The House of the Dragon King

After I left work today, I went for a walk around Hankou.  I finished by noon, so had the rest of the day to look around.

I wandered through some shopping streets.  There are some bronze statues to iconic Wuhan people along a pedestrian street there.  There is an iconic "stick man" who are pole bearing laborers you can still see around today.  Basically, if you have a stick and a strong back, you can make some sort of living moving things around Wuhan.

There is also a statue of Bao Li, the inventor of the famous "hot and dry noodles" or Ragemian.  In the early of 1930s, there was a small restaurant operated by Bao Li, who made a living by selling bean noodles and noodle soup near a temple in Hankou. One day, by accident, he spilt sesame oil onto his noodles. The next day, he eventually boiled those noodles and added shallot and other condiments. Next morning, his noodles soon became very popular because of its unique taste. Many people ask Bao Li what kind of noodle it is, Bao Li answered: Hot dry noodles.

I eat alot of Ra Ga Mian.  It is very tasty. You can buy good ragemian for maybe 4 kuai (.75 USD).

I walked all the way to the Yangtze river.  There was a temple I had not gone to, so I decided to stroll down that way.

I did not know what temple it was, but have subsequently found out it was the House of the Dragon King.

A long time ago, the people in the area needed rain.  So they decided to ask for help from a friendly dragon who lived in the Chang Jiang (Yangtze).

To create better relations with this dragon, they built him a nice house and remember him with a big statue and alot of donations.

Chinese dragons are benevolent.  They are associated with the ocean or bodies of water.  The Dragons can appear as a flying serpent or as a human.  They are associated with rain and water.

The Dragon king has two interesting horn like appendages protruding from his head. 

Chinese temples are especially fascinating because you have a mix and match approach.  Just inside the door was a wooden carving of the buddhist goddess of mercy, Guanyin.  Flanking her carving was another of a blissful buddha and a huge dragon.  

The Dragon God himself is basically a folk or Taoist pantheon god.

On the second floor of the temple, there is a statue of Shakyamuni buddha directly above where the statute of the Dragon King is on the second floor.  There were many examples of calligraphy and paintings on the second and third floors. There was an image of Guan Gong adjacent to the Buddha statue on the second floor.  Guan Gong is a historical general who is now revered as a sort of buddhist protector.  In the Jingzhou temple of Guan Gong, the monks or devotees had recorded chanting along the lines of mantra, revering Guan Gong's name.

China has a uniquely syncretic religious culture that allows the intermingling of religious images and meaning between what are completely distinct religious traditions.  This I find to be quite fascinating.

The house of the Dragon King has great views of the Han Jiang and Chang Jiang confluence.  

A nice place to take a look around, but certainly more for locals and devotees.  

 The front steps go down to the river.

 Great decorations on the outside of the temple.

 Buddha image on the second floor.  Directly over the statute of the Dragon King on the second first floor.

 View down the main staircase entering the temple.

 The confluence of the Chang Jiang and Han Piang rivers.

 The view from Hankou across to Wuchan.

 I believe this is an image of the Dragon King in his Dragon form.  My friend identified the name of the dragon, for whom the temple was built to be Nanhai.

 Another image of the wicked spear wiedling Guan Gong, protector of the buddhist faith.

 Looking down from the stairs to the statue of the Dragon King.  Not the odd horn like appendages protruding from his brow.

 Wood carving of Guanyin.  This carving was located just inside the main door of the temple.

 Great painting details through the outside.   I noticed one woman, hand washing above the sills of the windows on the outside of the temple.

Walking with a tiny white dog

Little puppy has helped me a lot.  He keeps me company and more importantly keeps me from spending too much time reading or snoozing.

I am not allowed to have a dog at my apartment.  Technically, I think I could get fired for having him there. It is hard to rationally explain why I would take on responsibilities for a small dog when it is not only alot of work but also potentially could get me kicked out of my housing.

