And we have been since Sunday, July 25th.  What?  Already?  What happened to going to  Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, and Shangri-la?  After bumming it out in Yangshuo for a week, we decided it was a good time to make our way back to Linyi.  Money was a little bit of an issue, as I thought it would be.  Plane tickets just cost too much.  And we spent too much here and there . . . I mean, it was our vacation!  Plane tickets are relatively cheap in China if you compare them to American standards, but when you are not making an American salary, it hurts to cough up so much of your hard(haha) earned cash.

Hrm . . . where to start with my 900 some pictures?  Since we are on the subject of money, how about we take a look at how much we had before we took off, and compare it to how much we have left over after bouncing around the country for 20 days?

What does a person do with 22,200 yuan in cash?  I’ll show you.  🙂

Pretty amazing, isn’t?  Here is a few more shots.

And, well, I couldn’t just let it sit there and look pretty, now could I?  Nope.

I had to lay on it.  It is everyone’s dream, right?  And it couldn’t just end there.  Nope.  My dream wasn’t quite fulfilled.

Money may be the root of all evil, but damn if it doesn’t make you happy as hell.  And what became of our money, you ask?  How much of it still remains?  Can I still roll around in glee?  Hardly.  I’ve got a picture of that, too.

Just enough to pay the ferry to cross the river of Styx.  🙂  Actually, I doubt that is enough.  I don’t know how many jiaos equal a copper coin, so I may be short.  Drat.  And for those of you who don’t know, a jiao is one-tenth of a yuan, and approximately 6.8 yuan equals one US dollar.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I have something like 900 pictures from my trip, as well as many others that I have never posted.  I still have a month left of vacation, so I am bound to have time to post them.  However, every time I sat down to right this particular post, my phone, both Chinese and Skype, rang and I was summoned or distracted.  It took me two days to get it done.  I decided to stay up later than usual tonight so that I could at least have something for my undying fans to read and enjoy(haha).  I have some errands to run tomorrow.  Phil and I met some new teachers, and they need help in finding a decent, but cheap computer.  So, no promises about how soon the next entry will appear.

My next entry may not even be China related.  I really need to post about something else – something that will probably open up my emotional flood gates again, but it’s something I feel needs to be done.  My baby Countess and Quantum deserve it.

Well, almost.  We leave tomorrow morning at 9:45 am by plane to Shanghai.  Our bags are all packed, except for a few odds and ends that we will need tomorrow morning.  We are both really excited. This will be a fun trip.  It has been a while since either one of us has been on a vacation, especially one this long.  I just really hope that our funds take us as far as we hope they do. I’ll try to post updates along the way, but that will depend on two main things: an internet connection and my desire to blog.  🙂  If anything, I’ll post something when I get back, whenever that may be.  Have a great summer, y’all, and happy belated 4th of July!

I am now two days into my two month long vacation, and I must say, it’s nice.  So far, I haven’t left our room.  All I have been doing is watching American TV shows and trying to kill people in Battlefield 2142.  So far, I am the only one getting killed.  It is a fun game, but when the people you are playing with play non-stop, they tend to be better than you. Much better.  I have spawned and died so many times that I have lost count.

Phil and I are trying not to spend much money until we leave, since we only have some much money to play with.  I have no idea how far our savings are going to take us.  As long as I get to see at least one new city/place that I haven’t seen before, I’ll be happy.

I recently finished the last book that I brought with me – Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule.  About half way through it, I figured that I needed to order some new books so there wouldn’t be any down time between books.  I looked into having my mother send me some and I also checked out Amazon, but both had their pitfalls.  The cost of my mom buying the books and sending them was little pricey and Amazon only ships certain items overseas.  Phil did some research and found a really awesome website for me.  It is called The Book Depository.  It is a company located in the UK and they have a huge collection of books.  They ship books worldwide and shipping is free.  I was a little wary at first, but about two weeks after I placed my order, all four of my books showed up.  I’m not sure why, but they were all individually wrapped.  I highly recommend them if you are living in a small city in some strange country and you can’t get your hands on any good books in your own language.  Now I will have plenty of books to read as I sit on many planes, buses and trains!

A friend of ours here is taking off to Beijing for a job on Saturday, so on Wednesday, we all got together for dinner and massages.  Phil decided not go with us to get the massages because he hates them.  He says it tickles too much.  I think he is crazy.  Massages are great, especially $14 massages.  In my opinion, he’s missing out.  I didn’t get the same procedure that Phil got the last time we went, but I did get the ba guan on my feet.  When you get the standard massage, they ask you if you want the glass cups on your feet. I have had it done several times now, but the first time was pretty intense.  It felt like my soul was being sucked out through the bottoms of my feet.  Now I am used to it, and it sorta feels good, especially when they release the suction and rub your feet.

Here is a picture . . .

That is all for now.  I will try and put a few more posts up before I leave.  There are a lot more pictures I haven’t shared yet.