Finally, a little vacation. I haven’t been anywhere really since I got back from China.

As long as the weather gods are nice to us, Phil and I should enjoy a lovely weekend.  First we are going to take in a long over due Atlanta Braves game.  I haven’t been to one since Mother’s Day 2005.  At least, I think that was the last time I was able to go.  Since the game is on July 4th, we will get treated to fireworks after the game.  I know it won’t even hold a flame to the fireworks I saw in Hangzhou, but I’m sure they will be pretty nonetheless.  You can click here if you want to see what I am talking about.  Even that video doesn’t do the display justice.  I wish those buildings hadn’t been in the way, though.

I really hope the Braves can pull off a win for me. They haven’t had the best season so far, so I am not going to hold my breath or anything.  There is still a chance that they could go on an impressive winning streak and take back their division.  That would be nice. Perhaps my presence will spark a season turn around or something.  🙂

On Saturday, we are going to head over to Stone Mountain.  We are going to get the Adventure Pass for $25 bucks.  It will allow us to do just about everything that the park offers. I’ve been to Stone Mountain several times, but the only thing I can remember doing is taking the tram, climbing the mountain, and watching the laser light show. There is a lot more to do now, inculding this thing called Sky Hike.  It looks like a lot of fun.

On Sunday, we are going to China Town.  There are a lot of China shops in Columbia, but not like there is in Atlanta.  We’ll stock up on all the goodies we haven’t had in a long time, and then come back home.  I’m really excited.  This weekend should be fun.

I was looking through some of the videos of my past visits to Turner Field, and I found this one.  90 feet is a lot longer than it looks like on TV.  And yes, I was the only one over 10 participating.  🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdMqkKaLdp8[/youtube]

I went to Lisbon, Portugal for a week in 2004. While I was there, I had a nice dinner in a wine cellar. All the lights had gone out in the place, so we had to eat mostly by candle light. You can see the flickering lights in the video.

The women is singing Fado, a Portuguese song that is supposed to express the nostalgia felt while missing someone.

I wish I had a better camera at the time, so you could have seen the girl better, but I guess the important part is the sound.

I’m mad at myself that I didn’t take more pictures when I visited Lisbon, but at least I was smart of enough to catch this on video. I really like the sound. It’s sorta like opera, you don’t have to understand what she is saying to get it – you can feel it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewqlHevGhIE[/youtube]

I’ve written about the paper making village I visited while I lived in Fuyang, China, before, but I never put up the videos. You can see those posts about the village here, here, and here(but the slide show died – sorry).

Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0mrD80MelA[/youtube]

Here we have step one.  My voice over should cover all the bases.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goD2PdHFlBo[/youtube]

Here we have part two. They take the smashed bits of paper and throw it into the water to be filtered out one sheet at a time. I wonder how much those guys get paid.  Surely, not enough.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCEKbDIa3Bk[/youtube]

Here we have part three.  After they have made the sheets, they have to dry them.  They put them up on a very hot surface and “iron” them until they are dry.  Later, they cut it and then either paint on it or turn it into books. Pretty interesting process.

In an email, a fellow blogger, Reg (AKA Dogbait), mentioned a place that I haven’t thought of in a good long while. This place was the Outer Banks. I went there the summer before I started my freshman year at the University of South Carolina – if my memory servers me correctly. It seemed like a good place to go camping, so me and few of my friends packed up the essentials and off we went. Below is the account of that camping trip. It is one, if not the first, paper I wrote in college. So, if you hate it, blame it on my lack of experience or something. Reading back through it, I noticed I left out that I got pink eye in the end and that while standing on a really big sand dune that eats cities, we got chased by a wall of water. It was a rapidly moving thunderstorm. Apparently, it was moving faster than we were because we all got drenched.

Well, I better get to bed. I start work tomorrow, and I want to be bright eyed and bushy tailed. I’ll fill you in on the happenings of my first day soon.

The Camping Trip From Hell

Waking up at 5:00 A.M. is not easy, especially when the back up alarm is a schizoid cat, who is eager to eat. At the time it seemed that those problems were going to be the worst part of the trip, but in truth, it was only the beginning and trivial compared to what I would endure. So, promptly after my alarm clock went off, and my cat pounced on my face, I rolled out of bed and stumbled down the hallway. My bags had already been packed the night before, so all I had to do was throw on some comfortable clothes and wait for my ride. Right on time, a red Lumina pulled up into my driveway and I attempted to cram myself where Jonathan, Mandy, and Yanni already hogged the space of the crowded car. Seconds later, my camping trip to Nags Head, North Carolina began.

