A Thursday Luncheon in Emei City

Today we invited the Gap Guys to go with us to visit our good friends in Emei City. We also planned to have a special noodle lunch at a restaurant not far from our friends Chinese medicine store.


This is Xiao Ling, a Chinese medicine pharmacist who owns and operates a medical store in downtown Emei City. We met her our first week in Emei when Zoe took us downtown to shop for some essentials for our apartment on campus. Sunee happened to as Ms. Xiao Ling where the closest toilet was and she took Sunee to show her. An hour later they came back with lots of equipment and stuff Sunee had been looking for. Xiao Ling had literally taken her to the stores where they had the stuff we needed. Zoe and I spent the time relaxing in the medicine store and wondering if Sunee had been abducted. From then on we have been close friends with Xiao Ling and her husband, visiting them two or three times a week.

Xiao Ling takes us to the restaurant that served the Yunnan-style noodles. It was she who had introduced us to the restaurant in the first place. Here, John looks at the ingredients with a bit of reluctance.

Boiling hot broth is the main starting point and then the spices, meats and egg are added followed by the noodles. The stuff actually gets cooked right in front of you.


John carefully follows our lead and empties the ingredients into the broth.


Dave, never a reluctant participant in all things new, rapidly completes the task and finds time to smile for my camera over his obvious success.






John, slow at trying new things, takes his time in following the directions. He finally finishes the task and we all have these wonderful noodles for lunch.

Back at the medicine shop we meet Xiao Ling's husband who is his normal friendly and jovial self.

Although none but the Gap Guys could speak English, it was obvious that all were pleased to bring the Gap Guys into our community of friends in downtown Emei City.

After a bit of shopping at the newest department store, we stop for the obligatory ice cream. Sunee holds my bitter coffee bar in her right hand while I take a picture of the ugliest ice cream bar on the planet. The color was primer gray and was absolutely untantalizing. It was also barely edible as it was made of black sesame seeds. Yuck. One would think that a little food coloring would have gone a long way to stop the ugliness.

Another adventure, another great day in China.

Lunch at the Crouching Tiger Temple

Got a call for Weiyan to invite us up to Crouching Tiger (Fu Hu) Temple to have lunch with the Buddhist Nun. We were excited to go back to the temple to visit. This is our favorite place to go to relax and take pictures.

Lunch was pretty well ready when we arrived. We visited a little with Yan Miao (our Buddhist Nun friend) and the lunch was then prepared.


A good selection of vegetarian food was offered for lunch.



We were happy once more to be with our good friends on Emei Mountain.




Mr. Bogdan and Weiyan along with their friend from Beijing say their farewells to the nuns and we all go our separate ways after another great lunch on the mountain.


Sunee wanted to hang around for a while and take some pictures plus maybe go visit the 500 arhats and get a lucky number.


The trees inside the temple compound were full of flowers. Here Sunee admires this tree and its huge white blossoms.



The view of the temple, as always, was magnificent. How can not enjoy visiting such a place.


More beautiful flowers. It must be spring.

The little pagoda inside the temple is always a good place to take pictures.

Flowers that look like giant buttons also make great pictures for spring.


This is the statue of the arhat I ended up with. I chose an arhat at random (#350) then added my age (62 but not quite) to 350 and got 412. Unfortunately the guy who handed out the number sheets was not available. Maybe next time.

Lakeside Luncheon

Saturday I attended a party for the Gap Guys given by my Sophomore Class 2. Some of us took a van while the others rode rented bikes out to a lake about twenty minutes or so from the campus. We were all going to hang out, play cards and mahjong and have lunch by the lake. The weather was a bit chilly but that did not stop us from having a good time.

Ann trains Jon in the subtle fineries of Mahjong. Not sure if he ever mastered the game but I do know he spent a lot of time trying.

A camera appears and Sunny will always do her bunny impersonation. The Sunny Bunny is what I call it.

Many of the students and the Gap Guys road their bikes around the lake. Here is Roy after her excursion around the lake. She did not appear to be tired.

I spent about an hour training these future card sharks how to play poker. We, of course, were only playing "for peanuts."

Here we have the Gap Guys in there intensive training course of Mahjong. Never did ask the final outcome.

Noon and it is time for lunch. And what a wonderful lunch it was!

As the lunch waxed and waned, students would stop by to get their pictures taken. Here we have Flora (she did not like us so she transferred to a different department last year) and Bella posing for their picture.

Discussions, discussions and more discussions. All in English, of course.


Hanging out by the lake

Lunch is almost ready!

Great lunch.

Turned out to be a great lakeside party. Lots of cards. Lots of mahjong and lots of food. What can I say about Sophomore Class 2 but another excellent example of why they are NUMBER ONE.

Christmas Eve Dinner Party

We were invited to join Dean Harold Jiang and Zoe and the foreign teachers at a Christmas Eve dinner to celebrate Christmas. We went with Dr. Robert, his wife Jean, and Tom to the restaurant. We were told the restaurant was the AI Lai which seemed to be the same that we had celebrated Thanksgiving. Rober, however, got a little lost so we were about half an hour or so late to the restaurant.

Unfortunately, Sunee and I were also invited to the English Corner organization Christmas Eve party as well. I wrote a poem for that party and now it looked like we would probably miss that party. This party with Dean Jiang was obviously our priority.

This turned out to be the same restaurant that we had celebrated November and Thanksgiving. It is a nice restaurant.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Sunee.

Also Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Tom as well.

Tom here takes the opportunity to wish the greeter a Merry Christmas as well. it is Christmas Eve!

Dean Jiang and Zoe (she actually met us on the street to show us where the place was) greeted us in our own private dining room. The room was nice as it was before.


We started the meal with appetizers such as this hot peanut Sichuan style. The peanuts were great.

Hot noodles that were Sichuan hot. Very good.

Jean and Zoe having a wonderful time early on during the dinner.

Appetizer of pickled radishes.

Specially prepared fish sticks. These were absolutely marvelous. So good that we ordered another round.

We also got some Chinese spare ribs that were really good.

This was one of the hottest dishes of the lot. These are big noodles in Sichuan hot sauce. For Sunee and I it was almost too hot to eat.

This turned out to be one of the best dishes we have eaten in Emei City. This is shrimp on cellophane noodles in a wonderfully complex sauce. It did not last long.

Here Tom continues to celebrate Christmas Eve.