Day 26 - Baiyun Exhaustion and the First International Sugarcane Games

Day 26 – Baiyun Exhaustion and the First International Sugarcane Games

Breakfast was mostly uneventful at Starbucks on the island, except for a scary “demon dog” stray that kept begging at the patrons in the porch area. It had red-rimmed eyes and white dirty fur, and so it was tipping the scale to creepy rather than sad (and I ALWAYS have pity for dogs).

Being Day 26, I was getting a tad weary of the constant walking and exploring. And it all came to a head on this day. Going to Baiyun Mountain had sounded like a good plan the day before, but now that we were walking and taking incorrect buses and generally not taking a direct route (Josh got incorrect directions from the internet), Marlie and I were already complaining.

We finally arrived at the base of the mountain, and Marlie and I took the cable car while Josh ran up the stairs. We had a relaxing ride, though it wasn’t terribly exciting, or very long. Josh actually showed up about 10 minutes after we reached the top, sweating.

The Baiyun Mountain area was nice enough, but there were a lot of other tourists wandering, and it was all things we’d seen before (overlooks into misty forest, stairs up to numerous tablets with inscriptions), so we didn’t spend much time there at all. It wasn’t disappointing or anything, but it was maybe a little more boring than our other adventures. Marlie and I rested and talked while Josh did more stairs.

We returned to the hostel, and reunited with Matthew and Andy. They hadn’t done much that morning either, though we all became acquainted with the nameless French guy in our dorm we’d met the night before. We invited Frenchie to dinner (I never learned his name. Or if I did, I promptly forgot it), which we decided would be the Subway a short walk down the street.

There was more teasing of Andy’s “Ben-ness” and discussion of how Marlie was getting tiny bruises on her legs. We determined it must be gnomes, punching her legs in the night. Plans for the night were also made while we ate, and none of us wanted to venture too far, so we headed off the island to Bar Street again for the cheap beers at what had been Andy and Matthew’s hostel.

This time unfortunately there were no tables available for us. We met up with another female British backpacker the Blighty boys had met earlier and the now seven of us went towards the “rivah” where we sat on ledges and talked and drank cheap beer.

We got a little bored, and so I suggested a stupid game that I’d played in the winter at Beloit. You found a stick, or a broom handle, or something long and stick-ish. You spun around it, making yourself dizzy, threw it on the ground and then attempted to jump over it. A really stupid game, but hilarious to watch others attempt. We could NOT find any sticks anywhere near, and so (I believe) Josh suggested we buy a whole stick of sugarcane, unpeeled.

We called the event the First International (3 countries representing!) Sugarcane Games. It was a whole lot of silliness, and didn’t last too long, but it was entertaining while it lasted.

We finally got a table at the hostel, and we chatted together with a girl who had a checkered shirt like Josh’s (that he’d bought at Meters-Bonwe in Zhuhai). We spent a long time debating on whether it was EXACTLY like Josh’s. We got a bit hungry soon after getting the table, and so we walked out past all the bars, hoping we could find food at the later time. We did, finding a more “Kaifeng” feeling local area. We all got delicious noodles.

It was already long past the time ferries would be running, and so we had to take taxis back to the island, and then to bed.

Apologizes and a Quick Update

There's been a whole lot of nothing happening here, which is part of the reason I haven't updated. (That doesn't make sense, I realize...) I know I still have to finish the epic winter travels (I realize that it's ridiculous I haven't updated in so long) along with the few other things that happened about a month ago, including trips to Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Taishan. But I just haven't had the inspiration at ALL.

This week has been finals, and though I'm not TAKING them, I do have to listen, grade, and ask questions. So it's still just as tiring (if not more) than a normal 2-hour lesson. I just finished all of my Friday students' finals yesterday, since June 3rd will be a holiday for the Dragon Boat Festival. I don't understand WHY since the festival isn't on Friday, but Monday, (I believe) but I had to start their finals a week earlier than the other classes. So I've probably seen a lot of them for the last time, and that hit me while on the bus back to old campus.

I've gotten a few gifts; many Qing Ming-related, including a huge scroll with the entire painting reproduced. (Wow.) I'm grateful for some of the gifts, as they're not things I would have bought myself, and some will definitely be good to have in the future. Others... not as much. (Like strange plushies, or other decorative objects that are questionably tasteful.) Packing will be an adventure of sorts, since I have a lot of things to go through and decide what to bring home and what to just.... leave.

Now, a few days later...

My mom and aunt will be arriving IN ONE WEEK. And at this point, I am so so so close to being entirely finished. I just have to give the listening exam to my Nursing students (the others take their listening exam through computer, I had to create one for the Nursing students) on Thursday, grade them, and input their grades and send them off to my Nursing TA. DONE.

I have one more dinner with students tomorrow, which is nice to look forward to, and I will start packing the next day. I need to be as close to packed as possible before 8-ish pm on Sunday, since that's about when I'll leave to pick my family up from the airport in Zhengzhou.

So.. maybe you will see more updates from now until then? I hope I can find inspiration and power through the rest of those blogs...

Day 25 - Missions in Guangers

Day 25 – Missions in Guangers

The day began with us trying to complete the towel mission. I knew I would not be happy if I couldn’t shower without a towel for 5 days, so Josh, Marlie, Matthew, and I walked off the island and into numerous stores, trying to find towels. It took us much longer than it should have. We came upon a store called “Women & Baby Essentials” finally. SURELY there will be towels there! There were, but only after trying every floor and then looping the floor we needed the wrong way. But, success! We returned to the hostel and we ALL took showers. So after about two hours (there were only two available showers on our floor) we were able to head out for the day.

We collected Andy from the ferry (since he was still at the other hostel and had to come to our island) and took the subway to the People’s Park. (人民公园 ) The People’s Park is a park that seems to exist in every large city. The park itself was nice, but our wandering and chatting was far more memorable. It was more exciting to be talking with two cool new people. They told us how they gave nicknames to every city they’d visited together. Yangshou became Yangers, Hong Kong was Honkers, and Guangzhou became Guangers… there was obviously a pattern. When we told them we worked in Kaifeng, they misheard and only referred to it as Kung fu from there out.

This was also about the time that we noticed a LOT of people were playing a hacky-sack type of game, but with a crazy feather/rubber/metal contraption instead. And they were really freaking good at it. Very tight motions, and kicking from behind their back to the center of their 4-8person circles in parks. We thought it was neat, but didn’t make much note of it until later.

It was also when we noticed all the freaky trees like this, which seemed to have additional trunks growing from their branches. What?

Andy and Matthew told us of a tower, which they’d dubbed the “Sexual Tower” and their desire to see it. They tried to show us in the distance where it was, but it was never very clear due to the smog. I think the only reason it was a “sexual” tower was because it had a very appealing curve to it. So we took the subway in the general direction of the tower, to see if we could find it and climb it. We couldn't see anything, since we’d gotten ourselves in a very building-heavy area. We spotted a tall hotel, and so walked in and found the elevator and went as high as we could. The floor we got off on was deserted and a bit dark, and not exactly hotel-looking (more conference rooms and things), so we felt we were intruding somehow. We snuck around and found a window and saw we’d overshot the location by quite a bit still. Sad.

We happened to pass a pub called Elephant and Castle (on our way to the hotel), and went there for dinner and drinks. It was pretty empty, but we gave ourselves enough entertainment. We all ordered cheeseburgers (that were FANTASTIC) and the best Guinness I’ve had in China that they poured into iced glasses. I also had a Strongbow once I realized they had it as well.

While eating, we started teasing Andy about how he was similar (not really) to one of the other American teachers, Ben. Mostly because Andy liked Subway and oreos like Ben does. But we said to truly be like Ben, he would need a Chinese girlfriend, and so we dared him to hit on our waiter/bartender. She’d been very friendly with us already and spoke decent English, so the next time she came out, Andy asked if she wanted to play pool.