Over the eight-hour course of our journey we all took a turn at the wheel and only stopped occasionally for gas, a quick snack and a bathroom break. Although the drive was long, it seemed to pass somewhat quickly, and before I knew it we had arrived in a town I had only heard of. It was beautiful outside. Classic white puffy clouds were spread over the bright blue sky. It was almost picture perfect day until the wind started. This was no casual breeze. Instead, it was quick, harsh, and almost seemed to find pleasure in blowing our tents down the beach. Frantically, we all tried to catch our tents and find a way to keep the tied to the ground, but the loose sand prevented any progress. It took all our bags of clothes, boxes of food and lots of sand to keep them weighted down, but still the wind taunted us.

The rest of our first day was spent driving around town, walking the beach, and attempting to find a restaurant we could all agree on. We concluded our day learning about the stars at Jockey’s Ridge. Although dark clouds had begun to move in and the wind had increased the park ranger nevertheless continued his lecture on the stars above.

“Now if you place you hand up against the sky you can tell the distance between certain stars,” the park ranger said through the roar of the wind. As Jonathan, Mandy, Yanni and I lifted our hands toward the sky, we were able to observe the lightening in the distance. This prompted us to abandon the amateur astrology class immediately and run to our car. We quickly sped back to our campsite as the gloomy clouds crept closer. As we approached our tents, the headlights of the car allowed us a quick view of the destruction. It was obviously fate – the wind had won. Thankfully, the tents were still there, but just blown over.

We fought the wind for sometime until each tent stood proud. The race to beat the rain was victorious. Every item was strategically placed to avoid moisture and to support the frame of each tent. Exhausted, it was time for some much needed sleep. As our heads hit our pillows, the wind instantly began to lessen and the threatening thunder clouds crept back out to sea. All work put forth into preparing for a horrible storm was almost pointless. As we drifted off to sleep, the sky opened up with millions of stars and the cool summer night was at a rare desirable temperature.

The next morning we all woke up to a beautiful day and decided to drive down to Hatteras. It is rumored that the best waves are there and that people from all over the world travel to Hatteras just to get a thrill of a lifetime. So, after a speedy cold shower, the four of us piled back into the Lumina for another afternoon drive. About an hour later, we reached our destination and by the looks of it, so had everyone elses. It was a short stretch of beach crammed with families and several experienced surfers. Once we found a place to lay our stuff, we joined the numerous people in the untamed waters of the Atlantic.

The surf was rough, and I was constantly fighting to hold my own against the current. Jonathan and Yanni had gone out further to catch larger waves while Mandy was sun bathing on the beach. It seemed to me that the harder I tried to swim back to the shore, the stronger the force became, pulling me closer to the pillars of a rundown dock. At first, I was not worried. I believed that I could fight my way back to a point where my feed could touch ground, but even when they did, I was still being dragged out to sea.

“Jonathan! Yanni! I need your help!” I yelled as I gulped sea water. “Jonathan!” I began to panic as I was pulled even closer to the dock. My legs were getting tired and my stomach churned with fear.

“Swim parallel,” Jonathan said. Moments before I collided with the jagged dock, Jonathan put his arms around my waist and attempted to haul me in. “If you kick, the current will take us both out. Get a hold of yourself.” Just as Jonathan and I reached land, I could see the lifeguards walking our way.

“We were about to come get you, but we saw the you were okay,” one of the lifeguards said. I simply nodded my head, and went to sleep on my towel. When I woke about and hour later, Mandy pointed out a nearby storm that looked like it was not going to pass. Just as we got in the car and started back to our campsite, the rain began to fall, gently at first, and then in angry bursts. By the time we made it back to our tents, a river had formed under them. We sent Yanni to inspect and he returned with a solemn face.

“Everything is water logged,” he said. In an attempt to wait out the storm, we drove toward downtown Nags Head only to find the whole island was in a blackout. All of tehe businesses were closed and traffic was backed up for miles. Listening to a radio broadcast we found out that flash floods were either imminent or occurring and that anyone is low lying areas should evacuate. The first thing to pop into our minds was that our tents were bound to wash away and that the river had probably grown into a lake by now. Once again we rushed back to our tents and this time we found ourselves in the middle of an evacuation. We were told by the park ranger that it would not be safe to stay there for the night.

In the middle of the pouring rain, we tried to collect all of our belongings and throw them into the car. Still, an obstacle stood in our way. Out of no where came a swarm of enormous hungry mosquitoes. They attacked us from head to toe and in our mad search for long pants and sweaters they had us for supper. Screaming and throwing our clothes on we appeared to have escaped the mosquitoes by getting in the car. There was dead silence for a moment until Jonathan turned on the over head light. Inside the car were at least forty mosquitoes.