Little puppy sort of got stuck in my mind.  I could not help but worry about him and his plight.  He is a sweet and gentle little creature and I could not bear the thought of him shivering to death in some wire cage on a dark night or getting crushed by a truck on some dusty road.  Images like that compelled me to undertake what is probably a foolish thing to do.  I know I am foolish, but I also feel alot richer for being a fool.

Currently, I only have him staying with me for two over nights a week.  The rest of the time he stays with my friend and her poodle.

Little puppy is a very very small dog.  He is under ten pounds and rather short for a Bichon.

I purchased a bag from a pet store big enough for him to sit in.  He can even turn around and stand up in it.  Despite getting antsy at times, he is very good at staying in it when I have to go into a store or sneak him past the guards.

The school campus that I live on is very large.  There are about 13 buildings.  My apartment building is strictly for teachers (foreign and Chinese).  I live on the 5th floor and there are only 3 other foreign teachers up there.

I have been taking Little puppy out to pee on the roof of the apartment building.  This might sound dangerous, except there is a four foot wall around the entire precipice of the roof.

I was concerned that I would be seen by the other teachers on my floor, or worse, the Chinese cleaning ladies.  However, since I work weird hours, I am often at home when everyone else is out working.

Puppy has enjoyed running around the open air 5th floor.  I am fairy confident he had some sort of training at one point, because he does wait to go outside rather than pee or poop inside.

He will only poop on the roof under dire circumstances.

During my two days a week with him I try to take him for good long walks.  This has consisted of walking him for about two hours straight each day.

I try to find suitable gardens where he can walk or run around.

He is not scared by crowds and has been well behaved with other dogs we have met.  He has even kept his cool around rather mean little dogs who have growled at us.

Yesterday, I walked him around a new way.  There is a nice golf course near the school, and I unsuccessfully found a way to walk around the course.  They are not as open to trespassers here.

We did find an odd little garden that looks like it was put together by a real estate developer.  It is a garden that is not close to any residential area or even commercial areas.  It was on the shores of a large pond (lake) that bordered some residential and shopping developments (as well as the golf course).

There were even a few settlements of squatters along the lake.  You find alot of quasi homeless people squatting in any vacant land they can find.  They often eke out a living farming in small plots and catching fish from any local water way they are convenient to.

Puppy has had some very good walks.  When I first found him, he had trouble jumping up on the couch or bed.  Now he leaps around like a crazed monkey.  When he is with my friends poodle he jumps, chases and generally harasses the poor older poodle.

My time in Wuhan

I have enjoyed Wuhan a lot.  The food here has been good, I have worked an average of under 10 hours a week, I have seen many historic sights, I met some interesting people, and the weather has been pretty good.

Since coming to Hubei last fall, I have been to four of the main cities in the province. I visited the mountain temples of Wudangshan.  I visited the medieval walled city of Jingzhou.  I visited a middle school in Yicheng (I guess I could not count this as a real visit because I did not see the three gorges dam or any of the local sights).  I visited Shiyan numerous times and found little puppy there.

I have had alot of Wuhan food, walked on the banks of the Yangtze River, went to museums here, visited the Huanghelou tower, visited the Guanyin temple here, and walked around a lot.

I met a variety of Wuhan Ren and learned alot about this area and the people here.  In addition to my own readings, I have learned alot about the issues in Hubei and China.  I know alot more about this country than I did before I came.

I hope to visit some more tourist spots.  I really want to swim across the Yangtze river, go to the temple to Laoshi, see some more sights, and maybe have one more big feed at a good restaurant here.

Chinese Bar-B-Q

Today I got back from the mountain town and met my friend for dinner. She is taking care of the puppy while I am away from Wuhan.

She enjoys Bar-B-Q. It is different from our idea of Bar-B-Q than what I am used to. I believe the style of cooking is from western provinces.

