SOME THINGS DON'T WORK OUT.

I finally found a fix on-line for my Picasa program’s inability to upload my photos. It turns out, it is a problem with Picasa. I went through their fix, but it didn’t work for me. So, I’m back to square one. It takes too long to blog each morning and still get accomplished what I’ve returned home to do. Mainly, get my medical file with the doctor’s signature to have my expenses reimbursed from the accident in May; taxes finished; and a new building designed, permitted, etc. on my Oregon Property; plus theraputic exercise each morning. Conclusion, I’ll be blogging sporadically for awhile. I’m absolutely jealous that I’m not in Natchez with the friendly folks Jim is having fun with.


I can always reach back in time and put up an old picture I liked such as this "mudbug".

ALL PETS GO TO HEAVEN.

Our newspaper says it is the hottest July on record for our area. Exacerbated by a low snow pack, meaning an extension of the drought.  It gets ugly out there.  Climate change deniers are holding up progress for the rest of us and thus we all suffer. I’m glad I can provide water for wild animals. I’m not so glad that I have to drive into the even hotter valley, a long day away from home “out in it”.

People may destroy the earth as we know it, but All Pets Go To Heaven.

SHILIN-UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE

To resume my visit to China in 2006, we are in Kunming, The City Of Eternal Spring. It  is a very temperate area  known for its plant diversity. Most of China’s flower species come from Kunming with its  pleasant,  temperate climate. We see commercial flower gardens and orchards around Kunming, but  our tour will take us to  Shilin, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, a surrealistic  “orchard” of stone.

The drive  to this unique landscape  through a three-mile long tunnel, and we worry about it caving in, probably unreasonably so. But, safety isn’t foremost in Chinese projects, we think. The tunnel replaced a twisty, tortuous road, we are told. Then we take a shuttle to the base of the 200 acres of what are called karst towers, formed 270 million years ago as the Himalayas were forming.

It’s a lovely spot by a lake, but the sign that greets us with tortured interpretations was a hoot though well intentioned. We were relieved to know what we buy here will be genuine.

Yunnan Province has many minority people.  And we see them come to Shilin to get married, or celebrate special events in their lives. The most prominent minority in this region is the Yi people. The Suni Muslims are a branch of the Yi people. There are black Yis and white Yis. The black Yis enslaved the white Yis because they admired the rare  black tigers of Asia over the white tigers. The Yi were great hunters and wrestlers, strong and muscular. They walk in fire and have fire torch festivals unique to the area.  Mau banished slavery among the Yis.  Another nearby minority is the Hui people, called barbarians. They arrived here with Kublai Khan.  A very informative website can be found at the following link.
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/yunnan/kunming/stone_forest.htm


The area does resemble a stone forest, which is the common name for Shilin.

The karst formations are  limestone and were shaped by a receding inland sea and harsh winds.

It was an easy,  pleasant  hike through the “forest” and one could imagine what it must have been like for ancient children  to climb and play on the formations.

We hiked around the lake and took pictures. There are caves and waterfalls deeper inside the forest, but we were given a limited time here. Without a guide it would be easy to become disoriented and lost if we wandered too far off the path.

The people in their special native dress were fascinating, anyway.

The costumes are somewhat different, but always the main color of red and yellow.

The Yi men show their single status by the way they wear their feathers. A girl shows interest in a man by touching her horn.

Vicki speculated this was some type of local holiday celebration. It seemed very romantic to us with couples and singlels having their picture taken by the lake.

Near the gift shop, this gent was  fiddling with a musical instrument. We figured there would be a musical event later in the day.

By lunchtime, the place was mobbed.  I saw that under the costume the girls wear street clothes, kind of like we do for high school graduation.


This woman may have been a different minority with similar costume. I enjoyed people watching as much as the stone formations.

The Stone Forest is seventy-five miles from Kunming and actually makes its own weather. At certain times of years, storms roar out of the caves and water cascades from the high formations. We will move on to Urumichi and visit a Yi village.

BEIJING OPERA AND THE TERRACOTTA ARMY OF XIAN.

Before leaving Beijing, we attended the traditional Opera that is no longer performed anywhere in China but Beijing. It is considered old-fashioned, an old art. There were no pictures allowed of the opera, nor the beautiful costumes on display in the lobby.  Cast members  entertained us at our tables while we enjoyed refreshments. A teapot with a three-foot long spout was used to dramatically pour our tea into tiny cups without splashing or spilling a drop, much to our delight. On stage,  one very acrobatic act performed in slow motion, with every muscle in coordination, had us holding our breath. The performers painted faces were allowed to show no emotions;  their lips could not move, not even to take a breath. You could see their nostrils flare as they took in air during extremely strenuous moves. It put us on the edge of our seats.  The opera is part singing, part acrobatics and part storytelling. One story (all printed in English on screens at the side of the stage) involved a hateful government edict presented to the people. They conspire to steal the key and change the offensive edict. This is important because in old China, it was the only form of protest the people had, through their art. One act was a about a Shogan who falls in love with his concubine. Another "social issue."  It was wonderful. Viki told us most people skip the Opera, but, I would certainly recommend it if you have a chance to see it.

The next morning, we flew to Xian, pronounced shy-ann. Realize that the soldiers were discovered in 1974 and they have been designated the 8th wonder of the world. Xian was once the capital of China during the first of thirteen dynasties, the Ching Dynasty. Here, underground, lay the roots of the dynasty, for over 2000 years. The photo of a  photo taken by  the archaeologists shows what the soldiers looked like as they began to uncover this phenomenal treasure.