In unison, we all screamed, “AHHHHHH!” The four of us swatted at them, but more seemed to appear. Jonathan in a rush accelerated the car and rolle down the windows to get the mosquitoes out, but instead more just flew in. As we drove back into town looking for a place to stay, we could still see a few flying about the car.

Our budget was small and trying to find a motel for four looked impossible, until we came to an old motel named London Inn. There we were able to get a warm place to sleep and enjoy a much needed shower. All of our clothes were drenched. Even the ones we wore were soaked. As I packed my bag before I went to bed, I separated my wet clothes from my mildly dry ones.

On the morning of our last day in Nags Head, the weather did not change much. The rain continued to fall and just as we ordered lunch from Taco Bell, the power went out again. The power surge erased all of the stored orders on the computer and forced everyone to reorder their meals. After acquiring our food, we spend the rest of the day waiting our the storm, but it never did go anywhere. So, as night fell, we decided that our trip was over and that is was time to go home. Just as we left so did the rain.

Driving until 5:00 A.M. is not easy, especially when your contacts have stiffened over your eyes and your feel disoriented. Jonathan dropped off Yanni and Mandy first, and then me. As I walked into my house that morning, I found that the clothes I was wearing were still damp and that my hair was no even brushed. The thoughts of what I been through echoed through my mind. Somehow, I had survived and learned how to better prepare more for any future camping trips. Walking down the hall I could hear my mother’s voice.

“Honey, is that you?” I opened her door and peered in. “How was it?” She had been forewarned by Jonathan’s mother that were returning in the wee hours for some curious reason.

With a half smile on my face, I replied, “Jonathan is an Eagle Scout, and he said it was the worst camping trip he had ever been on. Jonathan says it was the camping trip from hell.”

Because this story comes from the very beginning of my China adventure, it is a bit fuzzy and a little hard to put into words. It was however, one of the funnier things that happened to me in China, and I will probably never forget it. Just in case this memory falls into the murky depths of my mind and I can’t ever retrieve it, I’m going to put it in to print.

Probably sometime in early September 2006

One night, in Fuyang, a group of us, Phil, Tim, Vanessa, Mayia, and myself, decided to peruse the streets to see what the city had to offer us after eating a dinner of noodles. We decided to start with the street that runs parallel to the Fuchun River. It is a pretty street to walk at night with all the lights of the businesses. In the months to come, we would walk this street often. It was the street that we would take to get to Champion Pizza(千尊比萨), one of our favorite western-like restaurants near the apartment, or to find a bar if the day called for a stiff drink.

We had only been walking for a few minutes when a woman stepped out of one of the bars lining the street. The situation seemed normal at first, but that quickly changed. Almost immediately, she recognized that we weren’t Chinese(not very difficult when there are only 8 or so westerners in a city of 600,000 Chinese) and started running toward us full speed.

It took us a minute to figure out what in the world she was shaking in the air all crazy like as she approached us. Finally, our eyes were able to focus and discovered it was a bundle of roses in her hand. She started in on this spiel that none of us could understand verbally, but her motions were pretty obvious. She wanted us to buy one of her roses really, really bad.

We were very polite and told her we didn’t want one(in Chinese) and then turned to continue on our way. She followed after us as though she had not heard a single word we had just said. After about a block, we realized this woman meant business, and that she wasn’t going to let us get away. We stopped and tried explaining again that we didn’t want the flower(again in Chinese – several times). She persisted. She even tried to put one of the flowers in Phil’s hand. He pushed it back toward her. She pushed back. We attempted to walk away again, this time a little faster, but she continued to follow us.

At this point, we were all laughing hysterically, at least Vanessa, Mayia, and I were. My eyes were even beginning to water. Just so you know, it takes a lot to make me laugh, and even more to make me laugh so hard that tears stream down my face. This was just about one of the funniest things I had ever seen. It’s funny now, just thinking about it, but maybe this is one of those instances where you have to be there to truly understand just how funny something was.

We ran, yes ran, a little ways, and the woman ran after us. Finally, Tim stopped and walked over to her and took one of the roses out of her hand. I thought he was just going to buy one to make her leave us alone – I doubt they were very expensive. Instead, he told her one more time(again in Chinese) that he did not want the flower and placed it on the ground in front of her. Tim turned and started walking toward us. We had made our way down the street by this point, but could still see what was going on.

The woman got very quiet for a second, looked down at the flower, and then bent down to pick it up. As though nothing had just happened, she added the flower to her bundle and started pleading with Tim to buy one again. I was like, “Wow, this woman has some determination!” The tears of laughter were really coming down at this point.

And that is when we decided we just had to run, really run, to get away from the crazy flower lady. Down the street we ran – one block, two block – and she still kept coming after us! I just could not believe it. Finally, somewhere around the third block, the woman stopped. We ran another block or so before we stopped ourselves just in case she caught her breath and decided to come after us some more.

