The Adventures of kt: March 2009

Hey hey family and friends! China is still great and the kids I teach can be a pain sometimes, but you can't help but love them anyway. A couple weeks ago we had a 4 day vacation to Yangshuo, which is just shy of Guilin. We leave for another 4 day vacation this Friday, so I figured I had better report on my last one before I go on this one.

Yangshuo is a 13 hour bus ride from Zhongshan. The bus we took is called a sleeper bus and they are pretty awesome! They have 3 rows of beds, 2 high, and prolly about 8 or 9 beds long. The beds were actually pretty comfortable, though a little short (I can't imagine why :P), and sometimes Chinese roads aren't the best paved so occasionally it was a little bumpy (and by bumpy I mean everyone holding their stuff and holding onto the side bars so you doesn't fall off).

On the way we had a little potty break. We pulled into this place that looked somewhat sketch. We walked down a dark alley inbetween these old old old dirty stone buildings back to this little courtyard that had people living and cooking back there. Now you have to understand before this point I had only used a squatter once, so when I walked into these sqatters, it was quite... eye-opening. I walked in and my first thought was, "I am going to the bathroom in an ancient Roman civilization bathhouse... only dirtier." The stall walls were stone and only about a foot and a half high, and there were no doors. So you just had to go in and do your business for the world to see, and I don't think I've ever had my personal bubble popped so violently before. I've decided that I will definitely never complain about a gas station toilet ever again becuase those are palaces compared to this place.

Anyway we reached the hostel (which I was kind of worried about at first because you had to go through another dark alleyway and up some sketch looking stairs to get to it), and they had a meeting with us and let us sleep for a couple of hours. The staff was extremely helpful and planned out a tour for us for the next 3 days. First, the bike ride.

The people at the hostel took us to breakfast first, then gave us all bikes and took us on a tour of the countryside. I can't even describe how beautiful it was there. The weather was perfect and the landscape was breathtaking. Since the mountains are relatively small at the base and very vertical, the view of the landscape changed quite rapidly in just a few minutes of bike riding.

Next was the Buddha Mud caves. First they showed us around to different sites in the cave that were pretty cool. Now in American caves, they don't let you even touch any formations. Here, the let you climb up one. After that they took us to where the mud baths were and we all got in our swimsuits and had a grand old fight in the mud :) It was WAY freezing in the cave (you could see your breath) and they had an ice cold shower to rinse off in. But that was okay because they took us to a hot springs place in the cave and we got to warm up again :)

After that we biked to the base of Moon Hill, ate lunch and then climbed to the top of it.

Seriously it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. There are a few moments in your life when everything falls into place and for that brief amount of time, the world is perfect. Being at the top of Moon Hill was one of those moments. I was in a place where my life was simple, basic, and beautiful; where blessings are innumerable and trials insignificant. I have fallen in love with the Chinese countryside and its people. The world is not perfect, but for a moment, mine was.

The next day we went to the Longji Rice Terraces. They had a little village at the bottom which reminded me of a chinese version of the Alpine Village, and the countryside surrounding it reminded me of Yellowstone or Jackson Hole. Hahah in the village they had these long rickety bridges that you had to cross that made you feel drunk and it reminded me of the long bridges in Kung Fu Panda or Horton Hears a Who. The view from the top of the rice terraces was awesome and I couldn't believe how HUGE it was and how many rice terraces there were (I guess all the rice in China has to come from somewhere, eh?)

Monday our hostel arranged for us to take a small boat tour of the Li River on these "bamboo" rafts (a.k.a. pvc pipe). It was really pretty and actually kind of reminded me of Jurassic Park. I was seriously just waiting for a raptor to come running out of the bushes. We stopped on this little islet where there was some shopping you could do and then we went back down the river.

The next day a few of us climed this little mountain that had a pagoda type thing at the top that overlooked the part of the city we were in.

We came back and got our stuff together and then left on another sleeper bus around 5. And thus concludes the Yangshuo trip!

So far we've taken two long trips to go to some church services with the branches they have here. The first was in Shenzhen and the second in Guangzhou. Since the church is not officially recognized by the government, we met in a member's house in Guangzhou and at a hotel in Guangzhou. So first, the Shenzhen trip.

Shenzhen is a very large city, but most of it is used for housing. All the buildings you can see in this picture are just apartments.

And as you can see here, Wal-Mart is taking over the world. I was told that in Kunming there is even a 4 story Wal-Mart. Citizens beware!

We had church at a member's house who lived in a beautiful little community right by an international school. This pic is a view from the house toward the mountain right by it (I'm not sure what it's called).

The service was GREAT, partially becuase the speakers were great, partially because they had CARPET [it was so awesome... everyone took off their shoes at the door and the carpet was sooo soft. I have only seen carpet 2 places so far in China, and both were on the church trips], and partially because they fed us delicious, fatty, preservative-filled, processed American food. This pic is of my roomate and I down the street of really cool trees just after the service. We call it our sister missionary picture.

After the service we went our way exploring for a bit until it was time our bus left. This is a way cool bridge we came accross. For some strange reason it made me want to burst into the song and dance from Sound of Music, but unfortunately (fortunately for some) I don't think they sell lederhosen here :)

While exploring, we came upon this giant statue of a mermaid that I have cleverly edited while taking the picture. Apparently they are building some kind of marina or water park there.

Near that same place there is a whole shopping-ish area that reminded me SO much of San Fransisco There was a HUGE boat that was turned into a resturaunt.