Guilin/Yangshuo

Hey folks. Life in China continues. it was recently a holiday here that translates as "tome sweeping day." im not entirely sure what happens on this day, but its basically remembering the dead and lighting fake money on fire and things of that nature. but for Mr. Danny, it meant a couple days off that i could turn into a long weekend and go visit Guilin and Yangshuo. and as luck would have it my buddy Mike from Seattle happened to be here at the time. After a very stressful evening worrying that we wouldnt get out of Shenzhen (we had already bought our tickets, but the powers that be had decided to cancel all trips out for the holiday) our bus company drove us out of the city and put us on an overnight bus up to Guilin. guilin is a pretty awesome place, mostly notable for the awesome rock formations that encroach on the city. There are also some sweet parks and caves that are interesting to see. We spent about two days here sightseeing and then took the bus to yangshuo.

This is a very cute little tourist town surrounded by grass-covered rock formations. We stayed at Monkey Jane's hostel, complete with a rooftop bar with a beer pong table. first night here, predictably, turned into a shit show brought on by mike and I trying to win 6 games in a row in order to get a free tshirt. However, after game 5, the owner of the place, Monkey Jane herself, got on the table and schooled us. now I don't know too many chinese women that can even hold their liquor, let alone play beer pong, but this lady was the truth. After licking our wounds from the night before, Mike and I and our new German friend Anette headed off on bikes into the countryside. We biked to the real Water Cave (Beware the fake water cave!!) and took a boat in with our english speaking guide. after a short boat ride under very low hanging rocks, we got out and started walking around this massive cave. it honestly took us about an hour (stopping periodically to look at stalactite and stalagmite formations that resemble people or animals) to walk around the whole cave. this place was massive, and also included an underground waterfall, mudbath, and hotsprings. We had an awesome time exploring the cave, and then biked back into town.

For dinner we ate pijiu yu, or beer fish, which is a famous dish from yangshuo, and was absolutely delicious. They even invited us back into the room behind the kitchen where they placed a live fish on a scale so we could see how much it weighed, and that it was fresh. then the guy took it off, slammed its head on the ground a couple of times, and handed it to the cook. That night, mike and I went to a light show on the Li River. We werent exactly sure what to expect, and were a little thrown by how expensive it was, but decided it was worth checking out. good decision. it was basically a musical, except it was shown out in the water, with the mountains and hills in the background lit up as part of the stage. there were hundreds (if not thousands) of actors involved, riding boats out into the water with torches, or walking accross bridges with outfits that light up, and massive ribbons and multicolored lights going accross the water. to give you an idea of the scope, picture the opening ceremony to the olympics. apparently the main guy that designed that planned the one in Yangshuo as well.

The next day we biked upriver and took a bamboo raft down. It turned out perfect because this was the first day that the sun came out, and it was beautiful. There are abundant rafts on the way selling pictures of you, fruit, barbecue, and beer. We bought our boat man a beer and just chilled out on the river for a few hours. We spent another evening on Monkey Janes rooftop, and i got on another overnight bus back to Shenzhen. Mike headed off to Kunming to continue his vacation, and I got back to SZ a bit late on tuesday morning and had to apologize to the head of the english department, whose classes I missed, on no sleep. however, she was very understanding, and I made them up later in the week.

My next two lessons are focusing on the comedic genius of Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Apparently that movie is funny in all languages.