The rest of us made fun of Andy from afar and just generally heckled him. By the time we were leaving, we’d established that Jenny (her English name) was now his girlfriend and his one-true-love. JUST as we were walking out, we spotted a postcard of a rainbow-looking tower in the pub. Andy realized that was our Sexual Tower and asked how we could get there. Our mission could be complete!

Before we completed our quest, we stopped at another bar near the subway called the Hilltop Bar and sat outside playing Circle of Death (which we had to teach to our Brit friends) for an hour or so. Also at some point, when Andy, Marlie, and I were all in the bathroom, our MALE waiter told Josh that “your friend is cute”, and throughout the night our waiter had been a bit ambiguous, as Andy had been fake-hitting on him and generally we were being silly and so we still have no idea WHO he meant was cute. Andy, Marlie, or me. I suspect it was Andy, because that would be the funniest.

And NOW it was time for our Sexual Tower adventure. The Elephant & Castle pub had given us superb directions, as we exited smack dab at the base of the tower. AND IT WAS SO WORTH IT. It was dark by then, and so it was beautiful and rainbow-colored like the postcard. The whole area was filled with lights and lasers and it was a perfect adventure.

We had to pay 50 yuan to get to the middle C deck, on a super speedy elevator (my ears popped), and we didn’t quite want to splurge the 200 something to get to the top. This was about when we learned that the Sexual Tower was actually called the Canton Tower, and had been built for the Asian Games that had recently taken place. So it was a very NEW tower, and also the tallest one in the world. (It surpasses the CN Tower.)

We took lots of ridiculous photos and what Matthew called “awkward tourist poses” (what do you do with your arms? Your hands? If you start thinking TOO much about it, it gets seriously awkward.) Or yelled things like “do a meerkat pose!”- and ran around on the deck, seeing the city from a different height and angle.

We returned to the hostel after about an hour of being generally very silly, and were probably a bit obnoxious on the subway, since we were all high on endorphins from completing our mission of the Sexual Tower, and also bursting out clapping and singing the Korean pop song, “Nobody” by the Wonder Girls.

None of us were in the least bit tired, so we took a detour to the 7/11 for snacks and sat by the “rivah”, chatting. Andy had purchased oreos, and we teased him further about his “girlfriend” Jenny and that he was secretly Ben in disguise.

NEXT UP! A day partially without our Blighty friends (aw- also, another of their terms), new additions to our dorm room, and the first International Sugarcane Games.

Day 24 - Where are the Bars?

Day 24 – Where are the bars?

Breakfast was bread, courtesy of Dr Ying, along with some instant coffee and bags of coconut candies, which I took far too many of, as I still have a lot of them even now, four months later.

We bussed our way to the train station, grateful to be getting further away from the horror of Macau and the disappointment of Zhuhai and on to Guangzhou. After a very long city- bus ride to what looked like the middle of nowhere in a sandy wasteland. But it was actually the train station. It was just very very new and still under construction. We stood in line on wooden planks that were half-heartedly covering the sand to buy our tickets for Guangzhou. (I know, I just personified wooden planks, I don't care.) We had to wait an hour or so, and I got a little antsy… as you can see.

Though that could also be due to the fact that by that point we’d seen at least four mothers lift their babies above garbage cans, holding their legs against their stomachs, and trying to make them pee or otherwise relieve themselves into the bin.

God, China, WHY. WHY do you do things like this?

So that very obviously made all of us extremely uncomfortable, and we went to the complete opposite side of the waiting room where there were no garbage cans, or bathrooms, just a plain nice wall where I could swing my arms around.

The tickets we’d gotten for the train were for standing room only, and the first, and hopefully the last tickets I’ll get of the kind. I was quick, though, and put one of my bags into an unused corner near the door and sat on it as a makeshift seat. Hooray! I think it was around 45 minutes, maybe. I can’t remember. But long enough that I knew I wouldn’t want to stand the whole way and get jostled by train movements. Sitting was best.

We had been unable to reserve any hostels in Guangzhou the night before, as hard as we tried, so I’d written down at least three addresses of hostels. Thankfully, Guangzhou has a subway system, and so our first attempt was on Shamian Island.

WE SUCCEEDED on our first try! We figured that since karma was seriously out to get us in Macau/Zhuhai that something HAD to go in our favor. And now it was! The hostel was just a short walk from the metro, had dorm beds, AND we were able to book 5 nights. Such serious success after two infuriating days.

Finally we were able to unload our gear, and we had a decent dinner at a nearby restaurant called Lucy’s. I got the enchilada, since I am always craving Mexican food (and it is lacking in China), and it was alright.

Actually I lied earlier about having complete success. The one thing the hostel did not have were towels. And so we had a quest for towels (only I never vocalized it as a quest, but I definitely thought of it as one), and we checked the 7/11 (HOLY CRAP, a 7/11? I don’t have those even at home) but there were none to be found. So it would have to be a quest continued the next day because we had far more pressing matters. That of taking the ferry off the island (I need to mention how thrilled I was that we were on a hostel, on an ISLAND) to the famed Bar Street we read and also could clearly see from our side of the river. Look at that! It’s so enticing! Shiny lasers and tents and lighted PIRATE SHIPS.

We were hopeful and it was about 7 or 8pm so we figured we could just bar hop. Amigos was our first try, directly across where we disembarked from the ferry. We all got margaritas that were far too full of tequila and salt on the rim, but we finished them nonetheless. I, incorrectly (and knowingly), assume that by default, margaritas should be strawberry and frozen because of how taco nights work at my home. Having a salty lime one is always a disappointment.

The next bar was one called Riverside 88, where I got a ridiculously strong whisky sour (I don’t think I ever found one I liked well enough on the trip) and the others I believe got Tiger, a beer from Singapore which still tastes like every other blah light/East-Asian beer I’ve tasted.

And then the bars stopped. We walked around the area and found nothing. We backtracked all the way back to the ferry and heard what we were thinking, “Where are the bars?” by two guys behind us.

They told us they’d already explored the street in the direction we hadn’t gone and they’d found nothing but the cheap beer at the hostel they were staying at. We told them it was the same for the opposite direction. So we came to the mutual decision to return to their hostel and get cheap beer (4 kuai!). They were to be our buddies for the rest of Guangzhou, or rather, Guangers.

Matthew and Andy both come from Norwich, England and have known each other from at least university we gathered. And they were both hilarious people- for the next few days we coined or they shared with us an absurd number of terms, which I’ll scatter throughout the next few blog posts.

We stayed at their hostel, laughing and talking absurdly loudly, and convinced we were definitely the most awesome people at the hostel. The people inside were only in pairs, or silently on laptops, or more calmly drinking a beer. We were outside on the porch, being awesome and hilarious. Eventually we ventured back to the bars we’d abandoned earlier, though they weren’t a lot more “happening”, though with our new friends they were a lot more fun. At some point in the night, they’d decided they would switch hostels the next day to ours, because clearly sleeping on an island is cooler. And it would be easier to hang out later if we were sleeping in the same place.

Next up! The Towel Quest continues, Andy falls in love, we make our best awkward tourist poses, we find the Sexual Tower, and play lots of Jasper. All to be explained soon!

Day 23 - "The Beautiful Zhuhai"

Day 23 – “The Beautiful Zhuhai”

So the only reason Zhuhai was in our itinerary of cities was because we had a connection through Marlie’s mother. One of her students is Chinese, and we were invited to meet his parents in Zhuhai. So Marlie got ahold of Dr Ying and her husband. Dr Ying was not what were expecting. She was much older than we thought, for one, and she was painfully Chinese. The day consisted of us being led around like children. Or rather, grandchildren. It wasn’t… awful, but it was a little stifling.

We met them in a KFC in the downtown area, and once we met Dr Ying and her almost entirely silent husband (most likely because he didn’t know any English) she didn’t stop talking. Her husband would really only ever respond by taking sips out of his water bottle that he’d fashioned a straw through the cap.

