{then}
&
{now}
i {heart} friendships
16 years ago
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
..my kind of "work"
so i was "discovered" at work the other day when my boss asked me to rewrite this board for our member appreciation day that she already wrote on and this is what i came up with...
i absolutely love to doodle on white boards, so what a fun way to spend half my time at work. the next day when my boss saw it she loved it so much she said that i was to paint the windows next.. now i was a little stressed... cause 1 i've never painted windows before, 2 i couldn't mess up because it's not as easy to erase like a white board is and3 it had to be good cause it's going to be up there for a while and a lot of people were going to see it.
i was given my paints and told to clean the windows first. i was told to paint on the inside of the windows so in case it rains it wouldn't come off. but the thing about painting from the inside is that the writing has to be reversed and backwards. this worried me. i used a dry erase marker first to see how it would look, and i was trying so hard to write backwards. fail, but then help of a coworker came to the rescue.. he told me to write it normally on the outside of the window so i could just copy it from the inside. duh!
as i got it down it became a lot of fun! people were nice and even complimenting me on my work, the most common thing said was, "hey looking good!" i liked pretend they were just talking about me, and not the windows. hahaha but i did get awkwardly hit on a few times too.. i haven't yet so it must have been something like i'm not as intimidating when i'm not behind a desk or something..
anyway it turned out really good, here's a look
(i know it's hard to see because it's a window and it was 9 o'clock at night)
but you get the idea....
(the skeleton is my favorite!)
(my cat is quite sad..i have a harder time with animals)
i loved doing it and it took me just about my whole shift! when my boss saw it she said it looked awesome and that i'm no longer allowed to leave. and i got the job replacing the girl who backed out of being the kid face painter for the member appreciation day. that should be fun.. and we get to dress up!
i'm excited for the next window painting cause the "arts and crafts" are definitely my type of work!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
two down...one to go
so here i am trying to keep my promise and keep up the blogging habit. this week has been a little crazy with midterms rolling around. since when did it become midterm!? seriously. i've already taken two tests and got one more to go tomorrow. {by the way i'm covering a shift for a girl tomorrow morning... yup 4:45 to 9 am before my 11 o'clock class..which i have my test in. but when i said yes i didn't know the when the test was going to be yet} so lets hope i can stay awake through it! once i make it through that, it's fall break. whew!
also i want to give a shout out to my brother, sister and dad for having their birthdays this past week!
i'm jealous that bry gets to go to stytcd in vegas with sam,
my dad has been in europe and now south africa with my mom,
and my sister is in disney world with her cute family!
{and i think i found mickey mouse in my ceiling in spite of you}
i hope you all had a wonderful day!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
major slacker
i know. i'm a horrible blogger. it's been over four months from my last post. (yikes!!) and i know all my blog stalkers are probably wondering if i ever made it back safely from china. after just a few plane rides, a missed flight, and a few tears, we made it back to our beloved home. i was ever so happy to see those beautiful mountains. and my family. of course. since then so much has happened.... here's a short list of my lately:
bry and sammi's wedding
in st. geroge
and then in fruit heights
a trip fantastic to texas
a few short weeks with my mom before I..
moved to st. george for school
got a car (aka little feather)
met my cute roommates
started school
needed to do something besides school
applied for jobs
got a job two days later working at the
front desk at gold's gym and
now here we are.
i always feel dumb when i write a post. for one i'm not a good writer and second it's not like anyone reads this anyway, right? so why should i really care? well for a personal goal, i'm going to try to keep this up a whole lot better than i have been. lets just hope i'll have some interesting things to write about! until next time...
Monday, May 24, 2010
Beijing
I have been back from Beijing for about two weeks now, so I guess I'm past due on a blog post. Our days were so jam packed that I'm going to have to use my journal for help remembering everything that we did. (just a heads up this trip was a full week, compared to my four day post before. so it's probably going to be really long. read or don't read. at least enjoy the pictures)
Here. We. Go.
Friday April 30: With our bags already packed and in hand we left right after teaching to the bus station to go to Guangzhou. We weren't taking any chance of us missing our train this time. We made it to the train station with plenty of time to spare and no problems along the way. I must say we are becoming pro at traveling in a foreign country. Boarding time finally comes and I have no idea what to expect on this train. To our luck it was quite nice. We got hard sleeper beds, but hard they were not. They were softer than our beds in our apartment. They are stacked 3 high on each side in a cabin. It worked out perfectly for the six of us to all be together. The train ride was 21 hours long. So on to...
