WARNING: This is very
long. There is no judgment if you don’t want to read it. I probably wouldn’t
even read except that it’s all about me…and I’m a little conceited sometimes so
I love it when things are all about me. But if you want to…go for it!
I got to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Yang Shuo, which is
(as the title hints at) a most beautiful place. We went there on our four-day
vacation and it was so much fun! We were supposed to leave Thursday night but
last minute we found out we didn’t have to teach Thursday so we left Wednesday.
And then we ended up at the bus station 3 hours too early because we
overestimated how long it would take at the dress shop (my roommate Darci is
getting her wedding dress made here). So we went to McDonalds and ordered
fries. Took a nap. Ordered cheeseburgers (they tasted so good! I actually do
miss American food sometimes) and ice cream. Then Jace and Max arrived at the
bus station (It was us 4 that left a day early). We rode sleeper buses which
were pretty fun. They were small little beds which made it hard to turn, this
made it slightly difficult to sleep since I learned that I DO turn a lot in my
sleep…at lease on sleeper buses I seem too. Halfway through they stopped the
bus and made everyone get off to use the bathroom. I didn’t have to go but
since they made everyone get off anyways I figured I might as well try. The
bathrooms were not squatters (no, they weren’t western either). It was a trough type thing where ya just squat
and go…no flushing needed. It smelled really bad. Oh yeah, and there were no
doors or stalls, just short little separators that came up to my mid
thigh...maybe. Livin’ the dream.
Day 1
We arrived at Yang Shuo at about 7 the next morning. They
had all these fruit stands set up and these oranges looked super good. So I
went over and bought one. I tried peeling the orange but it was really hard.
The lady I bought it from came over to me with a knife and handed it to me. “oh”
I thought, “I’m suppose to cut it”. So I’m trying to decide if I should cut it
vertical or horizontal (a silly thing to be contemplating I’m sure) she stares
at me for a moment then takes the orange and the knife and starts to cut the
peel off. WHY HADN’T I THOUGHT OF THAT?! Haha. Well all I can say is I had just woken up from
sleeping on the bus and wasn’t completely awake yet. I thanked her and happily
ate my orange as we began the long walk to our hostel in which they didn’t have
rooms for us anyways so we had to wander around before we could shower and feel
ready for the day. Fun fact: our hostel offered free mandarin oranges all the
time! It was awesome! But anyways, we went exploring and found some breakfast.
It was pretty cold outside but we had fun hiking up to this pagoda thing and taking
some fun pictures. We walked around the streets ate some dumplings and just had
a lot of fun. We joked that we were on a double date because there were two
girls and two guys but we never knew who was on the date with who (Don’t worry
ILP, it wasn’t a date) If anything it was boys and girls because Darci and I
had our arms linked most of the time to try to stay warm (we hadn’t packed much
warm clothes because it hadn’t really gotten cold yet.) Overall it was a super
fun day and it ended with the three of them getting massages (I didn’t have
much money so I just hung out in the hostel parlor). It was fun because I met
so many interesting people. The fun thing about traveling in China is that you
met people from all over the world. Rarely do I meet people from America
(unless they are with ILP). But I met this guy from England and girl from Scotland
and they were so cool and friendly. They were here just visiting and traveling
around. Turns out they love Utah, especially Moab (my grandparents are from
Moab!) So that was cool. I met another guy from Canada who was also here
teaching English but he teaches up north. I met another guy from Sweden but
only briefly. It’s just crazy the places these people are from! The hostel
owner Monkey Jane (that’s really what she goes by..the hostel is called Monkey
Jane’s hostel) was way cool. She gave us a lot of good advice. It’s known as a
party hostel so a lot of people drink. She was always inviting us to come up to
the rooftop bar. At the end of the trip she noticed that we hadn’t ever come up
to drink and asked where we were from. We told her and she asked if we were Mormons
and that’s why we didn’t drink. We couldn’t tell her much but we told her we
were. She talked about how she had tried to quit a few months ago but it was
hard because of the pressure to drink by her friends and customers (it is a
party hostel). She asked if we had ever drunk. Most of us hadn’t but since Jace
is a convert he actually had and was able to tell her how he had to give it up
to be Mormon. Sometimes Jace can be like an annoying little brother, but
sometimes he’s pretty cool and I admire his dedication a lot. He has only been
a member for a year but you can tell he loves the gospel. I see him bless each
of his meals (even in the cafeteria which I usually forget to do) and he reads
his scriptures each night. He has really stepped up to the responsibility of
blessing the sacrament for our small group, even when he had to do it alone
once. If you hear his conversion story it sounds like he converted for a girl,
but even if that’s the reason he did he had a testimony of his own now. He is
preparing to serve a mission as soon as he can (he has to be a member for a
year in order to go.) He is a pretty cool kid. But anyways, lots of cool people
at the hostel.
