Day of rest

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Here I am in Wuhan, a city I never really thought I'd visit but seems nice enough now that I'm here. I mostly picked it as an in-between spot on my way to yichang to start a tour of the three gorges (on the Yangtze). I was originally thinking of heading south from Guilin to Vietnam but the weather was just so miserable and I had a potential travel buddy to do this so I thought I'd head north on search of sun. (now I'm also well positioned to go to Vietnam during the may 1st holiday). It is still cool and somewhat rainy here today and meant to be again tomorrow, but it should clear up by the end of the week, and anyway my hostel has a very nice place to sit and some english books, so it doesn't seem all that bad for spending a relaxed day (I'm probably going to go out for a bit later to a Taoist temple and vegetarian restaurant, and maybe find a place I can get some food for the boat trip, but I'm in no big rush).

I had one day of mostly okay weather on yangshuo, so I rented a bike and biked along the yulong river, which was very pleasant, and climbed a big hill that would have had a nice view if it hadn't been so gray. Everyone at the hostel was very nice and friendly so I had lots of people to talk to, and after the weekend ended, the town was much less packed full of tourists. I don't think I'd want to live in yangshuo, but it's amazingly beautiful; Guilin is slightly less charming but so far seems like the most livable Chinese city I've been to. Though my opinion of it went down a bit after I had a very bad-luck filled few hours before my train ( the short version is that it started pouring and I couldn't find the bus stop and I ended up covered in mud. Which is probably another reason I'm happy to lie low today.

Anyway, that's all for now. Send sunshine and a bit more warmth my way please!

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