Saturday May 1: The night on the train wasn't too bad. Trying to fall asleep was a little hard, I was paranoid that some asian was going to come and steal all of my stuff. But then I got over it and fell asleep. We got off the train around one o'clock and trekked our way to the hostel, from bus to subway, to walking. We stayed at the Candy Inn. It was way nice for a cheap little hostel. We all stayed in one room with three bunk beds that were once again soft.
After checking in we waisted no time sitting around we headed straight to the Pearl Market for some shopping. It definitely was overwhelming and crazy as you walked down the isle and all you hear is.."you want to buy a purse? come take a look inside. i give you best price. i have best quality..." and so on. We did make it out alive and with some good loot in hand.
Sunday May 2: We thought we could master the Great Wall on our own. Fail. So here in China, the first three days are May Holiday. And you can imagine how crazy it is with all the people. I don't think I've seen so many people in my life before. We made it to bus station where every bus there takes you to the Great Wall. But it was like Disneyland on the worst day possible, times 100! There were so many lines. Lines for a seat. Lines for standing. We couldn't even find the end of either of them. And we didn't even know how long it would be before we got on a bus and then the fact of waiting in line at the Great Wall to come home. So we turned around and went home and booked a tour through the hostel. We ended the day by going to an acrobatic show. Amazing. They have crazy strength and flexibility it's unreal.
Then at the very end they bring out this huge metal ball. And the put a motor cycler in there, and then two...three...and then four. I was in awe..then yup a fifth motorcycle comes out and gets into the globe. 5 motorcycles!
Monday May 3: A successful day getting to the Great Wall. Our tour guide came to pick us up at 8. It being the last day of the Holiday we had to get an early start to beat the crowds. First stop: Great Wall. We had about an hour and a half to explore and climb on our own time. Some of those steps are really steep! But it was amazing to be there and see it for myself! It truly is the GREAT WALL.
After that Lily our tour guide took us to the Ming tombs. We only got to see one considering there are 13 within the mountain range. But it was really interesting to hear all the facts and reasons of how and why it was built, with all the culture in it.
We also went to a Jade factory. And then to lunch. After lunch we hit up a Silk factory and we got to see how silk is made. That was really cool. Everything was so soft and pretty. It was a fun filled day, with way more than we expected.
Tuesday May 4: This day involved a lot of walking. (everyday does, but it was so filled i think my feet hated me for it) We went to the Summer Palace. It is amazingly beautiful and amazing huge. With it being 2.9 square kilometers, and three quarters of that is water. You can imagine how little we saw, and how much we didn't. We didn't have a tour guide, so we missed out on hearing cool facts about it. But just seeing it was incredible. It was definitely one of my favorite places.
Wednesday May 5: Another shopping day. It threatened and rained for most of the morning. Courtney, Kristen, and I had an adventure finding a flea market. And by the time we got there the day had cleared into a beautiful sunny day! We got some goodies for a great deal.
After our time there we met up with the other girls at the Pearl Market. And then found ourselves a Cold Stone. It was heavenly. And it tasted just like home. So yummy!
Thursday May 6: Right next to our hostel was the Lama Temple. So we thought we couldn't stay right next to this place and not see it. Inside there is the biggest Buddha carved out of a single piece of sandalwood. It even made Guinness book of world records! It was a little weird to be there and see everyone worship there. (here is the best sneaky picture we could get of it, just so you have an idea of how huge this this is...but no pictures..so shhhhh)
We then headed to the Temple of Heaven. This temple is where the Emperor would pray for rain to have good harvest for their crops. This place had a real fun atmosphere where tons of people where dancing, singing, playing hack-e-sack and interacting with others.
Then we went to the Olympic Park! It was awesome to see the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube and Torch in real life instead of on tv!
Friday May 7: CATELIN'S BIRTHDAY! We woke up early and headed to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. Which once again was massive and incredible. I can't even describe how big it was.
After that we had to pack all of our stuff and get on another train to Xi'an. This is where the Terra Cotta Warriors are. It was an over night trip and we go there bright and early.
Saturday May 8: We made it to the hostel which was super nice for just a little place. We took a little rest and then headed off to see the famous warriors. It wasn't like anything I expected at all. It was amazing to see how many there are and how many the are still to be uncovered.