She went on about the “Beautiful Zhuhai” and how we were lucky to see it. None of us could agree with that statement. There wasn’t much of interest in Zhuhai, and proof of that I think was the lack of hostels. Clearly it isn’t a place that is popular to visit.

But we saw the famed Lady of Zhuhai statue, which, I suppose, was nice, but not worth the visit. Dr Ying took far more photos than we did. We also visited some strange area with an island in the middle of a huge lake, but we only walked across the bridge and back before going to dinner. The dinner was a mess of a place. It was hot pot and a buffet at the same time, which is way too much “do it yourself” service than I think is necessary. There were lots and lots of people and noise and food and smoke. A little overwhelming. We were able to shake her after dinner, but only after riding the bus with us back to our hotel (at least 15-20 minutes out of the way for her).

We were pretty tired, even though we really hadn’t done much that day. We prepared that night for our final destination, Guangzhou.

Here’s a picture of the infamous Dr Ying and us with the Lady of Zhuhai in the background.

Things from the past few days (and weeks!)

Okay I lied, I got on a tiny blogging frenzy. Here's another. More journal-y as well.

We recently found a new proxy program, and this one can actually let me access youtube without the frustrating “false” complete loaded videos like the other one did. (Hit refresh, loads 10 seconds, “done”, refresh, 5 more seconds, “done”. UGHHH) So I’ve been catching up on Vlogbrothers. So Vlogbrothers is a video blog that Quinn introduced me to last year, and it's comprised of two brothers, in their thirties, that have been vlogging on youtube for close to 4 years now. I’ve seen all of them. I caught myself up sometime last year (when she told me about them), so at least I don’t have over a year of videos to plow through. More like 3 months or so (with 3x weekly updates of 4 minutes).

The Vlogbrothers are… pure awesome. They’re John and Hank Green, and John Green is maybe the one you’ve heard of, if at all, since he’s a young adult author. He wrote the Printz-winning Looking For Alaska (very good), Paper Towns, among others. But what makes them so enthralling is that they are both undeniably, geeks. Nerds. Dorks. And well-educated and well-spoken. So it’s no wonder that I love watching their videos and the oft times crazy things that they do or discuss in their (normally) four-minute videos. If you want some entertaining, thought-provoking, but still sometimes silly youtube videos that aren't full of the usual mindless drivel that google-owned site pumps out, try Vlogbrothers.

But that’s one way in which I’ve been filling my time every day for 300MB worth of bandwidth (around 1-2 hours of waiting to load, watching, approx), since this program only gives me that much every day (for free, it’d be more if I paid. I do not want to).

I’ve also just gotten hooked into the Stieg Larsson trilogy of The Girl… /Lisbeth Salander. The Dragon Tattoo just got reaaaallly interesting last night and I spent far longer reading than I meant to. (And then was woken by the musicbox as you’ve already probably read.)

I also have about 50 books on reserve, just waiting to be sent to my library so I can READ THEM. I’ve collected titles over the months I’ve been here from all sorts of sources and recommendations and they range from crazy topics. Like Carl Sagan, the periodic table, fossils, zombies, immortality, programming, fantasy novels, fiction, and Chinese memoirs.

My productiveness seems to go in waves. Sunday I was incredibly productive. I finished a blog, was able to upload all the photos (not always an easy feat), corrected ALL the homework for the last two weeks that I was behind on, inputted the data into my spreadsheet, and cleaned my apartment. It’s a nice feeling, getting things done.

The great majority of yesterday… I watched 10 or so vlogbrothers videos aaand changed the design for the lesson plan powerpoint. That was about it. I did eventually finish planning, but… it took a lot of mental teeth-pulling.

And after a few weeks of serious mental and emotional anguish (that I don’t really want to reveal publicly (unless of course I talked with you about it), but just trust me when I say I was having a crappy few weeks), and some good discussions with a few people, I think I’m actually truly ready to handle the last few months here.

HOORAY!

Noise of China

Short tiny tiny blog.

This morning I was awoken by noise. Not the usual Thursday morning "HUUUH HAAAA" of the comrades shouting and exercising or whatever it is they do. (And it always comes at 6:15 or so, which is about 20 minutes BEFORE I NEED TO BE UP. And I hate it. Thankfully Thursday classes are almost always good ones, so this isn't so bad.) Oh no no no. It was about 9:30 (no morning classes today) and I was gently awoken by a girlish, piano... sound. It was like one of those lame SUPER girly music boxes that they have in movies. That kind of music. Oh, but guess what. It played.... and played.... ALL. FREAKING. DAY.

The last I heard it was around 5pm today (during a break in songs). Over 12 HOURS of the same goddamn annoying music. And it was coming from Da Li Tang, so it was far enough away it wasn't BLARING, but it was juuuust loud enough to be infuriatingly present.

I played my music as loudly as possible until lunch, and then after my classes this afternoon so I could drown it out.

It's gone now (10pm) and I oh so hope it doesn't return tomorrow. Please please please.

Day 22 - Friggin' Patacas (Macau)

Day 22 - Friggin’ Patacas!

This day deserves its own entire entry because of how epically terrible it was. The title really sums up a lot of rage toward Day 22. The beginning, which was technically still in Hong Kong, went perfectly smoothly. We bought our Turbojet ferry tickets and had to wait a couple hours, which was an inconvenience, but not really that bad. We found a Pacific Coffee Company and chilled. I continued my personal cheesecake crawl. It was only okay once again.

The ferry itself was similar to a plane-though the seats were considerably more roomy. Our next task as always was to find a hostel or cheap hotel in Macau. We’d researched the night before for a handful of options, and so we took a taxi to an area away from the casinos (in fact, crossing the water onto a different island of Macau), hoping we could spend some time near the beaches. We also found that we could pay for virtually anything in either MOP or HKD. Convenient, but silly. We found our first hostel easily, but we were told we needed a membership card which of course you can’t buy in Macau, but in China or Hong Kong. He said he hoped to see us again soon. Um, sure dude, when we magically whisk back to HK and get this magical card. So no. We took a bus this time back to the casino-area since the taxi cost over 100MOP. Also, don’t ask me what the O in MOP means. We never figured it out.

We tried the recommended hostel, Augusters, finally found it after a few turnarounds, (it was said to be near the Grand Lisboa) and they were full. Well, okay, let’s go to the others that Lonely Planet has listed. Both of those, also full. Also two we randomly tried on the Street of Happiness. That’s 6 now, and I was getting very testy because my shoulders have had enough torture done upon them from this trip, and we were probably pushing a couple hours now searching for somewhere to stay. Our last attempt in the area was Central Hotel, a huge towering inn. Surely... but no, nothing.

We finally tried Josh’s suggestion of the Best Western he spotted (it had outdated Christmas decorations on it) and they were also not available. The guy there even told us “Macau is full.” How in the world is an entire city FULL? We decided to try our usual Plan B of wifi at McDonalds we spotted a few blocks back. They didn’t have any, but we were so hungry and uncertain where we would eat that night and had our very late dinner there anyway. By the time we left the McDonalds, it was 10pm. We were in agreement that we should just say “eff Macau, it’s Zhuhai time(and thus back to mainland China) now.” So we found the bus to bring us to the Border Central (something something Cerco in Portuguese. We were also fed up with Portuguese by then too and wanted our Chinglish back) but we accidentally took it the wrong way, and we were on the bus for far longer than we meant. The driver made angry gestures at us to get off, but we just stayed on and rode it around to the stop we actually needed. We’d also paid over the amount needed for the bus, which we’d started being forced to do because we were running out of both HKD and patacas (Macau currency shorthand).

Getting back into China proper wasn’t bad- just lines and realizing that yes, we are really going back to China now. Macau and especially Hong Kong are NOT China. They’re really their own mini-countries, since you have to go through immigration and customs to enter both. Macau is to a much lesser extent, since it only exists for gambling and prostitution (not that we experienced either, as you’ve read).

