ah, bu yao, xie xie!

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Hello friends!

It has been a long time since I wrote, I've been busy doing things worth writing about. Got back this morning from a well earned summer vacation in the most beautiful place in China - Guangxi province, namely Guilin and Yangshuo. If you've ever seen a Chinese painting with a river, mountains, and a tiny boat floating serenely through the middle of the picture, you've seen Yangshuo. So much has happened I though I'd revert to my standby of bullet points of important events.

Arrived in Guilin with a coworker from school, Kristen, who coincidentally was from that area and said I could spend a few days at her house. Naively expecting her to live in an apartment in the middle of the city, I hopped on her minibus and realized quickly 'from guilin' meant an hour north in a quaint village nestled among rice paddies. Highlights from my stay with Kristen include:

- Hosing the flies out of the toilet to let them know it was my turn to use it.
- Sweeping the dried rice together and pouring it into bags to be processed and sold (for 15 yuan a bag..)
- Eating an entire duck that appeared to have been put through a very loose blender - highlights included the neck, what could have potentially been lung, and webbed feet (not much meat, not worth attempting).
- Climbing the mountain in Kristen's backyard and drinking water scooped out of a well inside the temple on top of the mountain.
- Eating a watermelon bought from the watermelon farmer at the bottom of the mountain.
- Lighting the mosquito rings and watching the mosquitos fall off the walls and ceiling onto my head and sometimes into my bowl.
- Taking the cow for a walk every evening.
- Trying to talk to Kristen's mum and realizing she speaks a dialect only spoken in their village.


Moved on to Guilin for a night with Kristen - paddled in the river and found an ancient chinese coin, climbed a hill/mountain that in ancient times was used to tie giant immortal horses to to stop them from stampeding the local villages, and wandered through the giant night market.

Took a boat down the Li River to Yangshuo, the smaller and tourist ridden town buried in mountains and traversed by gorgeous rivers.
- 5 hour cruise down the river where every chinese passenger wanted to take a picture of me with the mountains, despite my broken chinese that the mountains were much more beautiful, no thank you!
- Stayed with a wonderful host named Sam who memorizes new phrases from his American slang and idioms book every day and was always ready with a good piece of advice and liked to end each day with 'tomorrow is another day.' Other favorite expressions included, 'for the love of god!' or if he was tired, 'for the god of love!', 'Don't be such a turkey!', 'of course, of course!', and 'stupid is as stupid does'. His mum made us dinner every night and over beers I learned all about chinese politics and a host of other random subjects that jumped into Sam's head.
- Rode my bike up to dragon bridge, an easy 3-4 hour enjoyable trail to see some river sights and the ancient bridges. Was mislead by a sign (I should have known better when it said, 'THIS WAY IS THE QUICKEST PATH TO DRAGON BRIDGE. PASS MY RESTAURANT ON THE RIGHT'. In fact led me past the restaurant, into rice paddies, through farmers' gardens, to several dead ends, and then somewhere north of dragon bridge. Happened upon the bridge on the way back, as it happened, but in an attempt to ride the pleasant 2 hours along the river back home I entered the grueling back country bike route and urged forward by the feeling of 'just a bit further' I rode miles and miles south of the city, asked advice from several cow herders, and made it back home at 9pm, a full 12 hours after I had left.
- Ate a moldy squishy biscuit on the way that a farmer assured me was normal, but really it was in chinese so he could have been saying anything.
- Tried to get on the bike the next day but realized I had done potentially irreparable damage to myself and chose to walk to town instead to get ripped off buying some souvenirs.
- Enjoyed several photo shoots with fascinated chinese couples who claimed I was beautiful (i've included one to show you their handiwork).
- Took a little wooden boat into the famous water caves (sam directed me to the second ticket office, because the 1st one was a fake), and thought it was maybe the real thing... but i would never know. splashed around in a mud bath, then cleaned off in the hot springs. Enjoyed a tour of the caves which, typical of Chinese tour guides, included the guides pointing their flashlights at different rocks and explaining what they looked like (lucky cat, monkey and master, brain, woman's hair, turtle, mountain).
- Finally paddled my own bamboo raft around a pond while chinese people took pictures of me.

If my life were a film, or more likely a crappy soap opera, there would now be a montage of 40 chinese couples' photo albums, all featuring pictures of me rowing a bamboo raft, drawing by the river, or riding my bike. Nice to know my vacation was well documented somewhere.

In other news I have moved into my new apartment and just finished unpacking one of my bags! Most of the stuff is on my bed though, could have guessed when I finally lived alone it would be a disaster. Have removed some of mold from my bathroom counter and make a daily attempt to chip the brown sludge from inside my toilet.

Hope all is well with everyone, apologies for an overly long entry. all my love.

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