Sunday May 9: We hung out at the hostel for the morning and then we were taken to the airport to fly home. (i must say i love airports. a lot less creepy people there and much cleaner. and i feel a lot more safe!)
It was an awesome trip fun filled with adventure! There was so much to see and do, and I'm so glad we got to do most everything on our list! Beijing was an amazing place and I would definitely go there again someday!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
William has my heart♥...
a few days later, once again during song practice, william is there clinging to my legs. i look down to give him a smile and his little raspy voice says those words again. "i love you teacher lynsie."
i'm grateful for times like this that help me remember why i'm here.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Yangshuo...
(get ready for a long post)
On March 12th my group and I left our home of Guzhen to go to Yangshuo for the weekend. It was our first vacation, and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Needless to say, after this experience, we will all be expert travelers in the US. So if you're interested in knowing what went wrong and what went right, go ahead and read on.
FRIDAY: We teach regular class from 9-11:35, and then our other class at 3:20-3:50. We left our apartment by 4 to head to the bus station. Get on the bus at five (thinking it only takes two hours to get to Guangshou to get on our train, that leaves at 7:45) So we're on the bus for two hours, than two and a half hours, than two hours and 40 minutes. We finally make it to the final stop, but we have no idea where to go from there to get on the train. Of course lucky us, the lady we ask speaks english and says she's headed there and to follow her. But she's just slowly walking and all of us are freaking out because we have five minutes to get there and on the train. So we pull out our ticket and show her, and she points us in the right direction and tells us to run. Immediately we all just start booking it. (good thing we all packed light in backpacks) We're headed in the direction we thing is right but start to ask other people where to go. Finally we find the entrance and get through. But as soon as we give our ticket to the lady right before the train, she won't let us in. Luckily AGAIN, and man walks out from the direction we want to go and says in ENGLISH that we can not get on because it is past the time and we have missed the train. He then tell us where we can go to exchange our tickets to get another train ride. We head to where we think he said, but went way out of the way and ended up at a little station that was just phones for your own use. But luckily us again, there was a nice lady who was willing to help us. (a little background here. there is a boy in another group that spoke mandrin on his mission) We call the other group and have him talk to this nice lady who is helping us. She walked us over to the place to get the tickets. Once there, after a long hard, frustrating time for Erin, here's what happened in a nut shell. The next train to Guilin was Saturday at 6 pm. We weren't ready to hop on that train, when we had nowhere to stay for the night, and we wouldn't even be able to stay in Yangshou for very long before we had to head back home. So when the nice lady is still there helping us, she found out there was a bus leaving at 9:30 to Guilin that night. We took the offer and didn't even care that it was a bus. Still the nice lady walks us all the way over to the bus station, helps us buy our tickets (which luckily the refund from the train covered them) and showed us where to go to get on the bus. We were all in love with this lady for so kindly taking her time to help us poor useless American girls. We got on the bus that wasn't very full so it was nice that we could spread out even though it wasn't that comfortable. They are crazy drivers here in China, specially over night road trips that last 9 hours. More than once I was up out of my seat because we have hit a bump so fast. After waking up and freaking out seeing what was outside as we drove past scary ghost towns multiple times, we finally made it to what we thought was Guilin. (From Guilin you have to take another hour/and a half bus ride to get to Yangshou) They tell us to get off the bus and right there is a man waiting outside. (mind you its now six am or so) We tell him that we need to get a bus to Yangshou. But he kept on insisting that we were already in Yangshou, and we were like NO WE NEED TO GET TO YANGSHOU! He said that we were already there. Fancy that...we missed our train, and got a bus straight there. I knew Heaven Father didn't want us to get on that train for some reason. So we show him the address of the hostel we booked (Monkey Jane's Guesthouse) but he didn't know where it was. He kept trying to get us to stay in his hostel. So then we were wondering ok, are we in the right place? So we called up our other group members who arrived earlier that morning and told us to find a rickshaw and he would take us there. Right then a man pulled up, we got in and he took us straight there. When he dropped us off, he pointed up this tiny little ally way and we were like ok...this is a little sketchy. But it was the right place. We got a room and crashed until 11. We could've slept a lot longer but that's when the other group was meeting.
So now it's SATURDAY:
We got up, ate breakfast on the rooftop of MJ's and it was way yummy. Eggs, toast, bacon, fruit, and orange juice. Best breakfast I had in the last 3 weeks.