We got to Zhuhai by literally walking there, and it was getting quite late. We decided (which I regretted later) NOT to take a taxi because they would charge us an exorbitant amount (true) because it was after hours, and so we walked to where we saw on our map there was a hostel. It took near two hours to get there, and we actually never FOUND it. Instead we ended up staying at what must have been a love hotel, or at least used as one often since it was filled with condoms and other sexual extras (just like the one in Zhengzhou over New Years).

I bought orange juice because I felt awful and had pulled several muscles from the very full day of walking. It was about 1am once we settled into bed. We also think because we passed by their place once before we came back and resigned ourselves to not finding the hotel, that they let us stay three- to a clearly two-person room. There was a nice-ish bathroom, and one queen-sized bed. It was the first and only time Marlie and I shared a bed. Josh found some extra comforters and slept on the floor. I have no pictures from Macau whatsoever.

Next up... the "Beautiful" Zhuhai

Days 19-21: Hong Kong pt 2/2

Day 19 – Dog Island

I was still a little residually angry with Josh the next day, but being on the ferry for Lamma Island helped. Water tends to calm me. Ray had told us how to get to the ferry for Lamma Island (the largest of the Hong Kong Islands not connected by the subway), and it was really quite simple.

A weird thing that happened before we arrived at the ferry was the massive amount of people along the overpass, sitting on folded-out boxes, eating lunch and generally having a good time. When we first came across them, we thought they were homeless, but there were FAR too many people set up for that to be the case. It was confusing, and we probably should have asked what they were doing, but that’ll just remain a mystery now I suppose.

It was a little strange, taking a ferry out of the city to an island, and able to see all the freighters and other ferries and skyscrapers just beyond the haze. The haze never really cleared up in Hong Kong (I’d hoped it would be a little clearer there, but no, I guess I’m spoiled by always living in suburbs without much air pollution). The island was beautiful, and I’m sure is more bustling in the summertime. There were still numerous shops and restaurants lining the cute streets, and there were DOGS. EVERYWHERE. All the dogs were extremely friendly and played with as many of them as I could.

After an early dinner, we headed to the first beach we could find. It was beautiful, and I could have played in the sand and water for hours if I could. There were dogs on the beach (that loved the water) as well, and I ran around with them a little.

We didn’t quite time our return to the ferry port, and so we had to wait about twenty minutes for the next ferry back to Hong Kong Island.

We were all quite tired and returned to the hostel for naps. We got ready again and headed out to Nathan for the parade. There were a few exits from the metro blocked off, and the amount of people crowded around the street was INSANE. It was hard to know where to stop and wait, and I probably made a slightly bad choice since I couldn’t see any of the parade for the first 30 minutes. We’d arrived around 8:15, but it didn’t start until about 9, though it lasted about an hour total. I had to stretch and angle my camera down at the street to “see” anything. Very slowly people in front left, and I got a better view for the last half of the parade. It was worth it to experience the massive amount of people. And it was quickly obvious who were nice parade-viewers and who weren’t. I also dislike children a little more now because far too many parents would hoist their children on their shoulders RIGHT in front of me, effectively blocking anything from my view.

It was still a tiring day with the morning and afternoon spent in Lamma Island and the hustle and bustle of the parade, so we made an early night of it. I read some of my new book and slept.

Day 20 – Sara

The next day we planned to hook up with Sara, a fellow Beloiter and Honger Konger. She was about twenty minutes late, and came from the New Territories where her home and school were located. We had lunch at Genki, a Japanese restaurant with kaitenzushi (rotating sushi… YESSS). I had as much as my wallet and stomach could agree on, along with green tea mochi for dessert.

We’d seen a lot of the major things on our Hong Kong to-do list (for me, it was a physical one, for the others, it was only mental), and so we asked Sara for suggestions. Since she was from the New Territories, she said she could lead us around there if we wanted. First though, we had to have a ride on the trams, which we kept referring to as “Knight Buses” ala Harry Potter (though no, they were not purple. Ours was red). So we hopped on the first one we saw, rode on it for probably ten minutes, got off, and found a park. There was nothing terribly of note there other than a fire-boat museum that was closed. So we found the nearest metro station and got on that to actually GO someplace.

We took a LOT of trains to get to the area Sara was from, and went to her favorite park after probably our cheapest meal in Hong Kong. There was nothing particularly SPECIAL about the meal, but it was cheap, and the fried egg on top was good.

We sat on the hill in the park and chatted for a while and headed back towards the city again after a few hours. (We did essentially nothing in the New Territories… but I can say I was there! Very briefly.) It was a good thing we left when we did, because though we were having fun traveling, it was getting very close to FIREWORKS TIME and we needed to get to the Avenue of Stars, or at least somewhere close.

The bus dropped us off as close as we could get on the route to the Ave, which was not very close at ALL. We thought we could take a shortcut through a mall like a lot of other people were doing- the Elements Mall. It was such a BAD IDEA. We got trapped. There were no direct, clearly marked exits to the street ANYWHERE. We tried one floor and ended up in a parking garage with no outlet but a ramp only meant for cars. So no go. Went down a floor—gates and highways blocked our way. So we went back inside, to go to the metro station and then exited THAT way. It was very un-intuitive to exit the mall and escape the Elements.

We dashed toward the harbor as fast as the massive crowd allowed us. Sadly, it was another case of, “where and when do we stop and decide it’s a good place to watch?” And I think we may have misjudged. But we eventually got a decent view of the great fireworks show. Though the kids on shoulders drove me and Sara crazy. We made a lot of comments about shooting them off their shoulders so we could see. Some lucky (and likely filthy rich) bastards got to watch the show from in the air in a DHL balloon. Sara and I joked that she should make her goal in life to marry the president of DHL so that she could watch the fireworks show from the balloon.

There were some patterns that took us a few tries to figure out. We could tell there was a heart, and “I”, but we couldn’t tell what we were supposed to be loving. At first, I thought it was “I HEART U 2”, or “I HEART U !!”, but then we realized that the letters were slightly askew and it actually said “I HEART HK”. And also because of the huge amount of smoke that the fireworks created, the finale was slightly obscured by its own smoke.

After being shoved along with the crowd and Sara informing us of the dating habits of Chinese, which includes the male always buying EVERYTHING, which is completely ridiculous and not fair, (I think we got on the topic because of the fact that we always split the bill for everything) we decided to return to Soho, since it was only around 10 or something at night. (I apologize for that crazy long run-on sentence.) We arrived there without incident this time, and began our bar hopping. The Spot (again) and Josh got a photo with our adorable female bartender friend, The Peak (had very tasty drinks and a good appetizer, though the most expensive bar we would go to), Cochrane’s (specialty beer), and then back towards the metro after an exorbitant amount of time waiting for the bus to bring Sara home. Seriously, it was like an hour, and I got incredibly antsy and had to run around (literally) to expend some energy.

We FINALLY got on the metro, just before it closed, for the Wan Chai area to finish out our night. Not much more of note happened once Sara left, and it was bed time once again. Though while we walked back to the hostel , this time without walking in circles like we attempted the first time, we came across some lovely painted pigs. Which you can see here.

Day 21 – Space and Jay Chou is a Terrible Actor

This day would have been our last moments in Hong Kong, but we figured to stick around one more day and night. After considering how much money we’d spent the last few days, we made our brunch out of food from the nearby Wellcome Grocery Store (which we could use our Octopus card at, also no, that is not a spelling error). It was a lot like buying dinner with Lisa for dinner at Lund’s. I got sushi (predictably), bread, and a fruit combo of dragon fruit and watermelon. I took far too long debating whether I wanted strawberries and pineapple or dragon fruit and watermelon. It was a difficult decision.

