On the road to Shennongjia

We are headed to Shennongjia, a forest preservation area that is famous for being relatively unexplored and undeveloped. It's also famous for some Bigfoot legends.


Outside of the cities, China's countryside is quite lovely. These yellow flowers are currently in bloom. You see pastures and pastures of this stuff making for lovely kodak moments. Unfortunately, the rain seems to be travelling with me as well. Hoping for clear weather tomorrow, our second day of the two day drive from Wuhan to Shennongjia.


Along the way, we have naturally been stopping for good eats. There were so, so, so many fantastic dishes at today's upscale lunch spot. I won't be uploading it all at the moment but for now I bring you this: fried scorpions with peppers! Look closely and you can see the little scorpion bodies. Verdict: Crunchy and perfect spiciness! Like delicious miniature, fried soft-shelled crabs! Yum!

I really have nothing against eating insects--especially when fried. It's the various kidneys and livers that I have no interest in trying.


Chinese are making their own red wines! This one tastes like two buck chuck... and note: "Constantly drinking this wine is good to your health".


Playing some mah jong on a sweet automatic mah jong shuffling table. The game is fun but shuffling takes for freaking ever. This table is GENIUS!

And that's it for tonight's update from the only star-rated hotel for miles around in some small village in the middle o' nowhere. So long internet! (Incidentally, this hotel's toilets are excellent and the seats are even heated! I must pay patronage to that sweet bucket now. Oh heavens the toilet issue has been magnified 10-fold from South America. It's a rare opportunity to have one like this available!)