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George's World Travels
So Yangshou.
This is very similar to our view as we came out of our hotel, minus the temple in the background. The bridge is almost identical.
Arrived after a few hours on the coach, beautiful drive, but slept a lot of the way. so tired. In the afternoon, after arriving in the town, we went to the local cooking school. Yes me at a cooking school! Wonders will never cease! We were taken around some markets first and shown some of the strange vegetables, and very large cinnamon sticks. Also saw bunny rabbits in cages, noit nice to think about really. Dont thikn people buy pets in food markets. We made loads of different dishes, and they allowed for me being vegetarian too, so had a subsitute of noodles. It was interesting but when the food was being cooked everyhting had to be done very quickly and was all a bit confusing! I was given a lot of help! So dont have high expectations of me making the dishes back home!
Chris, Su, Vi and I had bought some 'Great Wall of China' wine earlier so we all enjoyed that with our meals at the end.
In the eveningwe had awonder down West Street, the main street in the town, right next to our hotel. lots of market stalls and shops there. I bought a few more things including a big t-shirt which said 'dream' in chinese, which Ill wear to sleep in. How clever I am!
Next morning up bright and early, to have breakfast at 7.30 and then the bike ride. However the weather was not on our side. Was tipping it down, so ride was postponed till later and we went for a calligraphy lesson instead. Was so cool! Learnt a lot. First we practised certain strokes that made up most characters, then we did a load of characters. Like water, mountain, person, up, down, big, think... and at the end, Wai, our teacher, wrote a character in the middle of a piece of paper then our name and good wishes on one side, and the name of the school on the other.
I chose to have the character for adventure. Also I found out my name means an all in one fixer really! Like if I was a doctor I could heal people, if I was a mechanic I could always fix cars. Always good to know!
Anyway, I really want to learn more calligraphy, hopefully Ill be able to at York as there are Mandarin lessons. Ive bought some brushes and inks :)
The bike ride was cool. Not as hard as the others, and after only a few minutes we were in the countryside. Yangshou is surrounded by limestone hills, all very strange shapes as in the past the whole place was under water, and the limestone was moulded by the currents.
We did however get VERY muddy as had been raining so hard. We went on loads of dirt tracks/country paths which was cool. And saw water buffalo.
In the eveing we had our final proper last meal, as some of the group was leaving straight after we got into Hong Kong. Was nice. Although there was a live snake in the corner, which a guy killed, by cutting off its head with scissors, and then offering us all a taste of its blood. James, Duncan, Jeff, and Kal had some, and said it tasted like rice wine.
Later on we went to the Buffalo Bar, and had some more beers. Stayed up talking about very random things with Byron till quite late, which was nice. You miss having proper conversations with many people on tours like this. Obviously I can talk very easily with Chris, we get on really well, and the twins. but with such a large group its strange to noit be able to talk with others with deeper conversations, even though you spend so much time with them. So yeh, it was nice!
The next morning Chris, Su, Vi and I went to a Tai Chi class for a hour! Was hard work remembering all the moves in sequence. But got it in the end. Was interesting, maybe when Im older Ill get into it properly. Didnt find it all that relaxing though given was concentrating so hard on what came next, but I guess that gets easier.
Had a yummy lunch of cheese pizza, but managed to get the tomato ketchup everywhere as the lid came off. Ah well. It was funny.
So yeh then the journey to Hong Kong started. We got a coach back to Guilin, then an overnight train (where I got everyone to write in my beautiful, pink, chinese book about the tour, will add pics when I get back to the UK), then a bus to anoohter train station, THEN a train for 2 hours into Hong Kong! LONG trip!
So yes, Hong Kong...
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