We had breakfast at Salween. Dawid and Oliver were craving for the vegetable omelette and toast. I on the otherhand had tom kha gai with rice. We love the organic coffee, so we enjoyed that over breakfast.
I navigated the way to the Chinese village. I must admit that moving around Mae Hong Son is rather easy. There are signs everywhere so it is quite hard to get lost - also, their roads are pretty much straight all the way. We made a stop at Ban Rak Thai because we saw a herd of bulls eating away in the tea plantation fields. They had bells around their necks and as they ate, the bells rattled. There was one bull in particular that was caught dazed, he was the only one that posed for the camera (well, we like to think that he did). It started to drizzle, so we continued along the winding road.
We arrived at the Chinese Village just in time to hide from the now, depressing heavy rain. It was getting rather nippy and sampling the different teas was measured at perfect timing. I describe Mae Aw (the original name of the village) as wine tasting, but with oolongs and tie guan yins instead of reds and whites. Walking through the village, you can step into any of the dozen of tea shops and sample the teas on offer; tasting the differences between morning tea, emperor's tea and jasmine tea. It was served a little different this time - once brewed, the tea was poured into a long porcelain shot glass and then flipped over - quickly, to avoid spilling the tea - for drinking. Interesting! The lady even told us to smell the aroma of the tea from the shot glass - the oolongs yields a more sweet, rich and flowery taste. Although we had breakfast not too long ago, it's impossible to leave the Chinese village without trying an authentic bowl of Chinese noodles. Dawid and Oliver enjoyed. I also introduced the yellow tofu salad to them in which they were super curious about. Soon after our brunch, we walked around the village to take some photos. I had an early class today so we had to be back before 1pm.
Subjects today were distinguishing the differences with 'at, around, before, after' when we are referring to time. After many exercises, the class got the drift of it and were able to tell the time using those words. We also looked at expressions, reading it with different tones. For example, Oh! Oh? Oh. We also touched on 'do' and 'does'. We did exercises on filling in the blanks and the class did really well. They had already studied previously and had mastered all the examples I gave them.
Met with Oliver and Dawid and we chose a random restaurant down the road to have lunch. We all devoured into a plate of pad thai each.
Our 5:30pm started off with Dawid teaching more grammar. Dawid loves teaching it and teaches it extremely well. I took on the second half of the class and challenged them with tongue twisters. We looked at the 'S', 'P', 'TH' and 'C' tongue twisters. It was fun.
We have a dinner date with Jes and Lamai - it's Dawid's and my farewell dinner. We are leaving next Thursday and will not be seeing Lamai before then. This was the only opportunity. Dinner was at Fern Restaurant again. Jes and Lamai were busy hosting a group of American religious group. We had a joint dinner with them but sat at our own table in a private function room. The watermelon shakes are so tasty in Thailand. We had a banquet dinner once again, this time trying new different dishes - Fern Restaurant serves an awesome food. I am really going to miss Mae Hong Son.
Jes and Lamai organised entertainment for the night - Shan Traditional dancing. It was very amusing and I am amazed by the talent these Shan people have. There was a story behind the dancing but it was quite hard for us to understand as we are not very familiar with the Shan customs and cultures. The dance choreography and moves were very unique and definitely interesting to watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment