Woke up early this morning as we had arranged to have a Tai Chi master instruct us in the morning on how to do tai chi. Just to let you all know, i felt no ill affects from the interesting quisine we had yesterday!!
The master picked us up form outside the hotel at 8 and we walked through the back streets to the river where we are going to do our activity!! He started by explaining exactly what Tai Chi is; it is the gathering the energy 'Ti' into your body then the release of it 'Chi' he then demonstrated to us the start position and then it was our turn... we all attempted to do exactly... but it looked funny - a group of western tourists trying to do Tai Chi for the first time. Which is exactly what it was, and the group of chinese watching us were thoroughly enjoying themselves!!
We worked our way one by one througt the 20 or so poses of that type of Tai Chi, we had a rest then went through the whole thing, the master in the front and us all trying to copy him, or at lest i was... After that attempt we asked the master to show us some of the other types of Tai Chi and he did that by showing us two other types, one was more explosive and the other was really gracful. After the display we then tried our sequence again. it was much better this time as most of us were now able to do the movements without keeping a constant eye of the master. As well as being able to do more of the ballances and harder moves.
Once the Tai Chi was finishes Jen, Stine and I had to hurry to get to our chinese cooking class on time. We were to meet at 9.30 and we got there in time. The main cheff was there to meet us and gave us a menu and we were able to choose what three dishes we were going to make. I chose the chicken and cashew, meat dumplings and an eggpland and mince dish.
Once the dishes were chosen we went to the local farmers market where we bought some of the ingredients, the others we bought by someone else from the restruant. We also had a wander around the vegg market then went to the meat market where we saw the normal stuff like beef, fish, mutton etc and the more unusual like rat, brain, froggs, snakes (saw a couple snakes trying to make and escape!!) etc and tucked away in a corner was a skinned and gutted... was dog hanging next to a lamb, they both sort of looked the same. Looking further into the stall i saw a big kennel with about 8 more live dogs... I dont think i could ever eat dog... they looked so helpless and then there was this dead and skinned dog hanging outside...
Got back to the restruant where we started to cook our food!! started by preparing all of the ingredients to each of the individual dishes. Slicing, crushing and more cutting, with all of the separate ingredients placed around a plate separetly so they could be put into the wok at the correct time easily. we prepaired the dumplings after the other ingredients were done so they could be stamed whial we were cooking the rest! two scoops of oil went into the wok after it had been heated before the ingrediants went in and we had the flame at the right temp. It was a constant process and the cheg told us when to put each of the ingedients in and when to change the temp.
The first dish we made was the eggplant and mince. Agter it was done chopsticks were handed around and we sampled it before starting on the chincken and cashews. Mine tasted so good hope i will be able to make it again as good!! Started with the chicken and cashews, again putting in another two ladels of the oil. again a intence process of getting it right. Once finished we carried our dishes down into the main dining room of the resturant where we had eaten last night.
Now i usually have a great ballance, i can stand on ice, walk across it and not fall down and the same on slippery surfaces, you can probably guess what happened next after what i jyst wrote.... Yes i did slip and both of the dishes i had just made went everywhere!! on me, the floor, and the restruant now has a new wallpaper!!! It didn't hurt that much as i just fell on my bum.... untill i realised that i had fallen on my camera which was in my back pocket.
We all know what i missed more... the food of course!! the chef that cooked with us gave me the food that she made, i truthfully say that my eggplant was better than hers, it had so much flavour and was less greasy! The camera screen was messed up and it wouldnt turn on. But i did check and the memory card did work so all of my pictures were saved!
After lunch was finished we went back to the hotel. I called my parents about if they would finance my new camera, after doing some price checking and looking for the best priced Canon camera they agreed on one. I then looking for george and asked if he would cpme with me. He did and he talked to the shop keepers and was able to get a better price for the camera. Even better, thanks george!! So i now have a new camera and i can continue my extencive photographing of the countryside.
Got back to the hotel for 5 where we got into a bus that took us to the train station where we got onto another overnight train at Guilin going to Yichang!!
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