When we finally felt the woman was really gone, we started walking and enjoying the lights and the river view. We laughed the rest of the night and told the story to the rest of our western friends when got home. We made sure to take a different route home, just in case we ran into the crazy flower lady again.

In case you are wondering, the locals had a good laugh as well. They of course knew what the woman was saying, and we could only assume. And that is the story of the crazy flower lady. I hope you enjoyed it.

After my super long post about my week in Yangshuo, I have decided that this time around I’m just going to post a hell of a lot of pictures. I find that I get carried away when I write and never know when to shut up. It is almost as bad as when I talk. So, here you go, more pictures and a lot less words to go with them. Enjoy.

Phil and I walked out into the country side and what a pretty country side it was.

Phil looks so little amongst the mountains.
Looks like someone could step on him.

This reminded me of my friend’s band, Black Bottom Biscuits.
They have a song called Fish Beer.

Standing on the riverside in Yangshuo. Such a pretty view. So surreal.

I am putting this picture here to show off the awesomeness of my new camera. I was standing on a bridge when I took this. And he wasn’t below me. He was further up river.

A wee little village outside of Yangshuo. I think it was called Mu Shan.

I look happy in this picture, but don’t let that smile fool you. I was so hot and miserable, it wasn’t even funny. I didn’t think I was going to make it back to the hotel.

Mu Shan transportation.

A picture of a pretty flower.

I thanked this little guy for sitting still long enough for me to get a good picture of him. I have never seen a dragonfly with a red tail before. There are some many interesting animals and insects in China. You just have to search for them.

Ah, vacation.

I’ve had plenty of vacation time here in China, more weeks than I can shake a stick at, but none of them have really been spent relaxing or enjoying myself. Almost every time the two of us get a little break from teaching, one of us usually comes down with a week long bug or something(or someone) evil intervenes forcing us to abandon our elaborate plans. The prime example of this was when we planned a trip around China with one of Phil’s students, Holy, during the Chinese New Year, but then our school held some of documents hostage. This in turn forced us to leave the country in order to get new visas and then the real craziness of being bounced all over China began. There are a lot of posts about it in January, February, March and even a few entries in April 2007.

Thankfully, nothing crazy went down during the first week of our summer vacation. I am glad to report that everything went pretty much as planned, except for the time that Phil almost got ran over by a semi or when we both almost got eaten by a really pissed off dog. Other than that and a few persistent mosquitoes, I think it was one of the best vacations that I have been on, in China or back home in America. So, I guess if I am going to tell it straight, I should probably start at the very beginning. I hope you like to read because I can write as much as I can talk- hence my nickname Gabby Girl. However, if you get bored by my rambling, you can just scroll down the page and look at some of the pictures that I took. These pictures are mainly from the first and second days in Guilin and Yangshuo but there are a few from the third.

We took the late flight out of Xiamen International Airport(11:10 pm) because it was 130 RMB cheaper(each) even though it would put us in Guilin early in the morning(12:30 am). Living on a teacher’s salary, Phil and I will do anything to save money. Since we are still young chickens, staying up till one or so isn’t a hard thing to accomplish. Ask me to do the same thing in about 40 years or so and I might not be so eager to save. 🙂 The tickets were one way and cost us each 730 RMB($96.00). It doesn’t sound like a lot if you are making American dollars, but it can seem like a a lot when it is nearly 1/5 of your monthly salary. Plus, it only covers getting there. Phil and I had saved up enough so it wasn’t that much of a big deal. The sad part is that the train from Xiamen to Nanning to Guilin was just as expensive even though it took three freaking days longer. That still doesn’t make a lot of since.

Like most of our experiences with planes in China(save that particular journey from Beijing to Shenyang that took 4 tries), our plane took off right on schedule. Some people weren’t even seated yet, but they closed the hatch and started backing up anyway. It’s like they are on some timetable and they have to follow it to a T regardless if someone had time to check the plane over or not. I swear, I’ll probably die on a Chinese plane. On this particular plane, the left engine sounded rather flaky. There were several moments where I had to close my eyes and say a prayer, but then the flight attendant came and gave me a bag of peanuts and a glass of Coke to help ease my anxiety. Soon I forgot all about the rumbling coming from over my left shoulder. Other than that, our flight was fine. And as you can tell, since you are reading this now, I didn’t die. 🙂

Once we disembarked we headed for the CAAC bus. I don’t know what CAAC stands for, but it’s an airport bus that costs each person 20 RMB to be taken into the city of Guilin. The airport is about 20 KM outside of Guilin. It has several stops, the first being just down the street from where the bus and train station are located. Taking the CAAC bus was by far the cheaper option. If we had wanted to get to our hostel fast for any reason, we could have gotten in any of the taxis waiting by the front door. We didn’t because it would have cost 90 RMB(as long as the taxi driver didn’t take the long route) to get to our hostel. Since I had heard so many negative things about Guilin and how everyone tries to rip you off, I wanted to avoid the possibility all together. The cool thing about the bus is that the woman who took our money spoke English and knew exactly where we needed to get off. When it was our stop, she even stepped off and pointed us in the direction of our hostel as about a dozen Chinese taxi drivers bombarded us with one of the few English words besides hello that they knew.