We enjoyed the view for a bit up there and then we meet up with the other group and decide we want to rent scooters not bikes. It was soooo much fun. We had all day to drive around and had to bring them back by six. The mountains there are so beautiful. Geographically it blows my mind that they look like that.. compared to Utah mountians, but they are so amazing. Like that will be my word to describe everything cause I can't even come up words that will do it any justice.
We drove around and went to a place called Moon Hill. It's like a Rainbow Bridge but covered in green and it's straight up. We climbed over 800 steps. It was pretty fast because it went up and not a zig zag back and forth. This old lady followed us all the way up, trying to sell us drinks and water. By the time we reached the top we took pictures and relaxed a bit from the big hike (I'm glad we didn't ride bikes and then hike that cause you're legs would have been really feeling it (the scooter ride was a half hour so it would've been twice as long on a bike)) As we're heading back down the mountain we said bye to the old lady and she just told us to "go away" she didn't want anything to do with us since we didn't buy any of her water. We were like ok..we didn't make you climb all the way up here. But we got a good laugh about it.
jumping picture of course
After that we ate at the Moon Hill Cafe at the bottom and I had a delicious chicken sandwich. The bread they have here in china is soooo good. After a late lunch it was time to head back so we could get the scooters back in time. I forgot to mention that the weather was ok. It was really foggy and a bit chilly but still so pretty. We got back at six and then decided to hit West Street that is filled with shopping! We got lots of goodies. After we bargained (and got ripped off, but you have to have at least one thing you get ripped off on right? plus we were amateurs) to our hearts content, and until our feet couldn't last no more we headed back to our beds.
SUNDAY: We woke up at 7:30, had breakfast at a restaurant called Twin Peaks (which we became regulars at) It was one of the most delicious things ever. I had a banana and chocolate pancake (which was really a huge crepe) and toast (amazingly good) and freshly squeezed orange juice. My mouth is watering just writing about it. From breakfast we met with the group again and we got to take a bamboo raft down the Li river. It was a little chilly again today too, but we thought it was supposed to warm up. The ride over all was a couple of hours and our way down it, we ran into this little old man who was a fisherman. He had a little raft with about 4 ducks on it, that did his fishing for him. He came up to our boat and we all got to take our picture with him. He had a hat and straw coat and a bird on his arm that he would make flap it's wings for the picture. He was pretty funny and he would just stand there and sing.
Later down the river we stopped at this village and there was some shopping there too. After we were there for about an hour we headed back up the river. Then we went and had some lunch. You guessed it, at the Twin Peaks. I had an American sandwich that was way good and it had fries with it too. The whole time we were there..lets just say Asians aren't very discrete when snapping a picture of us. But I had fun waving to people who just stared at me. Some times they would laugh and then wave back all embarrassed, but I figured why not wave when they were staring at me anyway..give them something to look at. After lunch we met up again and headed off to the Water Caves. It is this huge cave that has like 5 different stories in it. You have to enter by boat. You get a little tour of it and it was so amazing because you could actually be in it, walk around in it, climb on the walls of the cave and touch the stalagmites. Gotta love China. In one of the levels is a mud pool. So we got to play around in it. It was freezing cold though, but all of us just endured it, thinking when are we ever going to do this again? They snap some pictures for you and they even have computers in the cave that you can see the pictures and they print them out right then and there. After we played in the mud, you have to rinse off. In freezing cold water. But the good thing about it was that a few levels up in the cave there are hot springs. So we hurried up there and were loving the warm water. We were in there for a half hour and then it was time to head out. The whole time we were in the cave was probably a total of 2 hours probably. But it was so cool, I did buy a few pictures that are pretty funny. And I threw away my swimming suit cause it was nasty. After that we came back, had dinner at an Wood Oven place that was way good. Then we did some more shopping, but didn't last nearly as long as the night before. We went up to our rooms and found a cockroach in Kristen's bed, that was sick, but she killed it.
