Yangshuo, Day Yi

Vacation, vacation......how I love vacation. Today Chelsie and I were up before the sun and were on our way. We hailed a taxi and got to the airport. As soon as we were on the plane and about to take off, they announce that the runways are really congested so we will "wait a moment" (which always means a lot longer than just a moment) to wait for the runways to clear. This ended up taking an hour. The flight was uneventful and we got into Guilin around 11 in the morning. We found our taxi driver who took us to our hostel. We are staying at the Trippers Carpe Diem in Yangshuo and it's already one of my favorite places I've ever stayed. Our room is simple, just a bed and a desk and a bathroom. There is a common room, a pool table, a rooftop where we will be taking tai qi (chi) later this week, and a balcony with a hammock. Love. We also saw a guy doing some hay gathering....

Our hostel from the front

entry-way

It's very colorful here!

After unpacking and laying on the bed for a bit we decided to go grab some lunch. The kitchen at our place was closed so we had to go to a hostel just down the road. Guess what.....we finalllllllyyyyyyy found fried dumplings that are as good as the ones from Wuhan! After lunch we played a scandalous game of "love" Jenga. I compiled all the best ones and took a picture.......

Chelsie told me the best joke I've EVER heard. Ask me about it.

"I'm going to reward you with 30 seconds of uninterrupted eye contact"

wah wah wah

We saw a really cool plant on the way back to our hostel and I had to take a picture of it for my mom. "Hey mom, do you know what this is?!?!?"

We sat on the couch for a while and talked to the front desk girl here who helped us decide what we should do on our vacation. We already had a bunch of stuff that we had looked up and she kind of just helped us map out our days. Then the hungry monster struck again and we decided we could go to West Street which is the main foreigner hub of this place and poke around. Our walk along the Li River was gorgeous. I couldn't believe we were still in China. This place is such a stark contrast to the noise and traffic and crowdedness of Beijing - it's incredibly refreshing. Trees and bushes and plants cover every surface that hasn't been paved and it truly is a very Seuss-ish feeling.

First glimpse of the river

These trees are so cool

"Yangshuo is a perfect example of all that is good about tourism. A harmony of nature, people, and culture...I wish you all the best and my continued support"

We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a "Hey-Lady" market (so nicknamed by Chelsie's mom and Tina). And then we found passion fruit. As a child growing up, my mother always used to buy passion fruit juice and whenever I drank it I would think to myself "there is no way there is a fruit that actually tastes like this." ....and that is what I have always believed. Until tonight. Passion fruit may be in the running for my absolute favorite fruit. It's so sweet and yummy and kind of tart. If you haven't had one, I am sorry for you. Go find one. We ventured around the market and then came to the real West Street. It was awesome. The street was built pretty much right up to the edge of several of the mountains (which were all lit up and beautiful). Unfortunately my camera takes bu hao night pictures so I can't accurately portray how gorgeous this was. We both bought a few things and the one that I'm most particularly excited about are some of the tiniest little shoes you've ever laid eyes on. I'm investing in my future child. I can't help it - China has adorable children so they have to have adorable things for them.
(You'll just have to wait for a picture of these shoes.....)
We ate dinner at a for real Chinese restaurant which was a delicious choice for me but an unfortunately not so yummy choice for Chelsie. I got my favorite traditional Chinese food: tomato and egg with rice. So delish. Then we decided it was time to head back to our hostel. As we were leaving town we came across some ladies dancing and since we've both always wanted to join one of these dance sessions......we did! One of the ladies looked back at us and smiled. I'm guessing it's not too often the foreigners actually join the dancing instead of just watching. It was a very relaxing and soothing experience and I'm pretty much positive that I will be doing it again, and so will everybody who comes to visit me. Get excited. The walk back to the hostel brought out the frogs. We had seen several that had been squished on the road, but no live ones. Well.....we saw live ones, 'nuf said.

Can you find him?

Most unusual/interesting part of today: this guy:

On our walk back to our hostel we discovered that we were going to walk into a path of pitch blackness. It was kinda scary but luckily we had our handy phone flashlights which we both turned on. We sang songs the whole way there.....included in our repertoire was Justin Bieber's "Baby", Mary Had a Little Lamb (all 4 verses), Willaby Wallaby Woo (Romp n' Roll song), My Heart Will Go On (Celine Dion - from Titanic), and a little N'Sync. Needless to say we made it back safely, even if we did almost pee our pants. "It's not that I'm scared of the dark....I'm just scared of what might be hiding in the dark."