Day 2:
Friday we woke up early and went kayaking. We went through the
hostel so they arranged the ride and everything. I thought it was going to be
cold so I wore a jacket and stuff on top of my swim suit (I figured the water
was going to be too cold but I wanted to be prepared!) It actually was pretty
warm that day and I ended up just wearing my swimsuit anyways. It was so fun.
The scenery was AMAZING. I love the mountains there. They are unlike any other mountains
I have ever seen. Each one is different and unique. I can’t even describe. Just
look up some pictures or something. I tried so hard to capture the beauty with
pictures and videos on my own camera but none of them do it justice. I just
loved riding on the water and being surrounded by so much beauty. I’m so glad
Heavenly Father has such an eye for beauty. The boys were ahead of us most of
the time (Jace and Max) us girls (Darci, Katrina-she saved us from our
continual date-and I). At one point Darci had to pee really bad so she was
going to jump into the water and she figured while she was in she might has
well skinny dip. I’ve never been skinny dipping but I figured, hey I’m in China,
why not? So I jumped in too. Let me say that was some of the coldest water I
have ever been in. We spent about 3
hours kayaking and we had meant to eat breakfast before we left but we woke up
late and then Monkey Jane said we needed to wait at the hostel for the guy
coming to get us. So after awhile my arms/shoulders were sore and I was
starving and cold. Fortunately right around then we finished, they put us on a
bus and we made it back to the hostel and were able to take delightfully warm
showers. Most everything to do in Yangshou is outdoorsy and once it gets to be
5 or 6 they all close down. But don’t you worry! They are pretty famous for
their night life as well with bars everywhere in the street and rooftop bars
for almost every hostel. But there are a lot of shops and fun stuff open late
so we wandered around again and had some dumplings.
Day 3:
Saturday we went to the mud caves. We entered the caves by
boat and then we had a guide lead us through. It was pretty cool. She showed us
formations that looked like tigers, Jack and Rose form Titanic and other cool
things. Then we got to the mud caves and played around in the mud. It was cold
mud but once you got covered it wasn’t that bad. They had a slide we went down and
then we mud wrestled a little bit. Took some fun pictures and then went to rinse
off for the hot springs. Our friends had gone to the mud caves the day before
so we thought that they had gone to the same ones but they said the hot springs
were nice and fairly big. Our hot springs were a puddle. Literally. A
puddle. We asked if there was another
hot spring but she said that was the only one. So that’s when we realized they
had gone to a different one. So, we sat in the puddle for a little bit and then
left the cave. Outside the cave was a swimming area with a place to jump off so
we played there for a little bit. The water wasn’t too cold. We got out and changed
and left to wander around looking for the bus. Finally we found it and made our
way home. Once again the hot shower felt amazing!
After our showers we left to go rock climbing. It was super
fun. The only other place I’ve ever been rock climbing outside was in Provo
Canyon so compared to that the rock here is pretty different. It just seems a
lot more grainy…more likely to scrape ya…and I did get a couple scraps on my
leg. Those in addition to the one I got climbing another random rock-I’m getting
quite the collection on my right leg. It seems to be the one that keeps getting
cut. I had the unfortunate opportunity to catch the heel of my foot on the gate
right before we left on vacation and it took a good chunk of skin off…right
where my shoe rubs against…so that was real fun. It also made rock climbing a
bit more difficult not to mention WALKING. But it was super fun getting to
experience rock climbing in China. I guess Yangshou is suppose to have some of
the best rock climbing in China (maybe the world…I can’t remember what the guy
said). But yeah, fun stuff.
After rock climbing we met up with the other group and just
went wandering around. I don’t know what it was about it but it reminded me of
college and late night adventures doing random things and how everything seems
so much more funny. We found these sweet jumping stones by a waterfall that led
to this bridge thing and a walking area near the river…super cool, right? We
joked around, took funny pictures, and squatted (yes, you read that right,
squatted. It’s the cool thing to do here…everyone’s doing it.) But yeah, we
found a park…and a HUGE bloody rat. We tried to balance ourselves on teeter
totters and then on a ping pong table (they are everywhere here!) Just some fun
stuff. Then back to the hostel for nighty-nighty.