MONDAY: We slept in and woke up to the poring rain. We went to breakfast at Twin Peaks again, and I got the cheese omelet which was way good. I miss cheese. We had to be out of our hostel by 12 but our bus home didn't leave until 8 so we just kept one room and split the cost so we didn't have to carry our stuff around all day long. We didn't really know what to do, and everything we wanted to do we had already checked off the list. So we just shopped around some more. Got a manicure and our fingernails painted. We still had a ton of time, and decided to get a massage. The funniest thing I've ever experienced. Me and Catelin were in the same room and I had to try so hard to not bust up laughing every second. They are rough with you. They slap, smack, and beat you up. My legs are so ticklish. I didn't know what to do. The lady didn't speak any english and how could I tell her that it tickled and to stop? So I just held it and was dying. And then you roll over and they massage your butt and it's the funniest thing. when cate opened her eyes, she saw the lady smacking mine and it was so funny! We got some dinner (our last good westeren dinner we would have for a while) and waited for the buses to come pick us up. Since we missed the train the first time, we just got a bus back instead of the train, and the people at the hostel hooked us up with a sleeper bus this time. We get all of our stuff and head on the bus. But it's full. So the guy goes around and kicks people out of the sleepers. Apparently you can ride the bus and get a sleeper, but if someone gets on who bought a ticket, you get kicked to the floor. It was the smelliest bus, because you can't wear your shoes, so it stunk like Asian stinky nasty feet. Awesome 9 hours of that. It turned to be a little longer, and after we got to the final stop and tried to get our luggage out from underneath we found out that where our luggage had been there was all these boxes and big bags of who knows what. I was like awesome all my luggage and souvenirs are gone. But they had just moved everything and we got everything we put in, now it was just dirtier. Just the way I like my things....
TUESDAY morning and we were in Guangshou, we foundthe ticket office and showed the ticket lady the paper that says bus to Guzhen to get us home, but she just shakes her head no. We find out that we are at the wrong bus station (since we didn't ride the train back, we're at a different station then the one we need to be) This man takes us in this little van to the right bus station we need to be to get on the bus to Guzhen. We get our tickets and get in line. There are a billion people in line to get on this bus, we are like what the crap, there is no way we can fit this many people. Our ticket doesn't have a seat number so we think that we're going to have to stand for the next two hours home. A bus pulls up and we are just doing it the asian way and butting in line to get on this bus. Me, Erin, and Catelin make it through, but they stop Courtney and Kristen. We were like no, we're with them, so we need to stay or they need to come. They was another bus that was coming, but luckily there was enough room that we could all ride the bus that was already there. Two painful hours of sitting on the bus later we make it back to Guzhen, by 11. Our home sweet home (something we thought we'd never say).
It was one of the funnest vacations and it was such an amazing place. If you ever go to China, that is one place I would definitely recommend going to. So worth it. Love You Long Time Yangshuo
On March 12th my group and I left our home of Guzhen to go to Yangshuo for the weekend. It was our first vacation, and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Needless to say, after this experience, we will all be expert travelers in the US. So if you're interested in knowing what went wrong and what went right, go ahead and read on.
FRIDAY: We teach regular class from 9-11:35, and then our other class at 3:20-3:50. We left our apartment by 4 to head to the bus station. Get on the bus at five (thinking it only takes two hours to get to Guangshou to get on our train, that leaves at 7:45) So we're on the bus for two hours, than two and a half hours, than two hours and 40 minutes. We finally make it to the final stop, but we have no idea where to go from there to get on the train. Of course lucky us, the lady we ask speaks english and says she's headed there and to follow her. But she's just slowly walking and all of us are freaking out because we have five minutes to get there and on the train. So we pull out our ticket and show her, and she points us in the right direction and tells us to run. Immediately we all just start booking it. (good thing we all packed light in backpacks) We're headed in the direction we thing is right but start to ask other people where to go. Finally we find the entrance and get through. But as soon as we give our ticket to the lady right before the train, she won't let us in. Luckily AGAIN, and man walks out from the direction we want to go and says in ENGLISH that we can not get on because it is past the time and we have missed the train. He then tell us where we can go to exchange our tickets to get another train ride. We head to where we think he said, but went way out of the way and ended up at a little station that was just phones for your own use. But luckily us again, there was a nice lady who was willing to help us. (a little background here. there is a boy in another group that spoke mandrin on his mission) We call the other group and have him talk