My love, Yangshuo

Oh Yangshuo, how I love thee.

Our 2nd vacation was at the beginning of April, and while our plans were to go to ZhangJiaJie, things didn't work out (we bought our train tickets for the wrong day, and then weren't able to get any for the right day), so Yangshuo it was! I really wasn't that big of a deal, we just switched the order of our vacation spots around. We took a sleeper bus to Yangshuo...with 14 other ILP teachers. We were with Dachong and Kaiyin. The 4 of us had a good time on our bus ride, but some of the other girls, near the back of the bus had beds infested with cockroaches. Not so great. The traffic was bad too, or something...cuz it took us 12 hours instead of like 8 to get to Yangshuo.We were greeted by gorgeous views, as always.

 

Yangshuo is amazing!

We rented scooters from Esther on the first day we were there. She's such a funny lady.

We rode to Moon Hill and decided to climb up to it.

Soooo many stairs.

But it was worth it. Such a great view!

It was tiring, climbing up all 800+ stairs, but I'm glad we did.

We went to the Big Banyan tree after Moon Hill. Such a cool tree.

The river was really high our whole trip. We weren't able to see the view that we wanted to on our bamboo raft tour because that particular river was too high.

Breathtaking.

Love this place!

Oh you know, just a man taking his...water buffalo? down the street... no biggie.

Oh gosh. We ate a lot of these. Amazing mango smoothies.

Busy West Street. Everyone waddling along.

Our mud caves were amazing!

 

Chocolate pancake things! mmmmm

Harry Potter was contemplating buying some chocolate pancakes too.

Banana bread! Best 5RMB spent. It came warm and buttered.

Night view.

Cormorant fisherman.

We found this super cute little postcard shop where you write a postcard to the future.

We're pretty sure that's a man...breastfeeding. This picture was hanging in a restaurant we ate at.

I ate a lot of pizza in Yangshuo. How could I resist?

The bathroom lights at our hostel were blinding and probably could've given us a suntan if we had stood in front of them for too long.

Oh gosh. Our crazy Canadian roommate. We met her at 11am, and she was still plastered. She asked us where we were from every couple minutes...although...she had some competition for craziest/most obnoxious roommate. Our other roommate fell out of his top bunk at like 4am, and somehow spun around 90 degrees, landing between the other 2 sets of bunk beds in the room. We thought he died, cuz he wasn't moving...turns out he was ok?

I love my life.

Me and Lex on our bamboo river raft down the YuLong River.

I would go back to Yangshuo in a heartbeat. I love it.

Our bamboo raft driver. I loved that he was barefoot.

Corn Juice. So many (inappropriate and nonsensical) things said about this place.

Delicious fresh donut.

<3

David Beckham, hiding in the bushes.

It was a great vacation. We were all sad to leave. Yangshuo is a magical place.

Ni Hao Guzhen!

 Guzhen! Finally! We were always so busy on weekends that we weren't able to make a trip to Guzhen until April 20. I was super excited to go and see everything and everyone again! And Apple had talked to Benny's family and arranged us to go out to dinner with him that evening!! We left fairly early, and took the bus for about 2 hours to Guzhen. When we first got there the girls were amazed with how nice Guzhen was. They seemed to think I had misled them with how nice Guzhen was...but I really hadn't ever thought Guzhen was a really nice place. After living in Nanlang for 2 months though, and then seeing the contrast, I can see where they are coming from. Nanlang is kinda ghetto. It's still great...but way less fancy. 

We stopped at KFC to use the bathroom real quick, and about a minute later, I see a little girl walk in with her mom. It was Holli! I had taught her 2 years ago at Happy ABC's Kindergarten! She had graduated after my first semester, and I had never gotten to see her again last year, so I was super happy to see her again! She gave me a big hug too.

 

We headed to lunch, walking through the lily pad park. The lily pads were just started to come out.

I ordered one of my favourite dishes at Raintree. It was on the menu during my first semester, but then taken off. Didn't stop me from continuing to order it all last year and this year too though! It's delicious!

Next stop: washy washy!!! It was great to see all my old hairdressers again. Alu, Alan, and Afa were all there. Alu did my hair just like old times, and we chatted as best we could. I congratulated him on his wedding, and he said "sank you". Adorable.

We walked to my old apartment after getting our hair done, and I saw Coco standing outside a dance studio on the first floor of the apartment complex. She was as stylish as ever.

I climbed the railings of the Guzhen girls' apartment so I could get a view of the backyard. It's changed so much since my first picture of it!

Then it was off to the kindergarten! It was a Saturday, so not all of the kids were there, but I was able to see Nancy, Jacky, Mason, Andrew, Addison, James, Chase, and Laina. 

Nancy

I went down the hall for a bit and visited with Vivian too. She's a sweetheart.

And I got to see Yany's baby belly! She married the uncle of Mark, the star dancer of Happy ABC's last year. Mark was a super handsome little boy, so I'm assuming his uncle would be good looking too.

Benny! I got to ride to dinner with Benny and his parents, then the other teachers took a rickshaw with Apple. We went to Tiramisu, and super cute little western restaurant in Guzhen. We ate cheesecake, french fries, delicious fish balls (those do exist!), and I got spaghetti! It was a delicious meal spent with the most wonderful people. Benny had a few little toy cars with him, and we made a track and ramp with chopstick and the table menu.

I had a wonderful time with Benny and was super happy to see him again. His parents asked if Benny comes to Canada when he's 12 or 14 if he could stay with me too. I told them I would absolutely love that!

It was a great day, but I was sad to have to say goodbye to him again. :(