“Taxi?!” They all screamed at once. I think one even grabbed my arm and tried to nudge me in the direction of his waiting taxi. I really felt like I was being attacked by hungry vultures.

“Bu yao, xie xie,” Phil and I said several times very politely as we pushed our way through them. I thought they would have listened and tried to pester some other poor soul, but no, there was no one else to pester. They started following us down the street still screaming TAXI at us as though we were deaf or something. There was even this one particular guy who had gotten in his taxi and started shadowing us up the street hoping that we would give into his calls. This annoyed me, so I turned around to tell him to go bug off in the only language I knew how. As soon as I turned around he thought this was me accepting his invitation, but he was wrong. For some reason he even jumped out of his taxi. Why? I don’t know, unless he thought we needed help with our backpacks – which we didn’t. “No,” I said. “We don’t need a taxi. We are going to walk.” I put two fingers on the palm of my hand, made them “walk”, and the pointed in the direction that we were going. He found this hysterical and started laughing at me. Maybe he thought I was insane to want to walk at night in Guilin to a place I wasn’t exactly sure where it was. Whatever his reason, he turned around and got back his taxi. He stared at us a second longer and laughed at us again as he drove into the darkness.

As we tried to find our way to Flowers Youth Hostel all sorts of taxi drivers bled out of the darkness. It was rather creepy, really. For the most part the streets were empty. The only signs of life were the legit taxis trying very hard to convince us that we needed to be driven to our destination(1 KM away) and the non-legit taxis(motor bikes) tapping their seats with gruesome smiles on their faces. We also saw this woman sitting in a old, rickety booth on the corner of alley way. The booth had bars and was illuminated in red. I have no idea what she was selling, but I know for sure it wasn’t lemonade.

Finally, after much confusion of which way to go and who to believe when we asked which way our hostel was, we found it across the street from the train station, down an alley way hidden completely from view. If it hadn’t been a guy sitting in an empty fruit cart(which I thought was trying to get us to go to a different hotel at first), we would have never have seen the sign obstructed by the buildings in front of it. When we turned the corner in the dimly lit building this is what greeted us on the wall.

Doesn’t it look like we should be entering a horror movie with the way it is written on the wall. It almost looks as though it was written in blood. Eek! Low budget hostels call for low budget signs, I guess.

Beside the hostel’s “sign” on the wall, we saw this. It looked equally inviting.

What kind of tourism reception is this exactly? I don’t know if it is the light, the letters, the dirt on the wall or some combination of the three, but the L in bicycle looks like it is floating off the wall. You can almost see what looks to be like it its shadow. Beware of the letter L!

We climbed the stairs to the second floor, but when we got there we didn’t see any more creepy signs or arrows to follow. Sometimes hostels really know how to hide. Luckily, I heard some voices drifting down a partially lit corridor that could possibly show me the way, so I decided to investigate. Through the window I could see a Chinese woman lounging on a couch and another woman mopping the floor. The two of them were too engrossed in their conversation to notice the two laowais standing in the doorway.”Ni hao,” I said, hoping to catch their attention but not scare the bejesus out of them at the same time. During my year of teaching I’ve noticed that Chinese people scare particularly easy. Sometimes a simple BOO will send them reeling. Because I am super evil, I try to find all sorts of ways to scare my students. It keeps them on their toes. But anyway, I digress.

The woman holding the mop nearly fainted. She threw her hand over her heart. I’m sure she said something along the lines of, “You scared me to death, woman!” I apologized and gave her several minutes to collect herself. After she caught her breath and her heart rate had gone down, she realized that the two foreigners standing in front of her were not selling tooth brushes, but needed a room. She asked if we had a reservation and we said yeah, but she couldn’t find any of our paper work. Thankfully, they still had a few rooms available. Hostelworld , the internet service we use to book hostels in China, works most of them time, but occasionally gives us hiccups.

“You want to see the rooms first?” She asked?

“Sure.” She handed us two keys. One was for a room on the first floor, and the other was for a room on the fourth. We decided to go to the fourth floor first and see what the room had to offer. After stumbling through the dark and the maze of stairs we finally got to room 421.