to this nice lady who is helping us. She walked us over to the place to get the tickets. Once there, after a long hard, frustrating time for Erin, here's what happened in a nut shell. The next train to Guilin was Saturday at 6 pm. We weren't ready to hop on that train, when we had nowhere to stay for the night, and we wouldn't even be able to stay in Yangshou for very long before we had to head back home. So when the nice lady is still there helping us, she found out there was a bus leaving at 9:30 to Guilin that night. We took the offer and didn't even care that it was a bus. Still the nice lady walks us all the way over to the bus station, helps us buy our tickets (which luckily the refund from the train covered them) and showed us where to go to get on the bus. We were all in love with this lady for so kindly taking her time to help us poor useless American girls. We got on the bus that wasn't very full so it was nice that we could spread out even though it wasn't that comfortable. They are crazy drivers here in China, specially over night road trips that last 9 hours. More than once I was up out of my seat because we have hit a bump so fast. After waking up and freaking out seeing what was outside as we drove past scary ghost towns multiple times, we finally made it to what we thought was Guilin. (From Guilin you have to take another hour/and a half bus ride to get to Yangshou) They tell us to get off the bus and right there is a man waiting outside. (mind you its now six am or so) We tell him that we need to get a bus to Yangshou. But he kept on insisting that we were already in Yangshou, and we were like NO WE NEED TO GET TO YANGSHOU! He said that we were already there. Fancy that...we missed our train, and got a bus straight there. I knew Heaven Father didn't want us to get on that train for some reason. So we show him the address of the hostel we booked (Monkey Jane's Guesthouse) but he didn't know where it was. He kept trying to get us to stay in his hostel. So then we were wondering ok, are we in the right place? So we called up our other group members who arrived earlier that morning and told us to find a rickshaw and he would take us there. Right then a man pulled up, we got in and he took us straight there. When he dropped us off, he pointed up this tiny little ally way and we were like ok...this is a little sketchy. But it was the right place. We got a room and crashed until 11. We could've slept a lot longer but that's when the other group was meeting.
So now it's SATURDAY:
We got up, ate breakfast on the rooftop of MJ's and it was way yummy. Eggs, toast, bacon, fruit, and orange juice. Best breakfast I had in the last 3 weeks.
We enjoyed the view for a bit up there and then we meet up with the other group and decide we want to rent scooters not bikes. It was soooo much fun. We had all day to drive around and had to bring them back by six. The mountains there are so beautiful. Geographically it blows my mind that they look like that.. compared to Utah mountians, but they are so amazing. Like that will be my word to describe everything cause I can't even come up words that will do it any justice.
We drove around and went to a place called Moon Hill. It's like a Rainbow Bridge but covered in green and it's straight up. We climbed over 800 steps. It was pretty fast because it went up and not a zig zag back and forth. This old lady followed us all the way up, trying to sell us drinks and water. By the time we reached the top we took pictures and relaxed a bit from the big hike (I'm glad we didn't ride bikes and then hike that cause you're legs would have been really feeling it (the scooter ride was a half hour so it would've been twice as long on a bike)) As we're heading back down the mountain we said bye to the old lady and she just told us to "go away" she didn't want anything to do with us since we didn't buy any of her water. We were like ok..we didn't make you climb all the way up here. But we got a good laugh about it.
After that we ate at the Moon Hill Cafe at the bottom and I had a delicious chicken sandwich. The bread they have here in china is soooo good. After a late lunch it was time to head back so we could get the scooters back in time. I forgot to mention that the weather was ok. It was really foggy and a bit chilly but still so pretty. We got back at six and then decided to hit West Street that is filled with shopping! We got lots of goodies. After we bargained (and got ripped off, but you have to have at least one thing you get ripped off on right? plus we were amateurs) to our hearts content, and until our feet couldn't last no more we headed back to our beds.
SUNDAY: We woke up at 7:30, had breakfast at a restaurant called Twin Peaks (which we became regulars at) It was one of the most delicious things ever. I had a banana and chocolate pancake (which was really a huge crepe) and toast (amazingly good) and freshly squeezed orange juice. My mouth is watering just writing about it. From breakfast we met with the group again and we got to take a bamboo raft down the Li river. It was a little chilly again today too, but we thought it was supposed to warm up. The ride over all was a couple of hours and our way down it, we ran into this little old man who was a fisherman. He had a little raft with about 4 ducks on it, that did his fishing for him. He came up to our boat and we all got to take our picture with him. He had a hat and straw coat and a bird on his arm that he would make flap it's wings for the picture. He was pretty funny and he would just stand there and sing.