The park we ate in was one we hadn’t explored thus far. It was dominated by female Filipino and other non-Chinese looking women. And they ALL had what seemed like ripped flat plastic bags as “blankets”. It was the only time we got stared at in Hong Kong, and it was disconcerting then because we’d gotten used to being normal. We weren’t sure if it was because we were white, or because we had a boy with us, or… what.

But the food and weather were delicious, and the next destination was the SPACE MUSEUM. Finally! It was open! And we bought tickets for both the exhibit portions and an iMax showing of “We Are Astronomers”.

There were two exhibit rooms, the space science portion that was noticeably outdated, and tried to emphasize what China has done in space (um, not much), and the astronomy wing with more information about stars and planets and such. They were decent, though I think I had over-hyped myself a little. I still enjoyed it though.

We had a bit of time left before the 6:10 skyshow, and so we exited the museum through the back door and onto the Avenue of the Stars once again. We got to see a fake pirate ship cross the harbor, and see part of the sunset.

The skyshow itself had two parts. The first was incredibly corny. It was a seasonal show about “guest stars”, and the English audio (we got headphones with a choice of audio on the armrest) was very Chinese and awkward sounding. For example, they said the words ‘visible’ and ‘subsequent’ with the wrong emphasis.

But the second main show “We Are Astronomers” was awesome. It had friggin’ David Tennant narrating which was BRILLIANT. It was a cool show with a very cool song at the end, though I noticed Marlie fell asleep at one point. Well, that just meant more astronomy and freaky cool space information for me.

Our last dinner in Hong Kong was at Shakey’s Pizza, since we promised ourselves we would have pizza while in Hong Kong. It was quite good, and apparently an American establishment originally though I’ve never heard of it.

We met with our friend Ray again at Manchester United once more for a drink, and to thank him for his assistance in our travels the days before. We got to use his iPad and iPhone to add ourselves as friends on facebook, and bid him adieu.

Now all through our adventures in Hong Kong, we’d seen commercials and advertisements for The Green Hornet, and I suggested that we see it for our last night. We weren’t sure where a movie theatre was by the Manchester, but we’d been seeing them frequently enough in Hong Kong, so we assumed we could find one nearby. And we did! We saw it in what was supposedly an iMax theater (it wasn’t) but it was in 3D. Not that we wanted or cared that it was.

The movie itself was… mediocre. Seth Rogen played the same character that he always does, which is not very super-heroey, and so I was hoping he would be a bit different. But no. And I think Cameron Diaz is far too old to be the love interest in movies anymore. The whole movie felt off, and rushed, and I never felt fully engaged or interested in the characters. Blodnofsky (the villain) was just… strange, and could have been so much better than he was, considering he was played by the same actor who played Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds.

And then there’s Jay Chou. Dear god, I don’t see the attraction of Jay Chou. His acting was incredibly forced and his character and (I think his real persona, since he can’t act) extremely arrogant. His delivery was stilted and pulled me out of the movie every time. He was an Asian Mary Sue.

Like I said, we saw it in 3D, and I wish we’d had the option to see it normally, because I don’t think there’s any point to 3D unless they are animated movies like Coraline. That’s the only movie I’ve seen in 3D that I actually remember the 3D effects AT ALL. The ticket was a little expensive, but at least we wasted two hours, I guess?

We weren’t up for much more after the mediocre showing of The Green Hornet, so we returned to Causeway Bay, got some snacks at Starbucks (surprisingly open at about midnight) and slept.

Next up... epic failure in Macau.

Days 15-18: Shenzhen & Hong Kong pt. 1/2

Day 15 – Shenzhen Disappoints.

Ben and Emily met us at the Shenzhen train station, and I felt a little giddy, adding familiar members to our little group. It was good to talk with Ben and see how his holiday had progressed thus far. But it was safe to say that Marlie and I had been having more fun (he was only going to be in Shenzhen with Emily’s family for the holiday), and we couldn’t convince him to join us in Hong Kong. We lunched at Subway (his favorite), and tried to find a hostel. There are none. Not in Shenzhen. The city is a SEZ, Special Economic Zone, and it’s only existed for about thirty years, so there’s no history, and thus, not much to see or reason to visit. It was just a huge economic BOOM and ta~da, there was Shenzhen.

We found the cheapest hotel we could, and our room was on the 22^nd floor, probably the highest in a hotel I’ve ever been. It was a very nice room, but the price left a sour taste in my mouth.

We asked Ben and Emily what there was to DO in Shenzhen, since the only reason we were staying a night was really to recuperate from the overnight train and to visit them for the day. The only ideas they had for us was to try the Fairy Lake Botanical Gardens nearby. That sounded… decent enough, and so we took a few buses and trains to get near the location. We found four buildings with just the label of “INTERNET”, which I found ridiculously funny.

But… the gardens lied. There were no flowers. It should have been translated as just “park”, or even “garden”, since botanical suggests to ME that there will be flowers. There were not. It was just a lot of water and hills and trees donated by various political figures. So that was a bit upsetting. Wandering around the park wasn’t too bad, but it also wasn’t the most thrilling adventure ever. We took a bus to the Windows of the World amusement park, and it looked sort of neat from the outside—it had miniature figures of all sorts of famous structures, like the Eiffel Tower (which we could see from the gates) but it cost far too much to try out, and it was already later in the night. So we bid Ben and Emily good night and returned to our hotel, happy that we would be leaving Shenzhen (and its dullness) and heading into Hong Kong the next day. (At least I got to watch some Jackie Chan Adventures on tv….in Chinese?)

Day 16 – Reunited!

We met up with Ben and Emily again to escort us to the airport, where Josh would be arriving from Beijing after a week with his mother. Emily’s father made us a delicious lunch in their tiny tiny apartment.

Ben had made signs of “J”, “O”, “S”, and “H” so we could all hold one up to meet Josh with after our suggestion the night before. Unfortunately, we weren’t going to arrive before Josh because as we waited for the bus we needed, it zoomed past without stopping. It took twenty minutes or more before we noticed there was another bus stop, far before the intersection, and that was actually where the bus we needed was stopping.

We got to the airport late, and Josh had already disembarked, and was in a different section of the airport. It took some looping around and strange security before we were reunited. We did still get to use our letters, if briefly, so that was good at least.

Our next task was to find a bus that crossed into Hong Kong, and it cost 100 kuai, a bit more than I was expecting, but it would absolutely be worth it to get out of Shenzhen.

They slapped stickers on our shoulders for Wan Chai, our desired final destination via bus, where we could then hop on the metro to reach our hostel. The bus took about an hour to get out of Shenzhen, cross the water, and then through the New Territories of Hong Kong. We wanted to be on Hong Kong Island proper (further south).

Quick aside: Hong Kong uses Cantonese, not Mandarin Chinese, and so we were all out of our element re: language, but so so many more people knew English and there were a plethora of foreigners, that it didn’t matter. And for the first time, we weren’t getting stares. It was quite refreshing to feel like a normal person again in a big city (albeit one with more Chinese than we were used to).

We couldn’t find our hostel immediately, since the directions only said “a 30 second walk from the metro”, which was vague, and so we checked the address at a McDonalds (one that had wifi, huzzah). Our hostel ended up being exactly next to the “E” exit of Causeway Bay in the Paterson Building. There was just a metal gate/fence that we needed to go through to find the hostel. It was a really great location, and I was glad we didn’t stay at the Chungking Mansions (a popular cheap place to stay in Hong Kong). I read enough beforehand about them and I wasn’t keen on staying in a building that’s known as a severe fire-hazard.

We didn’t go far for dinner and drinks (only one stop back to Wan Chai), but it was immediately obvious that Hong Kong was going to put QUITE a dent in our wallets. I know exactly how much of a dent as well, since I kept a record of every single thing I bought while on the trip. I don’t know why I kept track of all my expenses, but it just felt like something that had to be done. (Along with the daily journals/notes so that I could write these blogs). The whole trip, excluding plane tickets (since they were purchased weeks before the trip started) cost around 10,000 kuai (approx $1500). That’s food, lodging, transportation, random purchases… everything. Our six days in Hong Kong accounted for about 4000 kuai. So definitely, a very expensive city.