There was no handle. Well, there was, but not the kind you see on normal doors. I don’t even know how to describe it to you really. It was like a nob, but much smaller. You could barely get your fingers around it to turn it and it seemed as though it was about to fall off/out.

“Well, this looks promising,” I chuckled, as Phil finally got the key in and opened the door. He found the light switch beside the door and flipped it.

In unison we gasped, “Oh. My. God.”

The walls were yellow, brown, white, and even black. No, this was not some creative painter at work. The walls were covered in mold. We didn’t stay long enough to inspect further. I was too shocked to even take a picture of it, which I now wish I had. Words do not do it justice. It was truly scary. We quickly killed the lights and locked the door.

“And that is why there were no pictures of the room,” Phil said in reference to hostelworld as we walked down the stairs to the first floor. “Now I can totally understand why.” The only pictures of the hostel on hostelworld were of the lobby, which in comparison to the room we had just seen, was freaking awesome!

We stood before room 117 with the key dangling from the lock. This door actually had a handle, so that was a step in the right direction. Perhaps what was on the other side of the door would prove better too. When Phil opened the door and hit the light switch nothing happened. The room stayed dark. I was just about to utter some obscenities when WALLAH, the light above our head came to life. I guess it had to warm up or something.What we saw wasn’t perfect, but it was doable. The walls were a little moldy, but only in a few places – sorta like our apartment was before we cleaned it. The room, the walls, and the furniture all screamed mental institution, but then I reminded myself it was just for one night and that I could deal with that. Without any argument, we decided to take room 117 instead. I was a bit apprehensive in putting my head on the pillow and pulling my the covers up to my chin, but within 10 minutes or so – because that is about how quickly I fell asleep.

We woke up early the next morning to the smell of bacon. For half a second I thought I was back home and that my mom was making me breakfast, but then I remembered that I was in China and that my mother was some 7000 miles away. Even though we had only slept for a few hours, we somehow convinced ourselves to roll out of bed. It was now time to go and find the bus to Yangshuo.

It was actually incredibly easy and for the record, it was the bus that found us. We were walking toward the bus station when one of those big touristy buses pulled down the road we were walking on. We almost didn’t pay it any notice, but then a woman jumped out and started screaming YANGSHUO in our faces. We weren’t sure if it was legit or not, but she seemed insistent that the bus we take us to intended destination. I looked at Phil and he looked at me. We both shrugged our shoulders and said, “Why the hell not?”

From this point on, our vacation was reasonably easy. The bus we got on did indeed go to Yangshuo, but before we could even really start going there, the woman in charge of the money had to ask everyone we passed if they wanted to go to Yangshuo. The woman was very good at convincing people who probably really had no need or want to go to Yangshuo to get on the bus and go anyway. Many people who seemed to be doing nothing in particular hoped on for shits and giggles. It was rather interesting to watch. Although, listening to her scream YANGSHUO from the bus door every three and a half minutes got old rather quick. 🙂

The ride to Yangshuo was very beautiful and it gave us a peek of what we would be seeing once we got there. Most of the bus ride was through the countryside of Guangxi. We got to see a lot rural farm areas and a whore of water buffalo. I think the trip from Guilin to Yangshuo took just a little more than an hour, but it was enjoyable.

And finally, after all those months of waiting, saving and planning – we were there. Now we just need to find our hotel.

Here is Phil looking out the window at the mountains.

I had been told that it should cost 5 RMB to get to the hotel, but when I started showing the local transportation the address to the hotel in Chinese, I knew that was not going to be the case. More than one person quoted us 30 RMB, and I was not about to shell that out when I knew it could be had cheaper. Phil insisted that we walk, but that was kinda hard considering we didn’t exactly know how to get there. We walked quite a ways and had many people say they would take us for thirty before we found a guy that would take us for a total of 10 RMB. That seemed more than fair, so we took his offer.The local transportation in Yangshuo consists mainly of these three.

1. Tourist Shuttle Buses
2. Motor bikes with carts built onto the back
3. Motor bikes

The tourist shuttle buses are the legal ones, but they don’t take you directly where you want to go. They have set routes. So, if you want to go off the beaten path – these will not help you in the slightest. I don’t know how much they are because I never rode in one while I was in Yangshuo. If I had to guess I would say between 10 – 30 RMB.

The motor bikes with the carts built onto the back remind me of horse carriages. This type of transportation maybe more convenient, but they are illegal as well. If you don’t see these at particular times it is because the cops came and scared them off for a while. Most of these people wanted to charge us 30 RMB to take us about a mile and a half to our hotel, but on many occasions we got them down to 10. Although illegal, for the driver – not you, this is the most convenient and safest way to travel unless you have a bicycle or you love to walk.