Chinese Bar-B-Q basically consists of taking fish, meat, potatos, Squid, and any meat you can put on a stick and then rubbing the skewered food with hot peppery spices.

I like it, but you need to be drinking beer to adequately enjoy it. My mouth actually started to hirt ot was so spicy.

I can only assume that this style of cooking comes from a Muslim are because it utilizes the ubiquitous islamic skewers.

People in Wuhan eat late and seem to like doing alot of things in the evening when it is cooler.  The cool ight is still very warm at around 85 F.

My friend and her sister gave the puppy a summer haircut.  He now has a close shave, which accentuates his very small size.  He was hapy to see me, but I think he prefers staying with my friend and her dog.  The puppy really enjoys playing with the older dog.

Attached are some pictures of the side walk restaurant.  The food was tasty, albeit very spicy.  The clientele cosited of som colege age boys who literally had drunk a couple of cases of beer.  Beer is weaker here, so it takes alot to get drunk.  They were well on their way.

I have been going to restaurants with my friend alot.  Lst week I saw the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion.  Movie theaters here usually have at least one film in english.

Little Puppy after a bath and a brush

He looks great.  It has been two weeks since I brought him back to Wuhan and he is doing very well.

Soup is good food

After being in Wuhan for about 6 months I have tried many dodgy foods.  I have eaten meat on a stick sold by central asian muslims listening to gay bath house techno music, frog legs served at an elegant eatery, liquid peas and corn served by the glass, duck tounges, turtle meat served at a baby's first month party, and a variety of other tidbits.

Among the tastiest of all foods I have found has been soup.  Chinese soup is delicious.

The soup I am talking about is not the hot and sour soup or egg drop soup.  I found a soup restaurant that serves excellent duck, pork and chicken soup.  It is a balm to all that ails you.

Soup has a certain restorative property that I have not found in any food type.  After a bowl of pork and seaweed soup at my local soup place, I felt my mind and spirit pop like a buoy upon the vast storm battered sea.

Soup, my gentle readers, is perfect soup.  If humans were birds, perhaps we would provide soup to our young to help them grow.  I suppose we already do, but in my mind I liken soup to the kind of food a mother bird regurgitates for its young.  Full of delicious taste and flavor.  Very nutritious and delicious.

I have gone to the soup restaurant several times with different people from my company.  One of the teachers said that he would not eat the meat and bones from the soup, but would take it to feed a dog, so the dog would get fat and taste good when he ate it.  He is a barrel of monkeys!

I enjoy the duck sou here because, so far, I have not removed a beak or head from my soup.  As you may recall, I have an uncanny habit of locating the chicken or duck head when I eat hot pot.

The soup is cooked in a huge vat, but in small separate clay pots.  At least this is what was explained to me, but in a difficult to understand way that left me wondering how they make the soup.

My favorite soup restaurant is managed by people from Jianxi province.  They are renowned for their soup.

The soup here has no asian flavor to speak of.  It tastes as good as the finest american soups I have tasted.

Soup is an international class of cuisine.

I like the soup with a bowl of rice dropped in.  The rice makes it great.

They also have other dishes.  One of my favorites is some kind of local tuber that is marinaded in liqour and spices.  It is then baked in a sauce and is breaded with something.

I have had distinctly Wuhan style soup which was very sweet and made with liquor.  It was tasty, but not as hearty and full of taste as the soups I had at my local soup restaurant.

Rescuing the little puppy

The rescue of the little puppy I found out in my mountain home was not very easy.

In China, it is not possible to take a pet on a train.  It may be possible to take a pet on an intra city bus, however, that is something that sounds too hellish to imagine.  There are "sleeper" buses that allow you to have a sort of bed space, but I can only imagine the chaos of an incontinent puppy on such a trip.

So, as I grew more and more committed to rescue of puppy, I started to think of ways of getting him back to Wuhan.  I thought about taking the train and of hiding him in a bag, and then locking myself in a bathroom until I got to Wuhan.  This would not work if someone noticed him during the pat down you get entering the train station.