The best part of the night for me personally, was finding that I could once again have hard cider. I even wrote in my expenses: “Strongbow. Happy” next to the price. The money is also very cool in Hong Kong, and my favorite was the 10 dollar bill. (It is Hong Kong dollars, so I can say dollars. Seeing the $ symbol was a nice return to normality as well, though everything else had a more British feel to it, obviously.)

Day 17 – The Hong Kong Pulse

Very quickly I was able to “feel” Hong Kong and its constant rhythm within. It was absolutely intoxicating and the entire time I was there I thought “I could REALLY live here.” Yes, there are a lot of people, but the entire place was just too interesting to discount for the wonders of the city.

We woke up for our first full day of Hong Kong, watched a little Count of Monte Cristo on our tiny television in our hostel room, and took geyser showers. We had to flip a switch to turn on the “geyser” (really, the hot water heater).

We found breakfast at a little place called “Viking” and walked to the Sheung Wan station to get our Octopus Cards. I recommend for anyone staying more than two days in Hong Kong to get an Octopus Card—you have to make a HK$50 deposit, but you get most of that back plus any balance left on your card when you leave. They’re crazy convenient since they’re used not just on the trains, buses, and trams, but at some restaurants (like McD) and grocery stores too.

There was (real) English EVERYWHERE, and the weather was wonderful. Marlie and I didn’t need our coats, and so we stuffed them inside Josh’s backpack. We walked along near the harbor on Discovery Bay pier and soaked in the harbor view. The IFC building and mall was nearby, (the building that Batman jumps off of in Dark Knight) and we followed the advice of wikitravel.com to buy some cheese, bread, and drinks at City Super and eat them atop the mall. So up we went!

We stayed atop the mall for a long time, and it was very refreshing. I was really really appreciating Hong Kong because of all the differences it has from China. People don’t spit. They don’t shove. There’s toilet paper and soap in bathrooms and they’re not flooded with water. They know how to move properly in crowds, and we don’t get STARED at like animals in a zoo. I was going to cherish the time I had in Hong Kong before I had to return to China proper.

The subway in Hong Kong is amazing, and it was our prime way to get around. We visited the Soho and Mid-Level Escalators in the late afternoon, and hit up some happy hours at Best of British (or Yorkshire Pudding—I couldn’t tell which was actually their name), a decent English bar, and the Spot, who had the friendliest female bartender ever.

Dinner was a gyro for me, pizza and tikka masala salad for Marlie and Josh at Ebeneezers, and afterward we walked a LOT without much purpose, but it led us through some cool areas and streets, and so it wasn’t wasted time. We took the Peak Tram to the top of Victoria Peak once it was dark, and got very cool views of the city, even though it was still hazy.

We wanted to do Soho again that night, and we attempted it, but we got a little turned around (since we came from a different direction). But it quickly became time to decide to grab a last train back to our hostel, or to wait it out and get a cab later. We went with the cheaper option (as usual), and headed back to Wan Chai, only one stop off from our hostel.

We tried a few bars in the area with limited success. I got a tasty Piña Colada and we witnessed a very drunk British woman going on and on about the “bars on the radio”, whatever that meant. Later she stumbled and completely shattered a glass. So at the least, it was entertaining for us to watch her stumble around.

It was bedtime, and I borrowed Marlie’s laptop to watch some vlogs on youtube. (Even using the proxy program we found, youtube doesn’t load less than half the time.) I had to take advantage of the normal internet sometime while we were in Hong Kong!

Day 18 – Manchester United and Norway

I really wanted to go to the Space Museum on this day, and there were a lot of interesting things in the same general area, so we planned the day around Kowloon Island and the Tsim Sha Tsui area. Unfortunately, the museum was closed since it was still part of the Chinese holiday (we didn’t think of that).

We wandered our way into the busier areas on Nathan Road. We stopped for a while at Swindon Books, a completely English bookstore, which was heaven for me. I bought Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (it’s very good). We found a park nearby with an interesting art installation called GASP!, trying to increase eco-awareness. It had “talking trees” and turtles, and an aviary.

The Chungking Mansions were near, and we walked a little in the bottom floor to get an idea of where we COULD have stayed. There were hawkers and crowded shops selling watches, leather goods, and tobacco everywhere. And the people there were primarily Middle-Eastern or African, which I’d read was the largest population in the area. We were all very glad we didn’t choose to stay in the Chungking Mansions because of the pushy touts and huge crowds near the elevator entrance, and I’d been able to find the place we had in Causeway Bay.

We returned to the Avenue of Stars, which was near the museums, and we found the three Chinese actors we knew- Jet Li, Bruce Li, and Jackie Chan (成龙). Bruce Li even has his own statue on the walk.

There was a bar on the avenue called Deck n Beer, They didn’t have food, but we figured we could have one drink and then venture for nourishment. In a different direction off Nathan Road, we found the Irish pub Delaney’s. It was pricey to eat there, but I had a really tasty Shephard’s Pie, and Marlie and Josh got beer with capes on them (and dinner too of course).

It was time again to take advantage of happy hours, and so we popped into a bar called Imagine. It was a super super Chinese bar, and we felt like were intruding and wrecking their vibe of “non-foreigner”. But their interior was great; they had music videos playing on their swank televisions, and they definitely had the best cocktails. But we didn’t feel completely comfortable there, and so it was time for another try.

We didn’t have to go far. We went into the Manchester United Restaurant & Bar, officially sanctioned by the team. There were huge televisions everywhere, and Josh informed us that in the men's restroom there were televisions in the wall, so that even when peeing (on the televisions) you wouldn't miss a second of the game. Wow.

The bar was a fabulous choice, and we chatted up Ray, the maitre d’, for hours. He told us how to get to where we wanted for the next day, his thoughts on the politics of the Hong Kong/mainland China situation, and lots of cooking tips and methods that I’ve forgotten. He was in his early 30s and had lived in Vancouver after his family moved there in 1997 to avoid any possible mishaps after the handover of Hong Kong back to China.

The Manchester United Bar has over 30 microbrews from all over the UK, and Ray told us that some were only available in their bar. Josh of course, tried the highest alcohol volume beer they had, which were: Paradox (12%), and Sink the Bismarck! which was 41% and had to be drunk in a shot glass because of its insane volume. Later we split a fish and chips, and even later I got dessert of chocolate mousse (really freaking good).

Talking with Ray was amazing, but we’d been there for about three hours and thought maybe we could try somewhere else. We walked back to the Avenue of the Stars to get a look of the bay at night, and then hopped on the subway. As we made the long way to the trains, Josh pretended to be a soldier, running ahead and freezing in place with a salute.

We got to the gate, and Josh fell behind, since he had dropped his card. I hurried forward, yelling that I’d wait for them down the stairs. Marlie came soon after, but no Josh.

There was no sign of Josh for a long time.

We started to get worried, and retraced our steps out and along the station. No Josh.

And of course, our phones didn’t work in Hong Kong at all. Hong Kong is really NOT China. If you have to go through customs and your Chinese phone doesn’t work… it’s a different country.

Anyway, we couldn’t call him, and he wasn’t in the station. So we asked the information booth if they could make an announcement in the subways. They made the announcement for “lost person, Josh Davendonis, please contact the information desk” for the next 30 minutes or so, while Marlie and I became increasingly anxious. Our only ideas of where he might be were back at the hostel, and, more likely, at a bar SOMEWHERE, oblivious to how freaked out we were getting.

Eventually, we assumed he wasn’t waiting in the trains, and so we returned to the hostel, and told the head desk we couldn’t find him. He wasn’t in the room either. We sat on the beds, thinking. We made a note, in case he returned to the hostel (at least he had the other key to the room), and we tried our last idea, which was Wan Chai.