The motor bikes are illegal too. Locals just aren’t allowed to transport foreigners. They want the money to go to the city instead of the hands of the locals. Every time that we took one from the hotel to any destination within the city it cost us 10 RMB total. I wouldn’t recommend this mode of transportation unless you have a helmet and you know for a fact that your driver knows what he or she is doing.

To get to the hotel we took the horse carriage like thing. He didn’t actually take us all the way to our hotel, but he at least took us to the dirt road that led to it. Thankfully there were more than enough signs to point us in the right direction. The owners of the place really didn’t want you getting lost. About every 10 feet or so there was another sign with arrows directing the way.

The place that we stayed, Riverside Retreat, was absolutely amazing. It is a little bit out of town, maybe a brisk 15 minute walk, but the views and the staff are worth it. The rates are very reasonable too. For a room with a queen size bed, a spectacular view and a balcony, we paid 180 RMB a night. I would definitely stay there again if I went to Yangshuo again. It was clean, quiet and comfortable. We really couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Here is a picture of the room we stayed in. The bed was extra comfy.

This picture was taken from our balcony. I wish I could have gotten the sky to look better, but at the time I hadn’t yet figured my new camera out – and truthfully, I am still working on that. Heh. That in Yangshuo in the distance.

We had the western breakfast that the hotel offered after we got settled into our room. For a plate full of eggs, bacon, and two pieces of toast with jelly, it cost us 15 RMB each. They cooked the eggs and the bacon particularly well. It was very tasty.After taking an afternoon nap, we awoke to explore the city. The city of Yangshuo is nice. It’s relatively small, but has an overwhelming western feel to it. That is mostly felt near and on West Street. It is yet another pedestrian street full of trinkets and goodies as well as bars and restaurants. The people are nice here, if not a little pushy. Like most westernized parts of China things can be a little on the pricey side. If you don’t want to get ripped off, you have to bargain really hard.

I didn’t come to Yangshuo because of the western feel it radiates though. I came for the views that I couldn’t see else where in China or the world – so they say. I came for the beauty that it offers. One thing is for sure though,Yangshuo did not disappoint. It met my expectations and more. I’ll stop my jibber jabbering though so that you can enjoy some of the pictures I took of the surrounding area. I’ll continue with the story of our vacation in Yangshuo in a day or two.

This was taken standing on Yangshuo Bridge. The mountains are incredible.

This was also taken on Yangshuo Bridge, but on the other side.

I have a thing about bridges I guess. This too was taken on a bridge.
A different one though.

I found these two women washing their clothes and chatting the afternoon away.

I’m not sure if he is a fisherman or a trash collector.

This dragonfly let me get really close with my camera. Thank you Mr. Dragonfly. Thank you super macro shot.

There are about a million water buffalo in Yangshuo. It was almost hot enough for me join this guy in Li River, but I didn’t know what he would thought about the idea.

Sorry if this post suddenly seemed to fall flat. It’s now 3:25 am, and I’m horribly exhausted. I just wanted to make sure I finished it. School starts back in a day and I wasn’t sure when I would have enough time to really go into detail.

Well, as of 11:20 am this afternoon, my summer vacation has begun. Tonight, at 11:10 pm, I’m boarding a plane at the Xiamen International Airport, and getting the hell out of here! 🙂 Yippy Skippy, as Miss Piggy would say.

Phil and I are going first to Guilin and staying at the Guilin Flowers International Hostel for a night. I have no idea if it is a good or bad hostel, but it is near the first stop of the CAAC – the bus that goes from the airport toward the actual city of Guilin. I just need a place to put my head, so I don’t really care.

When we wake up, we aren’t going to try and deal with the city. We are going straight to the bus station and going to Yangshuo, the supposed Backpacker’s mecca. We’ve been wanting to go for quite some time, but we’ve been either poor or entirely too busy with other China related stuff.

Speaking of poor – I am officially poor again. Well, not poor like we were after being bounced all around China a few months before, but poorer none the less. We are poor because we just went out and bought a super freaking awesome camera, so that I can take super freaking awesome pictures from now on.

We bought the Canon Powershot S5 IS at the Suning across town for about $490.00 – or 3760 RMB, but the camera came with a bag, 2G card, and a rather large tripod. And for what the camera does, it was a pretty good deal. Although, after playing with it for a few hours last night, I was ready to toss it out the window because it has one too many settings and I have no idea what any of them do yet. Today though, I feel I have a better understanding. Finding the manual in English on the internet helped too. Everything in print in the box was in freaking Chinese. I know, I know. I’m in China, but couldn’t they have included a section or something in English for the possible Laowai that might buy the camera?! Oh, well, it doesn’t really matter much anymore. Everything is all good. I mean, I still have to read the manual and play around with it, but I think I will be very happy. Having really nice pictures and videos will be a super plus too. My 5 year old Kodak was on her last leg – it was time for her to be replaced. I’ll put some sample shots later. They are super awesome.

