Yangshuo! After being dropped off on the side of the road at 4:30 in the morning in the middle of who knows where with nothing but the Chinese highway in sight, we hopped in the taxi that was waiting for us and our American wallets. It was still dark and after a few minutes we started to see buildings which was a relief not knowing if we were actually in the city we were supposed to be in. with the help of a Chinese man that was riding in the same taxi we communicated that we needed to get to a bus station, and like all things do everything worked out. We got out of the car, paid a small fortune to the taxi driver, and went in search for a bus from Guilin to Yangshuo. I woke up again when we arrived in Yangshuo. The sun finally started to rise, and the city was Beautiful! We found our international hostel quite easily, dropped our bags and headed out to start our adventure in Yangshuo.

I took this picture from a little Pagoda we hiked to looking over Yangshuo.

We stumbled upon a girl named Ding she showed us around on electric scooters. We went to the Water Caves took a little boat in the cave, and hiked around inside. In the caves there is a mud pool and a water pool we swam in both… maybe in a bad order. We started with the water then went to the mud it was a blast. The mud was obviously really thick so we could just float on top it was really neat. Mud Swimming!

Yes that is a baby in that basket....i paid two Yuan for this picture ha.

The Li River! We swam with the water buffalo. That's me and Claire after we swam to the middle of the river where the current was pretty quick. We would float down and swim back to the side of the river. i got a tiny snail stuck in my foot. Thanks to Nick i got it out... well he got it, makes me sick to think of him digging it out of my foot with finger nail clippers yuck!!!
Our dorky helmets actually came in use I kept hitting my head and if I didn’t have the nerdy looking helmet I would have had a couple dozy’s , but maybe I just kept hitting my head because i couldn't see very well, because of the helmets?
Amy, Chelsie, Emily, and I took a bamboo raft down the river. Em and I shared a raft, and taught the cute Chinese man some English words, and he taught us some Chinese. We always tent to learn phrases and words from random people. Chinese people are so friendly I absolutely love being here!
Yangshuo has a lot of western food, I ate; Burritos, French toast, fish and chips, chocolate cake, creps, and the yummiest apply crumble a person could eat! It was really nice to have a little western food but by the end of the week we were all eating Chinese food again, we love our fried rice. I started to miss our cook food back home in Hefei (Ghon), mostly breakfast Fried eggs, rice porridge, Chinese bread and jam. I never really liked eggs until I came here but every night I can’t wait for breakfast in the morning to get my fried egg! SmochNo! As the Ukrainians would say.

Breakfast!!! ... just missing my fried egg.

West Street, we spent tons of our time on this street. it was a blast and at night it was bustling!

The guy in the Purple was on the the DJ's that we danced with every nightThe whole gang

This is Johnson Tang- Emily's other half and soul mate. She danced with him for a couple nights at the club, where he works, then he went to Beijing. sad! Emily is the best dancer i have ever seen and then there is Johnson who dancing just like her... it was meant to be.... one of these days we will find him and take him back to America with us so Emily can get her wish... have an Asian baby!

This is me up on stage dancing with the owner of the club.
Well everybody was ready for bed, as for Amy and I we weren’t. We decided to venture out to see what dance clubs Yangshuo had to offer us. Every club we stepped into just exploded, they loved us. Well of course we gave them a show, just about any dance move we did they loved even if it was terrible. Amy or I would do a dance move and all the Chinese people would mimic every move. Man I love being famous! Going back to the states clubs will not be anywhere as cool, mostly because I won’t be as cool there. Well we found this one club where we spent the next 5 nights at until early hours of the morning. Everyone there was so nice we danced with the owner, the manager, and all the DJ’s. Every night someone new would come clubing with us, and by the end of the week we just about had ever body. The owner offered us free beers, we felt bad telling him that we don’t drink but he was so cute about it “ohhhh ok free mineral water or soda pop all night!!” So we took him up on his offer free mineral water all night boooyaaa! By the end of the week it was really tough to say good bye to all the cute nice people we met at this club. Don’t worry, we have their e-mails…. They don’t really speak English, maybe we can work around that ha.

Friday we went rafting down this river. I was happy to share a raft with Claire. I mean she was a river rafting guide she could save me ha. She told me all about her river rafting days and convinced me that that is my next adventure after china. They start everyone at the top and let the water build up then open a little gate and let everyone go rushing down. It was a blast Claire and I were laughing the whole way down the mountain. (Those are the Yummy Bobba tea with little tapioca chunks i got one just about everyday)

Some of the different delicacies in yangshuo are Fried Rat, Snails, and snake. Well the rat and snake were pretty expensive and so Amy, Nick, and I decided we would try a plate of snails. Besides the sand that gets in your teeth from the inside of the shell, and the smell they were not too bad. Well we couldn’t finish all them so we made a homeless old man on the side of the street really happy! A free plate of snails! Renting bikes is really cheap, it only cost us 20 RMB for the whole day that is less than 3 dollars. We rode our bikes through the rice fields to butterfly springs, Tanna was talking it up the whole week telling us that we all had to go. It was pretty but not worth my 45 RMB and our time with the bikes. We continued on and found these sweet bubbles. Amy, Nick and I Paid 10 RMB each to get in a plastic bubble. It was really funny the Chinese guys told us “come here you party animals”. So we got in the little plastic bubbles and they blew them up with us in them. It was really hard to stand up! I couldn’t believe how much energy it took ha. So we basically rolled around occasionally standing up and running for about 3 steps then falling again. It was a hoot! Notice Nick's facial hair, Amy and i had to beg him to grow it out for the week. but the Pansy only lasted until Saturday and he shaved it off.

We met these girls river rafting they were English teachers to in southern china. we all had lunch together, i thought we had a lot of pictures taken of us by the Chinese people, but the two darker skinned girls had swarms of people taking pictures of them constantly it was crazy! Shopping, shopping and more shopping in Yangshuo. There were tons of cute bags in Yangshuo, and i told myself i wasn't going to spend my money on one but life happens right? The blonde on the end is Amiee she is a cute girl from England, she is traveling around for a YEAR!! wow, intense right. well we met these cute girls hung out with them and took them to the club with us. and yes we all got bags, oh great... the Chinese girl is the lady who sold us the bags... tough cookie, i didn't think she was going to bargain with us, but she did ... how cute is she! I also bought that skirt, a box of chop sticks (my new favorite utensils), a North Face Jacket, and much much more.

This was out last day down south, we took a bus back to Guilin and spent the night wondering around the city. The city was absolutely beautiful! These are two Pagodas we found that are in the middle of the lake. It was nice to sit and relax after our long vacation..... notice my new moo moo! oh yeah!