Hi All, I'm home now, recuperating! It's amazing to see Blaise walking around, and Sam seems older, too! It's great to be back, although sometimes I wake up and can't remember if I am in China or not... What a trip! Tomorrow I go back to work. Sharon's brother Mike, and his wife Rachael are here, enjoying the beautiful Alaskan winter for another week. So, it is a full house, but fun to be back with everyone. Here are some pics from Hong Kong. Mostly while there, I walked around Temple Street market in Kowloon, ate good food, rode the escalator [View Full Entry]

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Well, here I am in Nanning. I guess it's been a few days since I posted, so I will try to catch you up since I left Longji Terrace. OK, I'm trying this again... just typed a couple paragraphs, and my time ran out at the internet bar... it shut off, so i lost what I typed- oops! Anyway, I arrived in Nanning on Thursday afternoon, and called the bagasse factory (Qiaowang) to see when it would be convenient to go there. They picked me up at the train station, and I was there before dinner. We took a quick tour, [View Full Entry]

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Hi All! I've been here at Longji Terrace for a couple days, walking around in the terraced rice fields, staying in a wooden building, built post and beam... Uh oh, my massage appointment is here... gotta go... AAAAHHHHH... That was very nice, now it is hard to be online and not sleeping , so this will be brief. Made my way around yesterday and today in thesee fields and villages, and will head out tomorrow to Guilin, then Nanning the following day to check out the sugar cane pulp product factory near there. The stay here has been fun... good food, [View Full Entry]

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Took a bike ride today, in the opposite direction as yesterday. Road through a bunch of little villages, and farm land. The farmland is impressively groomed, clean, well taken care of. The villages are dirty, garbage alll around, generally uncared for. A weird disconnect there to me, but I guess to them the priority is the fields. It was another sunny nice day, a perfect day for a ride. Got a flat tire on the way back, but managed to find a few places with bike pumps along the way, it usually lasted a half hour or more before needing to [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, Today I rented a bike for 10 Yuan a day (~$1.40) and headed out of town into the nearby rice fields, farms and villages. I took a route that was along a river, the Yulong. The raod was mostly dirt, and rocks, but easy enough to drive. Kind of like a 4-wheeler trail in AK. bikes, hand carts, cows, motorcycles, scooters, tractors, all use the road. Well, I rode for maybe an hour or so, when I was stopped at an intersection, and 2 guys started talking to me about floating down the river on a bamboo raft. Well, [View Full Entry]

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Finally I am in Yangshuo! Great place, beautiful karst peaked scenery, river, and farms. I'm staying at the Yangshuo Culture House, a place run by a man named Wei. The family lives here, they have rooms for up to 8 guests, and I get all my meals cooked for me. Tonight's was delicious. The room is clean, simple, nice. Getting here today was an adventure. Some of which was great, some was tiresome, some was just silly. I booked a river tour yesterday for a boat trip down the Li river, which flows between Guilin and Yangshuo. So I had to [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone. I'm in Guilin, trying to make a post, but the connection seems poor. I will try to put up some photos now. OK, got a few pics up. It's a pretty slow connection, so it takes a while... the train to Guilin from Guangzhou worked out fine. I was in a sleeper car with a family going to Fulan, I think. The only tricky part was that they never announced what stop we were at, so I was a little concerned about getting off at the right stop. But it worked out. At one stop, there were food vendors [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone. Sorry, no pics on this one. Just a quick post to say I'm in Guangzhou. Toured the factory that makes the biodegradable cutlery yesterday. The factory was clean and safe, workers seemed comfortable enough. Saw the injection molding machines, how the process worked, and some samples of other items they make. I was treated very well by the Greenpak folks, escorting me around, and feeding me well. Later today I catch a night train to Guilin, and will get there in the morning sometime. Hopefully at the hostel there I will have better internet connection. This one, in an [View Full Entry]

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Hi All, Today was a fun day, even though the weather here is crummy. It has been foggy, rainy, and cool since i got here. But, even so I'm having a good time. Last night at the hostel a bunch of people from Hong Kong showed up to spend the night at the hostel and get up early to hike up Lantau Mountain to see the sunrise. Apparently, that's a popular thing to do. So, they were all BBQing and hanging out, so i joined in and it was a fun time. A lot of them spoke english well enough to [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, I am in Ngong Ping, home of the Big Budda". I'm staying at a youth hostel here, and had a fun day travelling from Taipei. I'm going to try to post some pics here quick. OK, Got a few up, the connection is not that great. I need to get going, but will post again tomorrow. Bye! [View Full Entry]

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