It was about two hours he’d been missing at this point. We neared the bars we’d visited the nights before, and there he was, gleefully drinking with another foreigner. I was more pissed than relieved. I yelled at him, slapped him, and had to retreat to the bathroom to cool down.

I didn’t think there was much hope of salvaging my night, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep just then (it was still kind of early for me), and I didn’t want to fume alone in the hostel. So Marlie and I sat and talked for a little bit. I decided I’d given it enough of a go, and just as I’d made the decision to leave, the bartender came over and gave us drinks, “courtesy of the man over there”. I’ve NEVER had drinks bought for me before, and I was a little befuddled of what to do. I thought the polite thing would be to thank whoever did it, and Marlie agreed.

They were courtesy of Christian and Johnny from Norway, in Hong Kong on a business trip. They were quite a bit older (forties at least?), and it was sweet of them to buy us drinks, but I was not interested. They were very interesting to talk to, though, and it was a sufficient distraction of my anger at Josh. We all talked for a long time (and I surprised Christian with my knowledge of Kaizers Orchestra) until I felt myself falling asleep and I got a cab home.

Next up... More Hong Kong!

Days 10-14: Yangshuo and Xingping, Guangxi Province

Day 10 – In which “Lady Gaga is a 美国人” and I am the Master of Connect Four

The train ride was not bad. We met a company of people from Liu Zhou; they took up nearly the whole train car we were in. Their English was basically nonexistent and they would have to converse amongst themselves to think of difficult sentences like “What is your name?”, “Why are you in China?”, “Do you have a boyfriend?” (I lied which led to…) “Is he Chinese?” (No). They found one girl who had decent English, but they physically dragged her to where we were sitting. Once they stopped using her as a conduit for their questions, she chatted normally with us for a bit.

I took out my mini speaker sometime during the trip, and they were fascinated by it and started asking about my music tastes. Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga seemed to be the only common artists with them (sad). They also remarked, verbatim, “Lady Gaga is a Meiguoren!” which was hilarious to all of us, for whatever reason.

We arrived in Guilin and met up with Tracy, a connection of Jon-Michael’s. We weren’t sure what sort of person to expect, since the text she sent Marlie was to look for “a black coat and glasses”. She was around our age, and came with her friend Steven (a friend of her boyfriend). She helped us book our Guilin-Shenzhen train ticket successfully, and mailing a box of Li Jiang purchases back to Kaifeng. Immediately walking around Guilin, we noticed it was a little too similar feeling to Kaifeng and we weren’t sure we would enjoy that. I’m sure there are good things to do in Guilin, but after hearing multiple people tell us that we should skip Guilin and move on to Yangshuo where you can get the same things for cheaper and generally better, we told Tracy we wouldn’t be staying in Guilin that night.

She treated us to Guilin’s rice noodles (no soup, but with meat and egg and spices, quite good) and led us to the minibuses for Yangshuo. Only 15 kuai and we were on our way.

Our bus driver was a bit… giggly, in a way like “Oh hahahaha I almost hit that other bus, wheeee”. Rambo was also playing on the tv.

I was immediately glad of our decision to skip Guilin, as Yangshuo was smaller, but more welcoming than Guilin had felt at first sight. We had a small bit of trouble finding a hostel. We came across one, but it felt very cold and empty. We wanted to find Monkey Jane’s, a hostel highly recommended by our various sources. It was tucked away in an alley [see picture], and it took some time for us to find it because of that. But it was absolutely worth it and it was a great first dip into the dorm-style rooms (we’d been doing private doubles before). It was probably the worst bathroom in the whole trip, but it was warm (the room had a heater) and that was slightly more important to us.

We let ourselves be called into a restaurant with the promise of free beer with dinner, and instead of possibly regretting it (possibly bad food and just good beer?) it was delicious.

After dinner we went upstairs in our hostel, seeing the promise of the Amazing Rooftop Bar of the Marvelous Monkey Jane. It was awesome up there, and she even had a beer pong table set up, something I haven’t seen in a while, and definitely not in China. There was a big flat screen tv, heating fans for every table, and board games and a huge DVD collection underneath the tables. I found Connect Four and challenged Marlie. I won seven times of seven. I am the Master! I recall playing it a lot as a kid, so maybe it’s remembered skill, because I don’t play with any specific strategy.

As much as we liked the rooftop, we wanted to test out the rest of the area. We didn’t have much luck, since the few foreigners that were in Yangshuo weren’t handily gathered together, but rather clumped in small groups of 2-3 in each bar we found. We found some neat shops, but no company. Slightly disappointed, we returned to bed, and there was only one person there, and she was already asleep.

Day 11 – Moon Hill, not Moon Cave

Using a map that we found at the desk, we headed out to Moon Cave. Again, we purchased tickets from the hostel, thinking it would be easier for us. Unfortunately, we took our bus too far and into the next town (高田) so we had to take the same “bus” (a small van packing as many people as possible while still sitting) back about 5 minutes along the road to the entrance of Moon Hill. Old ladies tried to sell us Moon Hill tickets, but we told them we were trying for Moon Cave, not Moon Hill. We finally understood we needed to cross the road, where the ticket office was. It was closed. We stood around for a while, unsure of what to do. Another old lady tried to lead us down the road SOMEWHERE, but we told her we would just go to Moon Hill instead (we knew where that was, at least, after accidentally trying to get in with our cave tickets). We were surrounded by the old hawking ladies again as we bought our tickets from the window . We didn’t want to chance giving them money and not being able to get in with their possibly fake tickets (it was only 15 kuai per person at the window). It was weird that they were all gathered right outside the entrance, though.

We’d missed a larger group going up to the hill, but it didn’t matter much as it was pretty easy to navigate the hill. You go up.

Yet another old lady started following us up the hill, slowly, with her box of water (a little a la Jishnu from Good Woman) and postcards. She knew just enough English to be dangerous, and we couldn’t shake her. There was only one way up and one way down, after all. She did help when the path forked and told us the faster way up, but we were still wary of being too near her in case she tried to pull a fast one on us.

We reached the hill, and as usual, had great views of the surrounding scenery. The old lady again pushed “10 yuan postcards? Water?” and had also added a new phrase of “one hot, one tired”, referring to me and Marlie respectively (I was going pretty fast up the stairs and stripping layers). We went as high as the path allowed, let her take a picture of the two of us (slightly afraid she would take the camera, but where would she go? We were clearly faster than she was), and as we descended, we finally bought water off her. We got a little ahead of her and she completely disappeared.

We took the “Vanity” path which was a better overlook of the small village below, and is where this picture comes from, looking backward towards the hill.

Returning to the town, we ate at Lucy’s, a cool restaurant with scribbling all over the walls. I had the tastiest burger yet, onion rings, and a pot of ginger tea (famous in the area). We explored the stores nearby a little, and we found a store with many things “Obamao”. Here’s a picture…

With enough exploring completed, we decided we didn’t want to be disappointed again with the bars in the area (we could really tell we were visiting in the off-season) so we returned to Monkey Jane’s and went straight to the rooftop.

This was a fabulous decision. We arrived earlier than we had the night before, and Monkey Jane herself invited us to sit with her and watch things on her laptop. We chose an American faux-documentary movie called “The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down”. A really tall (6’8”) white guy came up to the bar partway through the movie and joined us. The four of us started chatting more when the movie finished, and he said he was teaching in South Korea, but from South Africa. Monkey Jane had pretty good English, but her indistinct accent made her hard to understand. She taught us a bluffing dice game that we’d seen some Chinese men playing a few days ago. It was a good game, and if you lost the bluff, you had a shot of beer. When we got a bored with the game (though that took a while), she brought over shots that I *think* she said came from her jar with snakes in it. But I could be mistaken. We all went to bed shortly after, found that Aidan (the South African) was in the same dorm as us and the girl from last night had left, so we weren’t bothering anyone returning to the dorm so late.

