Yes, I know, I’ve really fallen behind on my blog posts. I
guess I overestimated the amount of free time I would have as the summer
continued. Well, one way to look at it is that I’m so busy experiencing things
to write about, that I haven’t had the time to actually write about them. But now that we are officially done
with our summer program, and I’m on my own exploring Asia with two of my buds
(Mike & Jack) I can finally write about my adventures. No worries, I’ll catch you up to what
I’m doing right now in a bit.
So rewind back to the beginning of the month, to the 4th
of July, where we started another one of our long voyages across the country.
We boarded our train on the night of the 4th worn out from the day
that ended up being my least favorite 4th of July in my life. A quick summary of how the day went:
industry visit to an air-conditioning company - four hours in heat that was so
dangerous that the employees were given the day off - a traditional Chinese
lunch consisting of boiled frogs, duck tongues, chicken feet, spicy octopus and
a full chicken (including the head) in a pot – class – hour long cab ride to
the train station – train ride. It was basically the opposite of every 4th
I’ve ever had in the US, but I guess I now have a stronger appreciation for
those kinds of occasions.
Back to the trip - we’re on the train, in hard sleeper beds
(thank God), and after a calm, and practically relaxing trip, we arrive in
Guilin. We all decided that we
wanted to go to Guilin after hearing rave reviews from previous students on
this trip, and from one of our professor’s. Guilin is a city in southern China, relatively small in
China (only 5 million people), and known for its ridiculously unique scenery of
mountains that look like the bottom of egg cartons.
The first day out we were determined to spend as much time
in the mountains as possible, so we booked a tour through our hostile that
would take us to the Li River. In China there’s a saying that goes “If you want
to see mountains – go to Huangshan, if you want to see water – go to Jiuzhaigou,
and if you want to see both – go to Guilin”.
After this trip, Guilin has taken over Shanghai as my
favorite place in China. We rode in groups of five in motorized PVC rafts for
about two hours up and down the river, soaking in the scenery and goofing
around on the raft. It was such an
awesome ride, where I kept finding myself feeling like I was dropped into a
National Geographic television show.
We then went to a tiny country town and loaded up two by two
into personal bamboo boats. A personal driver pushed us up and down the river
with a bamboo pole, which was just about as “Chinese” of an experience as
someone could possibly get. Along
this ride, we stopped at a farm and all got off to check out a farmer’s water
buffalo. When we mustered up some
courage, we all hopped on the massive animal and rode it around for a while. We
also were able to watch a fisherman use an ancient Chinese technique of
catching fish where he ties off a Commerant bird’s throat, so the bird catches
the fish, brings it back, but isn’t able to swallow it so the fisherman gets to
keep it. Overall, it was another
very eventful ride, complete with squirt guns, which we of course used to soak
each other.
Eventually, our group made it to Yangshuo, a town about an
hour south of Guilin, where we had purchased tickets to see the “Impressions”
show that we had heard such great things about. The famous Chinese director
that designed the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies also made shows for a few
select Chinese cities, which are known as “Impressions” of the respective city.
The show however was very disappointing compared to our high expectations.
Afterwards, we were tasked with finding our own
transportation back to our hostile in Guilin. Only knowing basic Chinese words and phrases, we weren’t too
confident we’d be able to make it back.
But after locating the “bus station” (parking lot with empty busses) we
walked around saying “women xiang qu Guilin” (we want to go to Guilin) enough
times that a lady heard us and fired up a bus just for our group…a great victory
for broken Chinese.
When we arrived in Guilin, we all decided that we couldn’t
spend two and a half months in China without seeing the iconic rice terrace
mountains. So we made a day trip out to a remote village and spent the day
climbing and hiking around, admiring the ancient engineering that turned rocky
hillsides into productive crop makers.
The way back was tainted by what ended up being the worst
train ride yet. I won’t go into the gory details, but I’ll just say that bodily
fluids were excreted very near our seats, multiple times. Thank the lord I’ll
never have to do a ride like that again in my life.
So a quick update on my current situation, I’m on a train
(soft sleeper bed – hell yeah) headed to Guangzhou. From Guangzhou, Mike, Jack
and I will transfer to another train that will take us to Hong Kong. There we’ll stay 3 nights in Hong Kong,
take a ferry across to Macau, and spend a night there. After that we fly from
Hong Kong to Phuket, Thailand, where we’re going to have a 4-day bro-fest on
the beach. When that’s all over,
we fly back to Shanghai, and spend our final 24 hours there before flying back
home with a stop for 12 hours in Dubai. It’s probably going to be one of the
wildest weeks of my life, and I’m beyond excited for it.
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