Well, I guess that I should jet. I’ve still got to pack and what not. We’ll be gone until the 11th, so don’t be expecting any regular posts during that time – not that I have been regular lately anyway, but that is beside the point.

Oh, and Yahoo is unblocked again. I guess someone flipped that switch again.

The following pictures are from our little excursion to the Taiwan Folk Village during our May Holiday. I apologize in advance if they suck. Five minutes after we arrived, my camera decided to collect all the moisture that Xiamen has to offer(which is a a lot) in the very center of my lens. Luckily, Phil had his camera, but then his battery decided to die half way through the day. I don’t think God wanted us taking pictures or something, but somehow, we ended up with a few decent photos. Take a gander and enjoy.

Religious figurines chilling on a hill.

This little moth attacked Phil’s foot before we headed into the village and wouldn’t get off. Phil shook his foot real hard too. So, I coaxed him on to my finger and lead him to safety. Hopefully, he liked the bush I chose for him.

This little guy just doesn’t know how to play fetch.

There were countless statues all over the place.

Lantana. It’s every where I look in Xiamen. A very pretty flower.

More religious offerings. This would make a super cool bird bath.

Buddha. Enough said.

I’ve never stood so close to a Tiger before. If you can see through the ring cloud, you should be able to notice the cataract in his left eye. Poor thing. I thought at first that they were just letting him sit there without any chains and that made me super nervous as I took the picture. However, I saw later that there was a very short, older than sin chain that attached his neck to the table – which somehow didn’t make me feel any better. I have a feeling he could have easily dragged the table with him as he made the crowd of on-lookers his dinner.

Once again, if you can see through the fog that is my lens, you might be able to tell that this is no ordinary leaf. It’s actually a butterfly. We found him in a building called butterfly world. It is the best place to go to get photos of butterflies – if your camera is willing to cooperate. I thought it was pretty cool looking.

If I had been on the other side of the road, this picture would have turned out better. All things considered though, it didn’t turn out to shabby.

Lantana over-taking the beast.

Popcorn clouds. We never had this many blue skies in Fuyang. Never.

Most everything in the village was man-made, but it was still impressive.

Everyone thought it was normal for the local Chinese to get a picture with the gigantic Taiwanese statue, but when the laowai decided to do it – everyone had to stop and stare as if I were doing something wrong or exotic.

One of the best pictures to come out of day. No matter where we go in China – there always seems to be stairs in the way of my destination. You would think that I had gotten used to them by now, but no, I still hate them as equally if not more than before I got to China.

Here is that moth chilling on Phil’s shoe. I think Phil could have walked all throughout the village and he never would have budged.

Probably the cause of the moisture attacking my lens.

Pretty mountain side.

Actually, I take that back, I’m pretty sure this was the shot that destroyed my camera for the day. If you forgive my finger intruding on the left over there – the picture didn’t turn out half bad.

That’s the Beach Road and the ocean relaxing in the background.

I’ve been trying for days to get these uploaded, but it seems that Blogger hates me no matter what city I am in. I kept getting a timed out error every time I tried to upload them. I’m guess it has more to do with my sucky internet here than anything. It is very difficult downloading things as well. The files always get corrupted. If the internet was just a wee bit better, Phil and I could use the Slingbox he bought off Woot to watch all of our TV shows from home, but no. Our internet sucks just enough for the Slingbox not to work properly, and I seriously mean, just enough. It’s very aggravating. Well, here they are – a few more pictures of relaxing and beautiful Wanshi Botanical Gardens.

When I go home, it will be things like this that I miss – The architecture of China. Even the simplest things are beautiful.

The incense was very strong here. These little guys were all sitting in a little alcove in the rock face. It was a worship site of some sort.

We tried really hard to get out of the park before the sun set, but we got lost. But hey, we at least got a pretty picture of it as if fell behind this building.

Whenever I can get close enough to one, you better believe I take a picture. All Chinese cats run for the hills when I even think of wanting to pet one. Since coming to China, I’ve had to remind myself that not all kitties and puppies are safe. The first cat we ran into in Wanshi must have had rabies or something cause the damn thing tried to attack me. It could barely walk, but it definitely had murder in its eyes. Thank God I had a water bottle in my hand. I used it as a shield to give me and Phil enough room to run the other way. The cat actually tried to pursue us but gave up after awhile. Really, really creepy I say.

I really liked this picture until Phil said, “It would be perfect if it wasn’t for that.” The that that he was mentioning was the piece of trash chilling on the lily pad. When I took the picture, I didn’t even notice it.