The train was out, so I cast about trying to find someone to give me a ride.  I emailed a service that purports to handle moving of pets within China and around the world.  The person at that service quoted me a rate of 3,000 RMB for a one way drive.  

The trip is about 5.5 hours each way.  Hubei is a pretty big old province.  The driver would therefore have to travel 11 hours total.

3000 RMB is about 500.00.  This is ALOT in China.  

I ended up hiring a guy for 2,000 rmb.  That included gas.  However, this was also kind of a high rate.  I subsequently found out that the cost to hire a driver for 10 hours is about 500 rmb.  That is about 80 USD.

I figured that, with gas, I could have bargained my way down to maybe 1200 rmb.  

My driver seemed nice enough.  I had him meet me in the mountain town around the same time I was scheduled to take the train.  he drove up to my apartments at the school and away we went.

The puppy was pretty good in the car.  He is mouthy when he gets excited, and I really cannot train him while he sitting in a car, especially as I had no treats or toys handy.

The highways in China are pretty much up to standards of US highways.  The rest areas feel alot less hospitable than rest areas in the USA (imagine that if you can).

When we got to Wuhan, I asked the driver to stop by a local KFC.  He obliged and I paid him the 2000 rmb I had agreed to pay.

The girlfriend than told me that I had only paid 1900 rmb, and owed another 100 rmb.  WIthout question, I forked over another hundred and went into get something to eat.

Inside the KFC, I counted my money.  I was 100 rmb short.


Hmmmm.....

I grabbed my food and headed back to the car.  I berated them both for lying and stealing money.

I know that they knew they had done it because, after I laid into them, they did not say I was crazy or nuts.  They sat in stone silence.

When I got back to my apartment, the driver sheepishly asked me how much I owed him.  I crisply took my 100 rmb from him and said "good bye".  I could have explained that Auf Wiedersehen means "see you again", and that was why I was saying good bye, but I doubt he would have understood.

Not hiring those people again, I think.

The Puppy is now recuperating at my apartment and my friends house.

My friend has a 3 year old poodle female who has had puppies and has done a good job of training lil Puppy how to be a better dog.  Lil puppy has alot to learn.



As I got out of the car, the girls
On my way in, the girldfriend 

Trip to Jingzhou (Part 4)

Finally posting about Jingzhou.

In may last post, I discussed stumbling upon one of the best and tastiest dishes I have eaten lifetime.

After that, I still had to find a hotel.  I decided I would wander around and find a place.  I did not count on being a little spice and beer tipsy by this point.

I wandered back towards the east gate.  It was now late.  There were alot of people out, as it was the weekend before a national holiday (May Day).

I ended up buying too cheap bottles of wine after I made it out of the city gate.  I then hopped in a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel listed in my guide book.

The taxi driver was very nice and took me directly there, but the hotels were full or did not want a laowai waking in drenched in sweat and smelling of beer and crawfish.

Somehow, I managed to drop the two bottles of wine I bought directly in the middle of the street.  This was a wierd sort of offering to the unclean gods of this ancient and cool town.

I got another taxi, picked another hotel from my guide book and was whisked about 200 yards to adjacent street where the hotel was located.

No, far be it for me to suggest that my drinking was appropriate this evening, but after checking into the hotel (100 rmb for the night or 15.00 USD), I had a hankering for some wine.  What good boy wouldn't?

So I nipped out of the hotel and grabbed two more bottles of wine.  These cost about 10.00 USD a piece.

I then spent the rest of the evening and morning listening to songs on my iPad and dreaming of ancient Jingzhou outside my hotel.

I somehow managed to wake up before checkout, took a cold shower, stumbled down and out into the street.

The day before, I had purchased some oranges from a grocer.  It was afterdark, and he was playing checkers and smoking with his pal outside.  He greeted me profusely as I walked past, so I grabbed some oranges from him.

