adventures in china

So when I was maybe 9 years old or so I bought a “chubby frog” from Aquarius pet store in Monona. This thing was cool. He sat in a little mud hole all day long, popping out to snag any small insect I threw into his 10 gallon aquarium. One night I woke up to a scream. My chubby frog had escaped, climbed out of his covered cage, under my room door, down the stairs, over carpeted floors, and ended up in my parents bedroom (mom, do you remember this?) He died some years later, but I was always impressed that this seemingly inactive brown blob made it through our entire house in one night.

Now I see them everyday. They’re everywhere, and they don’t just sit in little mud holes. I’ve found them in trees, swimming in water, on plant leaves a meter off the ground, and also in the mud. Here is one I found on a path in the rainforest the other week -

and a few other Microhylids, pretty much miniature versions of the above.

This is my new pet mantis. Help me name it (What was aunt Jane/Conner’s mantis called?)

The day my stuff got stolen, Jocelyn pointed out this mantis crawling next to her door. I ran back to my room to get a bag to collect it with, but by the time I had returned the mantis had flown three stories down to the ground below and couldn’t be found. Yesterday, I spotted this guy crawling up the second story of the dorms, perhaps trying to make it’s way back up to Jocelyn’s room?

Now it lives in a jar by my bed and I feed it bugs.

Contrary to what people call it, the bird and flower market in Kunming does not sell birds or flowers. Perhaps it used have birds and flowers. Now it is a partly-open air market full of tropical fish and spectacular (some of the best I have ever seen) aquariums. There was no algae in sight. No dead fish piled on the gravel below the ones for sale. Everything was clean and healthy. Even the plants were perfect – pruned so that the angle of their leaves balanced the shape of the driftwood they grew on.

On the walk home from the bird and flower market we stopped at the puppy and kitty market. Less incredible, more cute, slightly disturbing.

Sometimes I find myself ignoring common sense, doing the opposite of what I know to be responsible. Like buying a bunch of monkey frogs (Phyllomedusa tomopterna) only weeks before going to China for 4 months. They arrived on Tuesday, in a box marked “Live Perishable Tropical Fish”. The FedEx carrier handed me the package sideways, with the red arrow pointing towards her instead of up. The frogs were okay though, slightly jostled, ready to leave their deli cups. When I return in October they won’t look so delicate, but for now these nickel-sized froglets appear frail, walking on angel hair legs. They don’t jump or hop, but creep, cautiously gripping vines with their fingers like miniature drugged lemurs.