Guilin & Yangshou

I really wish I would have finished blogging about our China trip last year, but life got busy. 

We spent the last part of our trip in Guilin and Yangshou. We had the best time in these cities, they were much smaller and more rural than the other places we had visited so far. I believe in China they are considered tourists destinations. The first evening we spent in Guilin we walked around the park outside our hotel 

 

The next morning we packed an overnight bag and we took a river cruise on the Li River to Yangshou. 

The scenery and life on the river was so amazing. For many people this river is their life. It is how they travel, how they make a living, how they survive. 

This guy came right up next to our cruise ship trying to sell fruit to people.

Big rock formation bordered the river throughout the whole cruise. Many of the mountains had special names because they looked like a horse or meant something, I can't recall any of that. I spent most of the whole trip on the top deck taking pictures. 

Once we got to Yangshou we were pretty much on our own. We grabbed a map at the hotel and started to explore. The majority of the town that we saw was just full of markets. You could buy anything and everything. We did a lot of shopping! We had a fun time bartering with the locals. Many of them barely understood us so we would pass paper and calculators back and forth trying to come up with a good deal. 

A night time the whole town came alive with night clubs. It was a little strange. We ate dinner at a cute little italian place where we ordered pizza and chinese food. Later that night we walked by and it had turned into a dance club. 

Very strange packaged meats.... 

On our way back to the hotel that night the streets were very crowded. I saw this very small old lady sitting on a stool selling bracelets. I stopped and bought a few bracelets from her.

The streets were so crowded we could barely make our way through. We held onto each other tight and pushed our way through. 

Our last morning in Yangshou we had to make a quick trip into the market place to buy a small rolling suit case to bring all of our souvenirs back in. 

I hope I can visit this beautiful place again. I loved watching the people and exploring this small town. I never felt unsafe and everyone was very friendly. Looking back through all these pictures and thinking about the memories made makes me want to travel again. 

Local School Visit

Our next stop was a local school. The school was actually a boarding school that taught English. When we arrived all the kids starting screaming "Hello!". We visited a 4th grade class where we did some introductions and exchanges gifts. Them all the kids went outside to play games. There were a ton of kids at the school and they were all so interested in us. It was funny trying to talk to them because most of them only knew a few phrases. Many of the kids wanted pictures with us. I handed out a few jolly ranchers and a few seconds later I had a big crowd around me. The jolly ranchers were a big hit and gone fast! We really enjoyed playing with all the kids at the school.

 After the school we went to a local restaurant which served some interest food choices. It was my least favorite meal so far. I was happy to finally see soy sauce though!  Before dinner we got to participate in a fun game/dance using large sticks. It was kind of like jump rope or maybe double dutch. They would hit the sticks apart and then together and the goal was to make it across without getting hit by the sticks. From the pictures below you can tell that not many of us made it across. It sure was fun though!

 Had to include this cute little boy... he was at the restaurant and sooooo cute! 

Nanning

Getting caught up on my China posts... At the end of our trip the internet didn't work most of the time. Had a wonderful trip and I can't wait to share lots of photos!

Today was a full day in Nanning. Nanning is the capital city of Southern China. It is very green and humid. Still very crowded like Beijing. Our first stop this morning was an orphanage. They held a welcoming ceremony for us. A few orphanage directors were in attendance and gave speeches. The orphanage children performed two dances for us and then some children from our group performed a variety of talents. The children were so excited to perform their dances for us. They passed out fruit, but it soon became a game of banana's turned into guns. They loved seeing the pictures I had taken on my camera of them.  

After the speeches and performances were done all the children from our heritage group put red ink on their hands and filled an album with all their hand prints and names. 

We felt like famous people after the ceremony was finished. Their were camera crews and interviewers everywhere. We snuck away for a few minutes and found rooms full of little children eating lunch. We didn't want to intrude so we just watched them for a little bit, waved, and took some photos. I wish we could have stayed longer and played with them.

 We were served lunch at the orphanage. We had some free time after lunch so a few families decided to be brave and explore Walmart while the rest of the group returned to the hotel.

Lots of strange strange things in Walmart. I did find some familiar things though like Pringles! Funny story.... We were trying to find the bathroom in Walmart so we followed the signs with the boy and girl on it. No luck. Well an older couple were watching us and were trying to help us. So hard to communicate in this country. They ended up showing us to the bathroom which was two stories down, through a parking garage and down a hallway. We never would have found it without them. Such a nice old couple! All of the families stuck together as we left Walmart and walked back to the hotel. We thought it was just a few blocks from the hotel... 45 minutes later we finally made it to the hotel, barely in time for our next excursion. Turns out we took a wrong turn... Now we can say we got lost in China! Oh and the humidity in Nanning is pretty high so we were drenched by the time we got back to the hotel.