Day 12 – Dragon Water Cave

We were able to convince Monkey Jane to accompany us to the water cave the night before. This was very good because she’d been there multiple times and would know exactly what to do, unlike us. We also invited Aidan, since he didn’t seem to have other plans. So we all woke up, showered, had breakfast on the rooftop (sans Monkey…) and waited in the entryway. Finally we asked the other girl working and she called Monkey. She hadn’t even woken up yet. So we waited a little longer, Monkey apologized for her tardiness, and we were off.

This was another great decision of ours, as the cave with Monkey, was a great time. I’ve never been in a cave before, so I thought it was particularly cool. It’s hard to capture caves with photos, but I attempted. I have video that is decent, at least.

Monkey translated what she could of our tour guide (we needed to have someone guiding us along with a flashlight, we couldn’t just explore ourselves, and I think it would have been quite difficult anyway), so we got a taste of what a typical Chinese tour was like. It was just a lot of “oh this rock looks like a dragon, kind of”, and “these stalactites form an elephant, don’t you think?” and making up random stories about shapes. I didn’t really care and sometimes couldn’t see what he pointed out. I was just happy being in a freaking CAVE.

We’d explored the entire cave and passed by the mud baths (faaar too cold to do) but knew we could do the hot springs. I wasn’t expecting to be needing a swimsuit on our trip (I did bring some to China, but left them in Kaifeng), and neither was Marlie, so we both stripped down to bra and underwear. The hot spring area was small-ish, and the pools were obviously naturally-made. Monkey convinced us (it wasn’t that hard) that we should all buy a beer and drink them in the hot springs. It was a very good idea indeed and was refreshing against the hazy heat of the springs. There was a sign saying that we could only be in the springs for ten minutes, but I think we sat there for at least 45. The picture here is one taken by some guys running the hot spring area that we all bought for 10 kuai.

In total, we were in the cave for at least four hours. We got back to Yangshuo, and with Aidan, had dinner at a restaurant directly across from Monkey Jane’s alley. Black-pepper steak, lasagna, chicken schnitzel, and cheesecake were our choices, and the phrase “cheesecake crawl” (after talking about pub crawls) was coined while we ate. Knowing that the bar situation had not changed since last night, we all returned to the rooftop to rejoin Monkey.

I grabbed her DVD collection, as Monkey said it was fine if we wanted to watch something on the flat screen tv. Aidan and I were in the mood for something mindless, and we found a Sci-Fi (SyFy- I hate the new abbreviation) movie called Pterodactyl. It sounded PERFECT, and oh, it so was. I don’t know if Marlie quite appreciated the glory of a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie. We tried guessing the order and means of each character’s death, and we were right probably 75% of the time. We watched a second movie, The Sitter, because of its cover promising a babysitter + bloody hammer. It did not deliver. It was merely a bad-bad movie rather than an awesome- bad one. It also started skipping near the end and we didn’t find out how it concluded (Oh. No. The tragedy. /sarcasm). We “talked shit” with Aidan (as he phrased it) long into the night until Monkey kicked us out and then went to bed. This is a picture of what the dorm room looked like in daylight, of course, not at night. A maximum of 6 people could sleep in there.

Day 13 – Jeanie

Our stay in Yangshuo had to finish that day since we really wanted to see Xingping and meet up with a CouchSurfer, Jeanie. (Google it if you don’t know), and we only had one more day before our train from Guilin to Shenzhen. If we could have, I think we’d have stayed a few more nights. Alas, we had to leave.

We snagged a one-hour bus to Xingping. I slept the whole way. Yangshuo had a very simple “bus station”. It was just a parking lot with destination signs in the bus windows, or in a few cases, hanging above if they were parked under cover. Easy.

Jeanie texted me the directions to her art gallery/home, and they were simple enough. She’s Australian, but has been living in China for over six years if I recall correctly. She still knows very very little Chinese; she seemed a little resistant to learning it for some reason. We met her grandson Clint, who works in Shenzhen and had just gotten married a few days earlier. They were both very chatty people and she provided us with a lot of tangential stories, tea, and snacks, including pomelos, a fruit somewhat similar to grapefruit though not as sour. Xingping seemed to be the land of pomelos, too, as there were trucks and trucks filled with them there.

Jeanie led us to the only hostel in town, This Old Place, which was incredibly nice, even as they were refurnishing and adding MORE wood accents to the already super wooden décor. It was also the second (and last) of our hostels with heat, and so we steamed up the room and it was glorious. It would be a really terrific place to stay in the (proper) springtime and autumn. I don’t think I’d want to travel anywhere we did in the summer because of my aversion to heat.

Anyway, we unloaded, and met with Jeanie again for dinner. It was a very Kaifeng-esque meal: cheap, fried egg rice, noodles with veggies, and an egg/tomato soup. Jeanie also said she could organize a river tour with a guide who knew a little English.

Our beds were warm, and my eye hurt from a mysterious scratch over my eyelid, but all was well.

Day 14 – End of the Karst

I haven’t mentioned it thus far, but the description for the mountains we saw in the Yangshuo region are called “Karst”. I haven’t bothered to check what it means or WHY they’re named that, but this would be our last day among them.

I had the best shower ever- even though the bathroom was downstairs from our room, it heated up quickly and didn’t run out of hot water (like in previous hostels).But I did have to run up the metal spiral staircase in wet socks. We met Jeanie again for tea before breakfast and to arrange our boat tour. The day was wonderfully warm in the sun, but significantly chillier in the shade. James, our guide, arrived, and with a lot of confusion we finally got him to understand that we had to do the tour TODAY because we were leaving on a train that night. He hadn’t had lunch (he was quite late), and so we waited even longer, chatting with Jeanie outside in the sun on benches. An old “eccentric painter” (Jeanie’s phrase) came and set up his strips of paintings across from us. Marlie and I each bought one for cheap, even though Jeanie said he would just be using the money to drink that night.

James finally returned and we were off for our boat ride on the Li River. It was beautiful, but our enjoyment was hindered by the breeze off the cold water and lack of sun when we went under the shade of the mountains. We paid for the longest ride available, but there wasn’t much distinction between any docking areas, and so he really could have turned around at any point and told us that it was our stop. We were so cold, it didn’t really matter. James was also the slowest raft in the water, I noticed.

We only had one more mission for the day, which was to climb up the local mountain, Lao Zhai Shan. We passed another funeral on our way back to town, and James had pointed out earlier that it was for a man who was 96 years old. It didn’t have the intensity of the other funeral we’d witnessed (maybe because of the age of the deceased). They seemed to be in the midst of a meal, but for the rest of the day we heard booms and cracks of explosions from the site of the funeral.

Lao Zhai Shan had what you could call “steps.” It wasn’t nearly as paved and man-made feeling as some of the other mountains and hills we’d climbed up. That was nice for a while, and then it was just tiring. We reached the top and met a guy from Shanghai. He had me take pictures and VCD for him and he was oddly particular about the angles and such, but still a nice guy. He knew enough English to chat with us for a few minutes, and then we all walked down together. Walking down Lao Zhai Shan felt more treacherous than walking up. (As it did with Moon Hill and Cangshan.)

We picked our luggage up from the hostel (all the hostels we stayed at let us store our things after checkout if we needed), said goodbye to Jeanie, and caught a bus to Yangshuo just about to leave. I thought it would be easiest to eat in Yangshuo, where we were familiar with restaurants, and then head on to Guilin, instead of wasting time trying to find an acceptable place to eat in either Xingping or Guilin, neither of which we were familiar. We ate a quick dinner at the China Café, the same place we’d eaten with Aidan a few days earlier, hopped on a bus to Guilin, and got on our train. Our train left Guilin at 9:30pm so we weren’t expecting the lights to be on long (they turn them off during the night), but it was enough time to meet another American, Ramadan from Phoenix, who worked in Hong Kong and was returning after a short vacation himself. Lights went out around 10:40pm; I stayed up a little longer playing my DS and then slept.