You might be asking yourself this question since I havent written in close to a month. The answer is main land china. They have blocks on certain Internet sites like Facebook and blogger, so until recently I was unable to access them. We are currently in Laos and have been for a little over a week, hence me posting a blog. Below is a post I wrote while still in china but was unable to post till now:
Yuangshuo is an amazing town with a similar small mountain town tourist feel to it as breckenridge Colorado. It was a small backpacker's paradise that has turned into more of a tourist destination for the Chinese people. There's still many backpacker's as well. The town is a pretty decent size with lots of activity but is surrounded by the coolest mountains and traditional rural china, if you go just a little ways off the beaten path.
To get to yuagshuo from hong kong was an adventure in and of itself. We took an early morning bus to Shenzhen airport then a plane to Guilin then another bus from the airport to the train station and finally a bus to yuangshuo. With the help of our hosts in hong kong and the people at the tourism desk in Guilin we made it here without issue. It was totally worth the craziness to get here. Google photos of yuangshuo and you will understand immediately. It looks like something out of a kungfu movie where the apprentice is in the countryside training.
We've had about three days and nights here before we head out tomorrow for 40 hours of travel to jinghong via 2 buses and a train.
Fortunately we came here during winter which is the off season so we had a bunk room all to ourselves in our hostel. For 5$ a night we have hot water, Internet, free nescafe (Hannah says you can't call it coffee), and a room to ourselves. The only downside is there isn't any heat so you can probably imagine the state of shock our bodies are in going from 80-90 degree Bali to 40 degree yuangshuo. We've been putting on all our layers everyday and have been reverting back to our elementary school days of getting dressed while still under the covers.
There is a lot to do here and with such little time I think we've managed to hit the highlights. we spent one day just checking out the city and booking our next leg of travel. I even became more adventurous with my eating since the traditional meals of this area revolve more around meat. I tried hot and sour soup (they werent kidding when they say hot, I was crying), these awesome street food filled pork, or at least I think pork, pancakes (more to come about those later), wheat steak (seitan) with xo sauce. The latter was my favorite but not special to the area. I was not brave enough to try the most famous dish of spicy snail noodles.
We hiked moon hill which all I can say was beautiful and makes you appreciate life and all it's beauty. If it wasn't so cold I could have stayed there for hours just looking at the view and taking in the wonder of it. When we got to the bottom we discovered our taxi driver ditched us so we proceeded to start a very long cold walk back to town. Suddenly a car stopped asked of we were going to yuangshuo and for 3 yuan we could get a ride. Another local on the road saw our confusion and apprehension and was able to explain that this was in fact the local bus system. So in we went into this van that proceeded to pick a zillion people up on the way to town and fit them all in like tetras pieces.
Last night we ventured into a tea shop and had the best time. A woman owns it and she invites you to sit and try teas. This is apparently standard at chinese tea shops. This isn't some stingy thimble full of pre made tea and followed by demands to buy. She kept our cups full for almost 2 hours and practiced her english while telling us about herself and this area of china. She had us try two teas and explained every time what number of times she had steeped the leaves and what differences to expect from the flavor. I love tea in china because it is beautiful and civilized and anything but clean. Not dirty as in unsanitary but they pour water everywhere. Messy might be a better word. Tea tables have a drain on them and it is tradition to clean the various pots and cups with boiling water after every drink and especially after changing types of tea. So there is pretty much water all over the table but it is all part of the regular day to day art of drinking tea. She also explained that you should only use one type of the six known types (not including herbal) of tea in a specific pot for the entirety of the pot's existence if it is a clay not china pot. She has a pot to make black tea and a different one for green teas, etc. It seems that just like cast iron you season the teapot every time you use it so in fact the reason why antique tea pots are so expensive is due to the superior flavor it produces from years of use. We are heading back tonight to make some purchases :)
Finally today Hannah and i took a cooking class. Again due to the off season we had a private lesson at the regular prices. We started by going to the local market to buy veggies. Pretty standard in terms of the Asian markets I've seen except for one thing. Dogs and cats! I have to keep it all into perceptive that here that is meat just like chicken or pigs or ducks and it has been in their culture forever. They have all the foul, rabbits, and fish alive and will slaughter it for you if you buy one, but they have the same with cats and dogs. Hannah and I avoided that part of the market but could unfortunately here the dogs crying. But anyway thus is life and sometimes you have to respect others cultures even if it upsets you. We went back to the beautiful kitchen right on the water and enjoyed a day of learning how to cook 5 traditional Chinese dishes all of which were incredible and I can't wait to make for all of you. We made pork stuffed mushrooms, stir fried eggplant, stir fried garlic greens, chicken with cashews (my personal favorite), and beer fish stew (the other famous local dish.) Our teacher was an awesome woman and also a great teacher. Hannah and I sat down and ate our feast overlooking the river and mountains. Nothing could have been better...and then disaster struck.
**I'm consciously splitting the paragraphs so you don't associate the awesome dishes I learned with what's below.**
All I will say is that I'm glad they had one of two western style toilets in all of china and that I spent a lot of time with it. Not kidding it felt like i was there for an hour. Pretty sure it was the street food from the night before and also pretty sure I scared our poor teacher. To make matters worse, she was so concerned that she came into the bathroom stall to check on me!!!! There wasn't a lock on the door but fortunately she left almost immediately. I was fortunately able to make it back to our hostel and am feeling much better though I think my adventurous food streak is done for now and it's back to crackers and cup o noodles. I'm now under two comforters lying in bed in the middle of the day praying to god that whatever it was has passed and that I'll be fine for 40 hours of travel tomorrow, but I guess that to make every adventure good you need some disaster so I can check that off my list.
Well more to come later. On a separate note china has some blocks on sites you can and can't go on. My blog and Facebook are apparently in these categories. Some places have vpns that allow you to go on but just want to let you know if I don't write for awhile. Gmail works fine so far though so you can always email! So does Skype!
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