The soldiers are displayed  in the pits from which they came and covered over by a roof. This photo shows the immensity of this pit. They carried weapons because  the soldiers were ready to do battle for their emperor when he died.   The soldiers were destroyed by the incoming faction of government after the Emperor who ordered the armies built,  died,  while inspecting the army.  The soldiers weapons were removed, then the figures were broken up and covered over.

This photo shows the depth of  one of the pits.  There is six  pits open to the public if I remember correctly. There is 8,000 soldiers, over three hundred chariots, wagons, and horses, jade armor, animals, dancer,  acrobats plus other people, statesmen or persons important to the Emperor.

A flash only carries so far and it is difficult to get  really good pictures of the soldiers. But the immensity of the task and the visible definition of the clothing, the hands, the features overwhelms. I find myself continually amazed at the wonders people crafted when given inspiration, and that I should have the privilege of seeing them.

The soldiers, when first removed had color in their faces and clothing. The Chinese government is building a new museum for the soldiers because they've lost their color from exposure to light and air. The roof leaks in places and since the discovery, they've found 73 more mounds, 16 of which they've opened up and reburied until they have perfected a technology to preserve the color and prevent deterioration of the figures. The rest will not be opened until they have the financial reserves and technology to care for this enormous treasure. The Terracotta Army is also a UNESCO site. UNESCO means this is a world treasure, to be preserved for all mankind and funded and preserved by shared funds. That designation carries a lot of responsibility and cooperation between countries around the world and benefits all of us.

Some of the best views of the warriors are replicas from the museum store.

You can buy one of these and have it shipped back to the United States. The replicas are a treasure as well as the man who discovered the  soldiers and had to turn his farm over to the government. He was given the official job as book signer. He is a small man, very quiet, doesn't say much.  He is no longer allowed to have his picture taken because his eyes were damaged by so many flashes. A cute story about him:  He was told President Clinton would be visiting and he was taught a bit of English to greet the President. He learned to say "How are you?" He was coached that the Clintons would likely say, fine, thank you and he should answer, I'm fine too. But, Clinton said "Hello".  And the farmer, who was nervous said, "Who are you?" And Clinton said, "I'm Hillary Clinton's husband." And the farmer said "Me too!"

The Provincial Shaanxi History Museum, adjacent to the pits,  holds this team of horses. All under glass, tough to get a decent photo of them.

And this chariot driver.  The detail in the clothing, the hands, the faces...truly awesome. All of these figures were modeled after real people. They were fired in kilns and then painted.

The horse to me has a wary expression as though aware of a stranger's approach.

I was surprised at how little from the pits was  in the museum. Hopefully that will change as they rebuild and restore.

One of the best things about the museum was their noodle lunch. A guy on each end of a long counter holds a hunk of noodle dough like this. This cook was quickly shaving off a piece of dough into hot broth that made wide noodles. Xian is a hard wheat growing region. It used to be that for birthday celebrations, long noodles were made to fit around a child's waist. Now they want cake.

The guy on the other end of the system, had the same size hunk of dough that he stretched, and stretched and stretched until it spontaneously separated into this long strand of fine noodles. It was a real show to watch. I tasted both soups and they were both delicious. I guess it doesn't take much to impress Westerners. I loved it. Is it any wonder Marco Polo decided to bring this wonderful food back to Italy?

I fell in love with the exquisite pottery in the museum. This piece is a pillow, believe it or not.

My second favorite was a depiction of what an ancient Chinese home would look like, with animals encased in the same abode.

Notice the precisely rendered  hooves on this horse. This artist loved horses, you can tell.

And the musicians on a camel. Whimsical.
For more pottery, click the link below:
https://picasaweb.google.com/106530979158681190260/TerraCottaWarriors

El Malpais (pronounced el mal py ees) means bad land. Everywhere in the area, roadsides, fields, in town, people’s yards, is evidence of this unfriendly looking lava rock. After learning that this rim of volcanoes spewed the stuff  about a  million years ago, we were not sure what to expect in a National Monument that has seen fit to protect an area with lava so sharp and jagged, it will cut your boots to ribbons if you hike on it for any distance.

Beauty is everywhere and our first stop was the Sand Bluffs. You can see the patches of black lava in the distance so thick, plants haven’t been able to grow in it.

Since rock climbing and taking pictures is one of our favorite things to do, we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the Sand Bluffs, said to have been underwater 138 million years ago. Kind of tough to wrap your mind around that many years past.

We climbed all over the rocks, taking pictures and meeting one view after another.



Little catch basins everywhere gave evidence of how the rocks hold water for birds and wildlife. All were dry at this time of year

In a crevice, a stunted pine has found enough nutrients to hang on to life.

We climbed all over the bluffs for a couple of hours.



In another section of the conservation area is second ridge of cliffs that have a beautiful arch. We drove over to see it.

The scenic drive showed multiple layers of rock of different types, making for a colorful show.











We hiked the short distance in to the arch on this beautiful day. It’s a beauty.

Other beauties revealed themselves on the walk.



A rock so beautifully colored, you don’t believe your eyes.

The bright green of new growth on a young pine.

I spotted a second arch nearby. Not as beautiful as El Ventana, which is Spanish for window.

At the Lava Narrows, we got a close look at the lava, but it is pretty boring stuff after the gorgeous scenery we passed to get there. It has a shady picnic area and we stopped for some refreshments before returning to the Motor Home. There is no camping here, but visitors can  hike into the canyons and ridges and most likely find lovely spots that drive-in visitors like us missed. It was a lovely day.