Christmas party.

---

Last night we made our way towards some 'touristy' bars in the hopes of socializing with some Westerners.

We met a fellow from the suburbs of Chicago who has been working in Shanghai for about a year and a half. He started out teaching English and is now working for a software development company. He was surprised we were able to find Yangshuo as he had never heard of it before being brought there 'by a Chinese'. We told him about some of our adventures and he said "thats why I don't go anywhere without a Chinese".

After he left we spoke with the bartender/owner of the bar for quite awhile. He spoke good English and we talked politics. He was interested in American history and asked questions about how the Mayflower influenced the Consitution. He had things a bit mixed up. He told us a lot about how China works. There are two classes here... you're born into the 'urban class' or the 'rural class'. It's very difficult if not impossible for rural class citizens to switch to urban. These are formal classifications... a rural class citizen must get a work visa of sorts to work in a city and even then he will almost never be promoted to a high position. Interesting chat we had with him.

From there we found our way to another rooftop bar with more Westerners. We ended up at a bar with two Israeli army kids who were on leave, travelling for a year. A Beverly Hills doctor and his theatre director son who lives and works in Beijing. A Chinese tourist and an Australian tourist. The Israeli guy I spoke with had done some work doing concerts in Israel and complained that the work was much too hard. I took it as a compliment coming from him!

We have three nights left here in Yangshuo before we take a 7 hour bus ride to Guangzhou and then a train to Hong Kong where we'll meet my Dad for New Years Eve!

Here is a link to a panorama I　ｔｏｏｋ　ｏｕｔｓｉｄｅ　ｏｕｒ　ｒｏｏｍ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｍｏｒｎｉｎｇ．http://360.io/7BNCSm　

Ａｎｄ　ａｓ　ａｌｗａｙｓ，　ｐｈｏｔｏｓ　ａｒｅ　ｐｏｓｔｅｄ　ａｔ　http://ｗｗｗ．ｆｌｉｃｋｒ．ｃｏｍ／ｎｏｒａｊｈｅｓｓ

---