Day 210: Rainy Morning of School — Sunny Afternoon Out at Lijiang Studios — Roast Pig on a Spit!
What a treat to wake up to a cozy, rainy morning with nowhere to be. The kids slept til 8:30!!
At breakfast we befriended a Canadian couple who’ve lived in Beijing for the last 15 years as professors at Peking University. Their kids are grown now but spent their childhoods traveling on sabbaticals all over the world, so it was fun to hear their experiences and swap stories.
Our little hotel has a sweet lofted room for kids over the reception desk filled with books and games and toys. Our kids have loved camping out up there with books. They headed there after breakfast. There’s a two-year-old Chinese baby staying at the hotel who also likes it up there, and the kids have had fun playing with her.
After a while we did school, then had lunch in our hotel. SO lazy, but we didn’t care. Rainy and luxurious to have all this leisure time.
By about 3 the sun had come out and we made the trek back out to Lijiang Studios. The hotel staff walked us out to the road and the same taxi driver from yesterday was there waiting — when he saw us he started laughing an “oh shit” laugh because we’d subjected him to so much traffic yesterday.
This time though we had a plan — drop us off before the traffic, we’d walk the stretch of road that had the jam, then Jay would pick us up on the other side, where traffic wasn’t bad. It worked!
We arrived just in time for a 4 pm capoeira “workshop” at the village community center. One of Jay’s guests at the studio this week is a Brazilian computer engineer who lives in Shanghai with his dancer wife and two-year-old son. He teaches capoeira — the Afro-Brazilian martial art/dance — and while in town he’s been inviting whomever every afternoon at the makeshift village community center to come learn a few moves.
Why not! Since there were so many kids, the class eventually veered to them, and they had a blast.
The locals weren’t sure what to think. None participated.
After the class Willa, James and Alfie — a 7-year-old British boy staying at the studio with his mother for a few weeks — jumped into a pickup game of soccer with some local boys that lasted about half an hour. Afterward we wandered back down the road to the farm.
Willa has such a big crush on Alfie.
He’s absolutely darling, so we get it. Overheard as they walked back to the studio:
W: Do you have anything you’re practicing to get good at? I’m working on being able to do the splits.
A: I’m learning guitar!
W: Do you like to get dirty? I do. My brother hates it though. If you poured brown water all over his hands he would, like, freak out.
(Alfie said he was more in Willa’s camp)
W: My brother makes the cutest faces. Like this one. And this one.
A: So you’re basically just hypnotized by his cuteness all day long?
Once back we checked out the apple orchard. I juggled!
We gathered some apples to feed to the horses. Alfie showed us the way to the farm animals — a few pigs, some chickens, a duck and a black horse in a courtyard. We used our horse-feeding skills from Corsica to feed this friend.
Dinner was soon. Pig on a spit! I wasn’t sure how the kids would react to this…but they were pretty nonplussed.
Not only that, when it came time to sit for dinner, they led a chant of “More pig! More pig!” Okaaaaay.
Willa ate three servings of the pork. James loved it too, though didn’t devour quite as much.
I have to admit it was delicious. Served with rice, snap peas, chili sauce, lentils and a celery cousin.
The kids ate with other kids and we were joined at our table by Jay, Alfie’s mom Anna and by Grandfather, the patriarch of the farmhouse, and his son (and friend?). Rounds of firewater for everyone.
To avoid traffic on the way back, Jay found us a local guy to drive us to the hotel. Jay deposited us by the side of the road near the highway where we awaited a blue minivan. While we waited the kids tried their capoeira moves and we watched a few random horses saunter out to the middle of the off ramp to munch on fruit that had fallen off a truck.
About 10 minutes later our guy showed up and he took us back to town….