Day 4:
We rented mopeds for the day…this was seriously so fun! I
don’t think I quite realized what I was up to when I hopped on that thing. I
imagined driving through serene China on rural roads (don’t worry, we got to
that) but what I didn’t realize was that to get to that you have to drive
through the city first. I don’t know if I have told you about China driving yet
but…they have traffic laws but at the same time they don’t. If you want to
drive on the opposite side of traffic, that’s cool! Just make sure you honk and
stuff. People drive really close to each other and pedestrians just walk in.
BUT unlike in America, pedestrians don’t have the right of way so just go for
it. Back when we first got here I thought it would be cool to drive here but
didn’t think I would ever get the chance too but lo and behold here I am on a
moped driving in China. It kinda felt like a video game. Weaving in and out of
traffic, avoiding people crossing the street and getting points for hitting the
stars (haha, just kidding-there were no stars!) But seriously-a video game. One
life. There were quite a few times that I think I probably would have crashed
if not for divine intervention. I was praying pretty hard during that city
driving. The girl I was with (Emmaline-she is hilarious!) didn’t want to drive
so I was like SWEET! I’ll drive with her so I can drive more (I actually ended
up letting Max ride with her because he wanted to drive the whole time and Darci
wanted a turn and she was with him) but anyways, she said she really only
trusted Max and I to drive and I was like, that’s cool she trusts me. And then
I was like, oh snap! She trusts me. So I drove pretty safe but still had fun.
Some people in our group were not as fortunate. Laurissa and Ashley got into an
accident and Ashley’s knee got scraped up pretty bad and Laurissa got some
bruises. But then later Katrina got in an accident and banged up her foot
really bad. She is still kind limping around. I’m just so grateful not to have
gotten hurt and that those who did get hurt are alright and nothing was too
serious.
I really wanted to jump off Dragon Bridge. I’ve never been
bridge jumping and these seemed like a pretty epic place to start. But everyone
had already done it the day before and I figured they probably wouldn’t want to
do it again. Plus it was really cold. But I really wanted to so I wore my
swimsuit under my clothes should opportunity arise (yeah, this is the 3rd
day in a row that I’ve worn it…no judgment) and I brought some dry clothes to
change into afterwards. So we drive over there and I mention how I really want
to jump in and their like okay-did you bring a swimsuit or something? To which
I respond my lifting my shirt a little to reveal…I’m already wearing it! So
then they were like “yeah, go for it!”. So they all wait at the top, I strip
down to my swim suit and walk up to the bridge. Everyone else is below watching
and I get to the middle. I look down and suddenly it seems a lot higher than I
remember. But I can’t back down now! Everyone is watching. So I climb up to the
edge and stand there for a moment. I make sure they are ready and watching. I
know I have to jump soon because if I think about it too much I’ll chicken out.
So before I can climb down I do the first thing that comes to my mind and spread
my arms yell at the top of my lungs “FOR NARNIA” and jump. After I jump I brace for impact but realize I’m
still in the air so I let our another short scream before I hit the water. The
water is cold…surprise, surprise. But the weird thing is that when I got out of
the water it seemed warm outside. So I changed clothes we had some hot
chocolate and left. I had some delicious food from some street vendor. It was
this sticky rice dough type thing with smashed peanuts or something inside (it
tasted like peanut butter) and it was delicious. We hopped back on the mopeds
and this time Darci drove and I got to ride. I like that because then I got to
look around more and let me say, Yangshuo has some mighty fine scenery. Did I
mention that I love it here?
Speaking of delicious things though, there is this crystallized
honey stuff that is SUPER good. I love it. Its been rainy this whole weekend but
especially while we were waiting for the bus which meant we were all wet when
we got on. I felt so gross (I hadn’t showered since bridge jumping) and I was
wet from the rain and we were in the back of the bus under other beds and it
was so humid and stinky from everyone’s wet feet. Poor Katrina’s foot was
hurting a lot. She shared her ipod which made time go faster for me. I
eventually fell asleep and we eventually got home. And boy did it feel good to
be home and take a shower and then finally be dry again. But boy was it cold.
We left here when it was warm and was surprised by how cold it was in Yangshou
but then we came back and it was cold. I think winter has finally hit. Looks
like I can’t wear shorts anymore…but I guess it is December now so I should
probably get used to the cold because I’d bet my bottom dollar that it’s going
to be cold in Missouri!
Well that is all (I know what you’re thinking… “’bout time!”
haha, ah well)…fare thee well!
