Blogs from Guilin, Hunan, China, Asia

Today I woke up in Sheraton, a 5 Star hotel which had an awesome American-style breakfast. Then we drove to the river and took a boat cruise of four lakes and two rivers. Then we drove to another attraction which had a lot of rocks and bridges, and we saw a glass bridge. I named one of the rocks “person looking at cell phone” because it looks like a person that was looking at a cell phone. Next we went to a Banyan tree park which had a very expansive tree that was over 1000 years old. Then we went on a ski lift/cable car which took us to the top of the mountain to see the birds’ eye view Guilin. Lastly we drove to a cave called Reed flute cave and we saw many awesome ... read more

The wake up call came at 6:45 for our last day in Guilin. Tonight we take the 2 hour flight to Shanghai, for the last leg of our journey. Before that we are taking a scenic cruise on the Li River. Today it is a little warm, somewhat cloudy but dry, no rain in the forecast. After another buffet breakfast we headed to the bus for the 45 minute ride to the port where we boarded our river cruise ship. On the way our guide, Sue, filled us in on a little history of the Li River. Normally the river is very clear and blue, but due to the excessive rain in the last few days, it was quite muddy. Oh well, if you have ever been to Toledo and seen the muddy Maumee, you will ... read more

The next morning, we booked our train tickets over to Kunming for later in the week before heading out to explore the seven peaks park. We stopped en route to pick up lunch from the street sellers along the road and enjoyed a delicious picnic in the park (well a quarter of a picnic, as we had eaten most of it in the taxi ride over) consisting of bbq’d and generously spiced beef skewers, freshly baked plain and sweet flat breads and watermelon. Afterwards we walked around the park for a couple of hours enjoying the beautifully landscaped scenery and exploring a massive and absolutely beautiful cave, which had been only slightly ruined by the gaudy fluorescent lighting that had been installed everywhere to illuminate numerous strange rock formations; these had been given even stranger names ... read more

Happy New Year readers! I am sorry this has taken me a while to write, but as some of you know, I have been a bit poorly since we arrived home from our fabulous trip. I have been stuck in bed with acute gastroentiritis and have been off work for a whole week. I don't think I can remember ever being this ill or being off work for a week! I haven't actually eaten a proper meal for a whole 7 days now, it is bizarre, but a great way to start my New Year diet! I should be back at school on Monday to the joys of assessment week, hurray! Well, here is the final part of our trip. Firstly, I am afraid we weren't quite as snap happy in this second part, mainly due ... read more

To those of you who have suffered through one of my massages...to those of you who have writhed in agony on the table as I dug my elbows into your back, your glutes, or your shoulders...to those of you who screamed, cried, begged for mercy, sweated, clenched the table...I dedicate this blog TO YOU. Because yesterday, it was my turn to be pummeled into a crying, sweating mess by an 80-pound Asian lady who showed no mercy. But anyway, we'll get to that. Yesterday we unfortunately awoke to more overcast and gray, which again has put a real damper on my beloved photography (the visibility is just terrible, and it's almost impossible to see the true beauty of this place). Today calls for more gray and even some thunderstorms later on, but luckily the next three ... read more