Last night I swam in a pool with water from a natural hot spring. It was so relaxing, although not too different from a hot tub, only the water smells funky. The shower water was also natural hot spring water - so hot! a tip for those who want to swim in hot springs - do it at night when it's raining lightly! That way its not so hot and the top of your body gets a light cold shower :)

I've been eating mostly Dai food for the past few days. It's sort of like Thai food, which I don't particularly enjoy. 

I was able to ask my Aunt here to help me with my research. There are some migrant workers from SiChuan that work in the market she manages. My Uncle works in the Business Regulation Department. Together, they have been able to help me find migrant workers. I'm glad that I'm able to get things done while playing. But worrying about my research really makes playing quite not as fun because I'm always thinking about other things. 

Today I went to a place with lots of monkeys and flowers. It was across the Lancang river so we had to ride a aircar across. The monkeys were soo cute! Especially the ones that had babies. There was one exhibit where we could even feed the monkeys - I threw bananas down and they were standing on poles and able to catch and balance! One monkey had a very very loud yell - You could hear it from the other side of the river. I also started a flower collection - I picked lots of wild plants that are native to Banna. Picking flowers really makes you more observant of your surroundings.

After lunch I went to a flower garden featuring endemic plants. The best time to go to a garden is right after it rains - you know why? You can pick up the flowers that dropped on the ground and they look perfect! Just like they were on the trees. The only problem is you have to wait a while for them to dry before you press them. We picked a lot of jidanhua - or egg flowers - because they are white on the outside and yellow on the inside. We cooked these for dinner! But it was pretty bitter. I also finished pressing my flowers and put them under a huge bag of rice - I hope that tomorrow they will be ready!

Now I am just teaching my cousin how to use MSN messenger - which ichat does not support - which is annoying.

Sigh - and also, I thought I would get a ticket to go watch men's gymanstics finals (which would be soo amazing) but I didnt :( so now im just trying to get any ticket I can. They are so expensive, 200-600$!!