Later down the river we stopped at this village and there was some shopping there too. After we were there for about an hour we headed back up the river. Then we went and had some lunch. You guessed it, at the Twin Peaks. I had an American sandwich that was way good and it had fries with it too. The whole time we were there..lets just say Asians aren't very discrete when snapping a picture of us. But I had fun waving to people who just stared at me. Some times they would laugh and then wave back all embarrassed, but I figured why not wave when they were staring at me anyway..give them something to look at. After lunch we met up again and headed off to the Water Caves. It is this huge cave that has like 5 different stories in it. You have to enter by boat. You get a little tour of it and it was so amazing because you could actually be in it, walk around in it, climb on the walls of the cave and touch the stalagmites. Gotta love China. In one of the levels is a mud pool. So we got to play around in it. It was freezing cold though, but all of us just endured it, thinking when are we ever going to do this again? They snap some pictures for you and they even have computers in the cave that you can see the pictures and they print them out right then and there. After we played in the mud, you have to rinse off. In freezing cold water. But the good thing about it was that a few levels up in the cave there are hot springs. So we hurried up there and were loving the warm water. We were in there for a half hour and then it was time to head out. The whole time we were in the cave was probably a total of 2 hours probably. But it was so cool, I did buy a few pictures that are pretty funny. And I threw away my swimming suit cause it was nasty. After that we came back, had dinner at an Wood Oven place that was way good. Then we did some more shopping, but didn't last nearly as long as the night before. We went up to our rooms and found a cockroach in Kristen's bed, that was sick, but she killed it.
MONDAY: We slept in and woke up to the poring rain. We went to breakfast at Twin Peaks again, and I got the cheese omelet which was way good. I miss cheese. We had to be out of our hostel by 12 but our bus home didn't leave until 8 so we just kept one room and split the cost so we didn't have to carry our stuff around all day long. We didn't really know what to do, and everything we wanted to do we had already checked off the list. So we just shopped around some more. Got a manicure and our fingernails painted. We still had a ton of time, and decided to get a massage. The funniest thing I've ever experienced. Me and Catelin were in the same room and I had to try so hard to not bust up laughing every second. They are rough with you. They slap, smack, and beat you up. My legs are so ticklish. I didn't know what to do. The lady didn't speak any english and how could I tell her that it tickled and to stop? So I just held it and was dying. And then you roll over and they massage your butt and it's the funniest thing. when cate opened her eyes, she saw the lady smacking mine and it was so funny! We got some dinner (our last good westeren dinner we would have for a while) and waited for the buses to come pick us up. Since we missed the train the first time, we just got a bus back instead of the train, and the people at the hostel hooked us up with a sleeper bus this time. We get all of our stuff and head on the bus. But it's full. So the guy goes around and kicks people out of the sleepers. Apparently you can ride the bus and get a sleeper, but if someone gets on who bought a ticket, you get kicked to the floor. It was the smelliest bus, because you can't wear your shoes, so it stunk like Asian stinky nasty feet. Awesome 9 hours of that. It turned to be a little longer, and after we got to the final stop and tried to get our luggage out from underneath we found out that where our luggage had been there was all these boxes and big bags of who knows what. I was like awesome all my luggage and souvenirs are gone. But they had just moved everything and we got everything we put in, now it was just dirtier. Just the way I like my things....
TUESDAY morning and we were in Guangshou, we foundthe ticket office and showed the ticket lady the paper that says bus to Guzhen to get us home, but she just shakes her head no. We find out that we are at the wrong bus station (since we didn't ride the train back, we're at a different station then the one we need to be) This man takes us in this little van to the right bus station we need to be to get on the bus to Guzhen. We get our tickets and get in line. There are a billion people in line to get on this bus, we are like what the crap, there is no way we can fit this many people. Our ticket doesn't have a seat number so we think that we're going to have to stand for the next two hours home. A bus pulls up and we are just doing it the asian way and butting in line to get on this bus. Me, Erin, and Catelin make it through, but they stop Courtney and Kristen. We were like no, we're with them, so we need to stay or they need to come. They was another bus that was coming, but luckily there was enough room that we could all ride the bus that was already there. Two painful hours of sitting on the bus later we make it back to Guzhen, by 11. Our home sweet home (something we thought we'd never say).
It was one of the funnest vacations and it was such an amazing place. If you ever go to China, that is one place I would definitely recommend going to. So worth it. Love You Long Time Yangshuo
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