I was glad for the oranges.  The morning was quite warm.  By the time I left the hotel it was around 11:00 AM.

I traced my way to the city wall.  I wandered down very very narrow streets.

I could see the people I passed in their shops and houses in the same configuration as they have probably cohabited there in ages past.

Chickens, dogs, a all manner of professions; butchers, bakers, TV repairmen, advertising consultants, you name it, they all lined the streets of Jingzhous narrow lanes.

I found my way to the wall.  The gates were impressive.

I noticed what I believe are bullet holes along sections of the wall.  These holes were not on the exterior.  I would surmise that individuals were summarily lined up against the walls and shot.  Needless to say, the walls were impressive in alot of ways.

During the cultural revolution, there was a big push to obliterate historical landmarks.  The grand and ornate city wall that encircled Beijing was leveled.

There was a plan, at one point, to preserve 78 of the 8000 historical sites in Beijing.  Luckily this preservation system was not adhered to.

I walked along the side of the wall, and then found I could scale up the inside wall.  The stroll along the top of the wall was very quiet.  Very few fellow travelers.  I was accompanied by birds and ghosts.

I made it around to several towers and gates.  In one of the towers, I noticed laundry hanging.  Upon closer inspection, a guardian or custodian of the wall was inside the tower watching television on a tiny portable analog set with bunny ears.  He also had a hotplate.  Kind of an austere life, living in a centuries old fortification with the portable bunny ear TV and a hotplate.

I kept on my perambulation of the wall.  As I got further along, the wall got more and more overgrown.  It started to resemble a walk along a ledge in the woods.

I could look down to the moat surrounding the wall, and the farms that came right up to the moat.

Towards the north side, I went down and through a narrow gate and crossed into what had the distinct feeling of a medieval town.  I felt like I could blink and be in a fantasy RPG.

There was a christian church along a winding lane, barbers with chairs outside the wall offering shaves, ancient old men offering to predict your fortune, people selling pets and livestock, luggage sales people, a french bakery, a book shop, an optician, and hoards of sweating heaving humanity.

A young boy on a motorcycle made eye contact with me and started at me as he slowly outpaced me on the scooter and disappeared several hundred yards ahead around a corner.

Near one gate, I discovered a temple to Guan Gong.  Guan Gong is a sort of protector divinity.  He was a real person during the fabled three kingdoms period in China.

Guan Gong is venerated by Buddhists as a sort of protector and remover of obstacles.  There are many stories of him and his battles against other historical figures such as Cao Cao and others.

After I found the first temple to Guan Gong, I wandered around further and found a second temple to him.  At this temple, there were very large buddhist statutes.

Both temples also have a statute of Guan Gong's horse.  In one of them, there is a stone watering trough  so the statute can take a sip should he feel parched.

Guan Gong temple was attended by buddhist monks.  In one temple, there was a recording of worshippers chanting "Nam Guan Gong; Nam Guan Gong: Nam Guan Gong; Nam Guan Gong".  This is basically praising the name of Guan Gong.  "Nam" is a part of the word "Namaste", which means to bow before or give respect to.

A plaque describes how the Japanese obliterated the temple during WWII.  The first temple I visited had been rebuilt within the past ten years.

There were alot of miniature trees, sculpted, in pots all around the Guan Gong temple.

By the time I had made it around to the second Guan Gong temple, I was getting tired and needed to start thinking about getting back to Wuhan.  It was only 1.5 hours, but train seats are not assured during the holiday season.

Luckily, I passed a railway ticket agency.  You can buy tickets at the station, online, or at a convenient railway ticket agency.  I got a ticket and proceeded to acquire a new T shirt, because I was soaked with sweat and had neglected to take a very good shower during the morning of drunkenness.

I somehow walked all the way back out to the train station  It was a few kilometers.  I bought alot of water along the way.

I had an excellent trip and slept well when I made it back to my chambers in Wuhan.