Yangshuo/Guilin Trip

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!

Church in Shenzhen

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.

And this was the HUGE anchor that went with the HUGE boat.

And these guys I know are no Clydsdales, but then again Chinese naturally have a smaller build.

Dragon statue. You will often see dragons wrapped around the poles of buildings for decoration and they are awesome!

On our way back we saw some more statues on a building, except these ones are randomly coming out from the side of the building.

And that concludes our Shenzhen trip. Until next time, Zai Chen!

(Picture taken at sunset near my apartment)

China at last!

Since getting to our school in Kaiyin, Zhongshan, it's been pretty crazy but overall I love it! Kaiyin is a smaller developing town and is about a 20 minute bus ride into the bigger city (which only costs 1 Yuan, so about 15 cents USD). Our apartments are right across from the school and by Chinese standards, they're pretty great. I share a room with one other girl, Kylee. (Picture was taken at the park by our apartment).

Our apartment came furnished and has a kitchen and a bathroom that's pretty high speed becuase there is no separation of toilet and shower space, so while you're showering you can just clean the toilet while you're at it :) The weather here is fantastic, it's usually sunny and about 71-76 degrees, though it is getting hotter and the humidity is killer. There is a supermarket up the street from us and a park around the corner. This picture is the view from the school up the street. The building most left is our apartment building. We are on the fourth floor and there are no elevators, but that just means bigger calves for me, right?

The school feeds us 3 meals a day which you can always count on containing the following: Rice, Vegatables, and usually some kind of meat. The food is pretty good here, they have really good ham and this egg and tomato stuff. They do throw in the occasional surprise though; the other day we had CHICKEN FEET! Despite the face I'm making, they weren't actually bad, it was just like sucking on chicken flavored skin and bones (which it basically was.)

The kids I teach are in 1st grade, so about 5-7 years old. They are sooo adorable! But don't let their sweet little innocent faces fool you, they can be quite naughty sometimes. Since the subject I'm teaching is kitchen, they behave a little better in my class becuase they know if they don't they don't get to eat the treat. This video is from one of my classes. They are so cute! If their mouths are full it's cause the lesson that day was cranberry-blueberry muffins :)

So far in class we've made Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches, Jello with gummies in it, Raisin Granola bars (thank you pre-made sweet American Chewy Bars), Cran-Bluberry muffins, Apple Carousels, Brownies, Cinnamon Pancakes, Shortcake and Kool-aid with bananas in it. Hahah so... just a word to the wise, when making Kool-aid for a class full of kids, be sure and check the mixture before you give it to them that you really used sugar... and not salt. I acutally didn't try it until after my second class. Hahah poor kids. Problem was, some of them actually liked it, so that's why I didn't think to try it earlier. "Teacha teacha! I want more! More teacha!". *Shrugs* I guess in comparison to chicken feet, salty kool-aid isn't that bad :P

There are lots of things to do in Zhongshan and so far we've had a great time and the cost of things are pretty cheap. A place called walking street is a very popular shopping area (it's kind of like a Chinese Gateway) and there is a pagoda temple thing at the top of it. Most things there are pretty cheap, I bought a pair of tennis shoes for 89 Yuan (about 14 or 15 bucks USD) that would normally have been about 90 bucks in America. The other day when we were there they also had a fire dancer, which was pretty cool, but really weird when he put the fire out by putting it down his pants :S The first picture is of the pagoda and the second is a view down Walking street at night.

Another adventure we've had is climbing a Chinese mountain. A Chinese mountain of stairs that is. It had a little temple thing at the top and at the bottom of it, and the whole way up was stairs, stairs, stairs. It was really worth it though cause it was so pretty! The first picture was on the way up, and the second was only a small PORTION of the stairs we climbed.

This blog is getting quite lenghty, so in short, China is great, I'm doing great, and life is just awesome! Until next time, Zai Chen!