Guoliangcun and Michelle's!!!

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The next morning it was time to move on, and trying to find the right bus stop was an absolute nightmare, with Chinese people directing us in all sorts of different directions, and eventually getting some poor Tuktuk woman to drive us, and all of our bags to the long distance bus station. When we finally got there we caught a monstrous series of buses and eventually shared a minibus with some Chinese students and made it up to Guoliangcun, which is a small and awesome village in the mountains, with a "ski resort" (one piste lacking somewhat in incline) and a very dodgy route connecting it to the world. To get there one had to drive off road, in a crudely carved tunnel/cliff path up some rather steep inclines, until eventually, you pass by a frozen waterfall (with water still flowing inside the ice) and arrive at the row of houses that is the village. The first night we stayed in a house, that had no running water or heating, and the inside was actually colder than outside. Needless to say it wasn't the greatest night, and the next day we moved on to a different house, which was nicer, and cheaper... In the meantime we rented snowmobiles (or at least an excuse for them, they really struggled with my weight), made friends with the ski place boss and got some free play time tubing, and did quite a nice long walk along the cliff, passing some pretty dodgy drops, and getting some awesome photos...

Finally it was time to leave, and we got a bus, and then a train to Hebi, and Xiao Ma's house!

Xiao ma (her English name is Michelle, so I often refer to her as that) is an English student at Hainan, and we somehow got to meet her there. She’d invited us to her house to celebrate new year’s with her family, which was very kind, and really fun as it's traditionally a very family thing- kinda like Christmas I think. Anyway, after having lived in Guoliangcun we were dirty and smelly and weren't really in any state to present ourselves to her family, so we checked into a hotel for the first night and scrubbed ourselves clean. I also attempted to hand wash my clothes...which went surprisingly well, though I may have just got used to the smell by now...

Anyway, as soon as Michelle found out that we’d got into Hebi she got her mum, auntie, cousin and aunties adopted daughter to all drive to the hostel in their tiny little car, and then take us all to her house for dinner. Her mother took overfeeding to a new level, and we ended up having a really nice chat with them all, before they decided to take us to the city centre to have a little look. If anyone's been to a Chinese town over new year, they'll know that the Chinese version of celebrating is to light as many bianpao’s (bangers) as humanely possible in an attempt to deafen the rest of the city. As a result there were loads of stalls around the square with people selling fireworks and bangers, and kids of all ages were causing general havoc throwing them everywhere. We, on the other hand, bought some fire lanterns, and, after constructing them which took a while, set them off to float off over the city.

As we were exhausted from our travelling etc, we eventually headed back to our room after this lovely tour, getting driven back by Michelle's parents again, of course, and prepared for Chinese New Years Eve celebrations the next day.
Xiao ma's auntie picked us up at about 9 the next morning, and we arrived at our house to find a fully planned out schedule for us. And, after eating breakfast (of course with the customary amount of massive overfeeding) we popped of to the river with auntie, cousin, and xiao ma...and somehow ended up renting pedaloes on a half frozen lake which although challenging (banging our way through patches of ice) was really good fun!

After that, we visited aunties house, had lunch (by now none of us were really hungry, but kinda just had to squeeze a bit more food in to be polite). Xiao Ma's dad was back by now, so we ended up getting through a bit of Baijiu, and it was nice to see that he was actually a really nice guy and due to his job being one day and night working followed by one day and night free (must mess up his sleep schedule somewhat) he was the one who did most of the cooking - something I hadn’t really expected in China. After lunch, and much encouragement from Xiao Ma's cousin, we went to a karaoke bar and had some truly heart stopping (not in the good way) renditions of western pop songs.

We eventually returned to Michelle’s with sore throats and ears, and had a bit of a dumpling party with her parents, making waaaay too many of the tasty things, so many that breakfast and lunch the next day comprised of the same thing.

After our dumplings, we spent a while chatting in the sitting room and then Michelle turned on the TV and we started what appears the be the most common way to celebrate New Year’s, watching CCTV 1 with the official coverage involving sketches, music and dance and magic demonstrations. This goes on way into the small hours, but, after about 3 hours of it we got a ‘lil bit tired of it and went to bed...little were we to know that this was not going to help us get to sleep, as come midnight, every household sets of an inordinate amount of firecrackers, which carry on pretty much until a few days later, in varying intensities. With what sounded like a battlefield outside, it took until about half past 1 to sleep, but hey!

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