On our first day in Guilin, we went to Merryland which is the Chinese version of Disneyland.
It is complete with a Buddha where everyone prays before they enter the park. It was a rainy day (the first rain we have seen in China), which worked to our advantage because there were no lines for any rides. In the Wild West Town, there were pony rides, so I got pet my first horse in over a month! I was so excited to see a real horse!
There were signs everywhere in Merryland that said “No Striding”. It should say “No Running”. The Chinese really need to employ some native English speakers to write their signs.
We didn’t really want to go to Merryland because it was just like an American theme park. It also meant we didn’t get to see that much of Guilin, but we were invited by our students so it was polite to go. Merryland is surrounded by the nicest scenery of any amusement park I have ever been too.
That night we took the bus to Yangshuo, the hometown of one of our students. We ate dinner with her family once we arrived and ate our first field snails! They actually didn’t taste too bad, and we ended up eating more than one. Yangshuo is a very touristy town, with a “West Street”. We saw the most foreigners we have seen since arriving in China, more per capita than even Hong Kong. The best part about it being such a tourist town is all the western food! It was great to be able to read the menus and know exactly what we would be eating.We rented bikes on a rainy Sunday and rode into the countryside.
We saw the “Big Banyan Tree”, a tree that is almost 2,000 years old (right click to open in another window for the full effect):
We also took a boat ride into a cave and saw the amazing stalactites and stalagmites, which are precipitated limestone deposits.
Then we ate the best Chinese food we have had since we’ve been here. I love dining with the students because they know exactly what to order. It is hard to eat the Chinese meat with chopsticks because it is often infused with shards of bone and grizzle. It is definitely an art, but we are improving.
The one night we were in Guilin we met another English teacher, Luke, who went to University of Southern California for college. We exchanged phone numbers with him and said we would meet up in Yangshuo. We got together with him and his friends Sunday night at Monkey Jane’s. For any young foreigner traveling to China, Yangshuo is the city to visit and Monkey Jane’s is the place to stay. It is a hostel, with a bar on the top floor. We traded teaching stories and the funniest one from them was a student who named themselves “Autism”. They suggested maybe Autism was not the best name, so the student changed their name to “Not Autism”. I think the students just open the dictionary and randomly picked a word that sounds pretty. We have some pretty funny names too, like “Forever King”, “Stone”, “Rainbow”, “Hedgehog”, and “Hamburger”. After Monkey Jane’s we ventured to a Chinese club and danced the night away to some awful music.
We woke with horrible hangovers and spent the morning sleeping. This area is famous for the karst topography, formed from limestone dissolution inconsistencies. We spent Monday without our students and walked up one of the mountains in the city to get a good view. The mountains are just amazing, and if China wasn’t grey every single day, it would be even more beautiful.
On our way home, George realized that in his hung-over stupor, he had left his bank card in the ATM machine. My bank account got hacked into last week, so I had to cancel my card. This left us with no Chinese money, and no way to get money. Luckily, we had some American money on us. We had bus tickets as far as Nanning, but that is 2 hours away from our school. We had to get money to make it home. Once we arrived at the bus station, we convinced a motorcycle driver to drive me to the bank and I could pay him 5 US dollars because I had no Chinese money. I said good-bye to George and hoped I that I would make it back to the bus station with the correct money. The motorcycle driver turned out to be very safe, even giving me a helmet to wear (helmets are rare). Once getting to the bank, I was told I needed a passport to change money. If you remember, we don’t have our passports right now! We ended up using the security guard’s ID, after I started to freak out telling the banker, “I have no money, no passport and don’t speak Chinese! You need to help me!” In the end, everything worked out and we made it home safe and sound.
We saw the “Big Banyan Tree”, a tree that is almost 2,000 years old (right click to open in another window for the full effect):
We also took a boat ride into a cave and saw the amazing stalactites and stalagmites, which are precipitated limestone deposits.
Then we ate the best Chinese food we have had since we’ve been here. I love dining with the students because they know exactly what to order. It is hard to eat the Chinese meat with chopsticks because it is often infused with shards of bone and grizzle. It is definitely an art, but we are improving.
The one night we were in Guilin we met another English teacher, Luke, who went to University of Southern California for college. We exchanged phone numbers with him and said we would meet up in Yangshuo. We got together with him and his friends Sunday night at Monkey Jane’s. For any young foreigner traveling to China, Yangshuo is the city to visit and Monkey Jane’s is the place to stay. It is a hostel, with a bar on the top floor. We traded teaching stories and the funniest one from them was a student who named themselves “Autism”. They suggested maybe Autism was not the best name, so the student changed their name to “Not Autism”. I think the students just open the dictionary and randomly picked a word that sounds pretty. We have some pretty funny names too, like “Forever King”, “Stone”, “Rainbow”, “Hedgehog”, and “Hamburger”. After Monkey Jane’s we ventured to a Chinese club and danced the night away to some awful music.
We woke with horrible hangovers and spent the morning sleeping. This area is famous for the karst topography, formed from limestone dissolution inconsistencies. We spent Monday without our students and walked up one of the mountains in the city to get a good view. The mountains are just amazing, and if China wasn’t grey every single day, it would be even more beautiful.
On our way home, George realized that in his hung-over stupor, he had left his bank card in the ATM machine. My bank account got hacked into last week, so I had to cancel my card. This left us with no Chinese money, and no way to get money. Luckily, we had some American money on us. We had bus tickets as far as Nanning, but that is 2 hours away from our school. We had to get money to make it home. Once we arrived at the bus station, we convinced a motorcycle driver to drive me to the bank and I could pay him 5 US dollars because I had no Chinese money. I said good-bye to George and hoped I that I would make it back to the bus station with the correct money. The motorcycle driver turned out to be very safe, even giving me a helmet to wear (helmets are rare). Once getting to the bank, I was told I needed a passport to change money. If you remember, we don’t have our passports right now! We ended up using the security guard’s ID, after I started to freak out telling the banker, “I have no money, no passport and don’t speak Chinese! You need to help me!” In the end, everything worked out and we made it home safe and sound.
We had a busy week organizing our classes and making up the classes we missed because of the holiday. We held English Corner this week in a classroom and showed the students some American TV. We showed them “Friends”, “The Simpsons”, some music videos, and “Charlie Chaplin”. They thought Charlie Chaplin was hilarious.
We are spending this weekend taking care of business, exploring the country side on our “moto” and tonight we are going to eat pizza with TC, our one American friend. Talk to you soon!
- Fiona
We are spending this weekend taking care of business, exploring the country side on our “moto” and tonight we are going to eat pizza with TC, our one American friend. Talk to you soon!
- Fiona
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