Days 1 and 2 of Vacation

Aaaack! Don't hate me for not posting in forever! You know how vacations are... Busy, busy, busy.

Tuesday:
We woke up bright and early to find a place to rent bikes. There was a girl staying in our hostel room with us who was travelling by herself so we invited her to come along. She is super amazing and I'm glad we met her!

So, the first place that we went to rent bikes was a place the hostel recommended. They told us that it would be 30 kuai for the bike for the day. When we get there, the lady insists it was 34. She gets on the phone and calls our hostel. Before you know it, the price is up to 35. It was so stupid and we were all really annoyed so we found someplace else to go.

After we got our bike situation figured out, we headed for the trail that we were looking for. It was so unbelievable gorgeous. There are truly no words for the beauty of the scenery here. We rode around for a few hours, just exploring all the little towns and villages that we passed through. This is exactly what I wanted to see in China. The rural countryside with no skyscrapers! We stopped at this little restaurant for lunch. I had fried rice that was SO good. Why can't the school cafeteria food be this good??

However, the traffic was a nightmare. It is National Holiday here in China so everyone and their mother seems to be every place we want to go. While we were heading back, this lady stopped us and asked if we'd like to take a tour with her. Her name was Wendy and she's a local of one of the villages in Yangshuo. We didn't have time to do it right then because our bikes had to be back by seven but we set something up for the next day!

Later, Jessica, Kate, Paul and I decided to go out to a bar. We had a blast dancing with the Chinese people who have no rhythm whatsoever. Oh, and Michael Jackson isn't really dead. He just relocated to China.

Wednesday:
Again, woke up really early! Wendy was waiting at our hostel for us to take us out! She first took us to a bike rental place. When everyone was all saddled up we headed out. Wendy is a local of Yangshuo and she took us around all the back roads so we could see what real China was like. Once again, we spent the day driving through the mountains and little villages!

Wendy took us to a set of caves. The first one we went through was just a tour of a part of the cave and honestly it was really boring. I could have done without it. Next was the mud cave. Ohmahgosh, it was so much fun. Nothing is better than rolling around a humongous mud puddle, right? Right :) We didn't think it could get any better, but it did. The next part of the cave is a natural hot spring. It's just like lounging in a hot tub, so we did that for a good half hour or so. I didn't bring a swimsuit to China and neither did a lot of my group so we just went for the bra and underwear deal. I know it looks like we are totally naked, but I promise we aren't.

After caving, we had lunch at Moon Hill Cafe. I was elated to see "hamburger with cheese" on the menu. Was it too good to be true? Of course. It's okay, though.

We went back to our hostel, grabbed our things, and headed to the bus station so we could get to Guilin. I am so over Chinese public transportation. It is awful. Two hours later, we arrived at our hostel where I finally showered off all my mud. Lord Almighty, the places that mud was... You don't even want to know :)

I wish I could make everyone understand how amazing it is here! With all this amazingness, comes some pretty severe exhaustion as well. I haven't gotten a good restful sleep since we've been here. But you know what? That's okay. At the end of my life, I'm not going to remember all the nights that I got a good night's rest. I'm seriously getting ripped being here. Everything we do is strenuous physical activity. It makes me realize what a fatty/lazy person I was back in the States and that's something I want to change. But, no, Lucas, I'm not doing crossfit!


P.S. I'm going to post pictures to my blog when I get back to the school. The internet at the hostels is too slow, but I am able to put them on Facebook so check them out there!