's as if you're enjoying a stroll down a Chinese paintings gallery.

We took the cute cute monorail to cruise the 11.8 km.

When we left 十里画廊, it started to rain. So, we had indoor activities. We went for an early lunch. Then, we had our 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th "compulsory shopping" program.

2nd stop: jewellery shop.

The smokers had to take a tag. And the playful tourmates put all 4 tags on a single person. Pity him. He's 阿猪 not bcoz his surname is 朱, but he once worked in the pig industry. I'm not sure whether he once raised pigs or he once was a butcher selling pork.

The lady taukeh talked to us personally, bcoz it was an auspicious day, i.e. her son celebrated his one-year birthday. She's from Thailand.

I noticed a tortoise struggling for his life at the entrance of the jewellery shop. They kept the tortoise in the fish aquarium. But a tortoise breaths thru a lung. So, he was swimming non-stop. I put my hand in the aquarium and took the tortoise out. A young chap was very curious on the 4 of us surrounding the aquarium. Christina, my tourmate, told the young chap that the tortoise would drown. The young chap replied that the tortoise was kept there for the past 2 months, implying that he won't drowned. Mr Liu, Christina's father, quickly answered, "he has been struggling for the past 2 months!" Then, he pointed to Mama Peh, introducing to the young chap that Mama Peh is the president of SPCA. Aiyoh... her biznes was extended from dogs and cats to tortoises.

3rd stop: tea shop.

We were driven to Dr Tea House. Like usual, there were 普洱，东方美仁，碧螺春. I really liked those tourmates from Alor Setar. When mentioned about the 12-year 普洱, one of the cheeky tourmate said it must be the cheapest tea. The tea seller was dumbfounded for 2 seconds and tried to explained that it was the best tea. Before she could voice out her explanation, that playful tourmate quickly interrupted by saying, "you can't sell it for the past 12 years, how good can that be?" Those 阿妹 standing at the back tried very hard to stifle their laughters.

4th stop: silk shop.

Very pitiful. Everyone had visited China for n-times. All of us had already bought silk blankets. We didn't even bother to listen to the explanations on the silk worms.

5th stop: knife shop.

Just like the silk shop, everyone had bought the knife set before.