I recently returned from my first vacation! We traveled to Guilin for one day, and then Yangshou for three days. Our transportation was a sleeper bus, which is a bus with beds. It took twelve hours to get to Guilin, and I must say those were long hours. The sleeper bus had three rows of beds on it and the beds were very small. They were the size for a midget. Since I am tall, it was a challenge to fit myself and my huge backpack in such a small space. On our way home we took another sleeper bus, and I was put on a bed that had no bars on the side. It was a bed in the middle row and I had a near death experience multiple times. The road was bumpy and the bus driver was taking sharp turns. I did the best I could to balance myself.. I guess in China they don't believe in seat belts.
When we arrived in Guilin, the weather was horrible. It was pouring rain and absolutely freezing! We didn't pack very warm clothes because we thought that the weather would have been better. We had directions to find our hostel, but unfortunately they weren't very clear. We ended up walking in the rain for about two hours completely lost. It didn't help that everyone we asked either didn't speak English or gave us different directions. Eventually, we found our hostel and we were able to get dry. In Guilin, we went to the Long Ji rice terraces. It was amazing! Farmers plant rice on the terraces once a year and they harvest it. Along the rice terraces there are little villages. One village consists of women with the longest hair I have ever seen! They wash their hair with rice water, it must be some type of magical shampoo. I am trying to decide if I should start washing my hair in rice water or not. I think it would be a good idea not to. We didn't have much time in Guilin and before I knew it we were on our way to Yangshou.
During our vacation, the weather never cleared up. We were upset because basically in Yangshou all you can do is outdoor activities. Such as going to the mud caves, taking a bamboo raft and hiking. The weather limited us from doing all of this, and so we actually decided that we are going to go back to Yangshou for our June vacation. I barely got home and I am already looking forward to going back. The weather will be a lot warmer! Even though the weather was dreary, we didn't let it ruin our trip. We still had a blast and made the most out of the experience. Our hostel was along West street, which is a huge shopping area. Along the street there were little vendors and shops. I must say that I got extremely good at bartering. You can usually get the price down to a third of what they are asking for. I got an item down to a sixth of the price and I was so pumped. The other girls in our group started asking me to help them purchase things. It will be weird going back to America were you can't talk the price down on anything. I will probably try to talk down the price of a burger at McDonalds or something like that.
One of my favorite things that we did though in Yangshou, was that we decided to go clubbing. We went bar hopping and just danced. It was so funny because right when we would walk in the bar and start dancing, the DJ would turn the music to American music. It was usually either Lady Gaga, or Justin Bieber. Everyone would stop what they were doing and watch us. People from the street started watching us from the windows. When we would leave a bar to go to another one, the Asians would take out their cameras and take pictures of us. I felt famous and I can honestly say that it was like being followed by the paparazzi. By the end of the night we had probably taken around 100 pictures. Some of the people would try and sneak a picture and instead we would grab them and have them pose with us. It is funny because it is like they have never seen an American before. They are amazed to see a big group of white girls. It will be interesting to see if we get this same reaction everywhere we travel.
It was good for me to see the difference from where we are living to other parts of China. We are blessed to be living in such a clean, nice area. I didn't realize how blessed I was before I left. We haven't even really seen a small portion of China, but some of the parts that I did see on our vacation were very poor. Homeless people were begging on the street and families in the villages had very little. Our hostel was down a long alley, and there was a family living in one of the empty buildings. Every time we walked by them it broke my heart to see how little they had. I am so grateful for everything that I have back at home. I truly am blessed with the life I have. I am more appreciative for the small, simple things in life.
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