Last of Langmusi

On our last day in Langmusi, we decided to head out of town towards a canyon visible from town. We passed by caves where the towns water source originates. Although most of the hills nearby were denuded, these hills sides forested. I wondered why. We were told that In Jiuzhaigou, the trees are often stolen from the park illegally, but when I asked the assistant director if the park had considered trying to quantify the takings, he said it never happened (although it obviously does). I was excited to see trees, they were spruce and fir of some sort. For me, it was torturesome not to be able to know the species of the trees. It was another snowing day, the snow was coming down horse feather size eventually being flap jack style. As we walked thru the canyon, we saw many raptors over head and scared up mulitiple aisan pheasants. The snow was coming down so hard that we didn't have much visibility but we could hear thunder. When we heard a good crackle that made both of us jump, we decided it was a good time to turn around. Back in Langmusi, Emily and I found the grocery store where we could get our favorite local tea (eight treasures or ba bow) tea. I kept goofing and calling it eight pleasures. I'm convinced this is because before I left I was reading a park weed plan that quoted the Organic Act, saying that Yellowstone was a "pleasuring ground" and the Chinese parks had many signs that said "pleasure ground" on it. We bought our pre made packs of eight treasures (ba bao) tea and did some sourvenier shopping. I decided that I really wanted a cup of coffee and was lured in by a sign advertising good coffee. OK, how many people KNOW without even going to China that in the land of tea it is silly to think you are going to get a good cup of coffee, even if the sign does advertise that they have good coffee? Yeah well, I had in my mind that this good coffee existed so Emily and I went up a flight of stairs that was really a ladder to the second floor where I ordered coffee. The instant coffee that I had paid 5Y for was better than what I got here. It was half sugar and a little coffee with water. Emily, who does not like coffee, enjoyed it more than I did. However, the shop was great for people watching and we watched what we were sure was the Chinese mafia walk thru town. Finally we pulled ourselves away from the cafe for street wandering. Langmusi is small (2000 people) so all the owner of Leishas that served a meaned Yak burger waved at us mulitiple times as we sashayed up and down the streets.