China Part 2

Dearest Friends, Family, and Lovers,

Many apologies for the long delay. Our blog was blocked in China and internet access was spotty, so this is the long awaited summary of the remainder of our trip. I supposed the ending is a little spoiled because clearly at least one of us made it back to the Motherland alive.

Still, pictures are coming, so stay tuned!

7/29
Today, we went to the Summer Palace and looked around. It was pretty cool. We had to take the subway and then we were supposed to take a bus, but we had some trouble finding the stop so we had to take a cab the rest of the way. It was a pretty cool place, but the weather was hot as blazes once again. We hiked around the grounds, saw some nice views, and a boat made out of marble. Coming back, we had our first Beijing bus-riding experience. Let's just say that it is not for the faint of heart and leave it at that. When we got dropped off at Tiananmen Square, we were a little disoriented because we knew which direction we had to go, but the sky was so hazy that we couldn't see the sun. We asked about 10 people for directions and many of them told us that it was impossible to walk so far and advised us to take a bus. Clearly they underestimated our walking prowess because we got back in about 20 minutes after figuring out directions.

7/30
This was a big day. The fearless travelers began an epic eleven day journey through China by train. We each packed a backpack and left for Huang Shan at noon.

7/31
Arrived in Huang Shan. We got right down to business and caught a bus to the Yellow Mountain, bought some food rations at a grocery store, and then took a car to the beginning of what is known as the Eastern Steps. We probably hiked up about a million steps for about 4 hours until we reached the top. After taking a short breather and lining up a hostel room for the night, we hiked a little more and found a great lookout spot to watch the sunset. We were literally perched on a cliff and we probably weren't supposed to have climbed up there, but we did anyway due to our reckless natures. Afterwards, Kareem was quite excited to purchase a whole watermelon which we (even Steve who hates all incarnations of melons) promptly devoured after a feast of bread and jerky.

8/1
We woke up at 5 am to watch the sunrise. This was a very romantic and good idea, but unfortunately every other person on the mountain had the same idea, so we didn't get as good a spot as we did to watch the sunset and we did not have any privacy or peace. It was very disappointing. But we began our downward descent down the Western Steps pausing every so often to finish off the watermelon. This path was even more scenic and exciting than the Eastern Steps. At one point, we were hiking between a narrow crack between two cliffs with a rock perched overhead. Near the bottom we were accosted by wild monkeys who tried to steal our bread and jerky! Thankfully, we fended them off and made it to the bottom after a mere 8 hours or so. We got a bus to a small town called Tunxi where we picked up our train tickets and found a nice hotel and purchased Watermelon #2. We rock-paper-scissored for who got to take the first shower and who got to use the big bath towels. Then we got some late lunch and inadvertently ordered $200 yuan eel. The bill for this meal was more than our hotel room for the night. That night, we had a nice dinner at a small restaurant where we picked our dishes from fresh ingredients on display in the fridge then walked down a place called Old Street and did some window shopping. This would be the first of many days where we went shopping...

8/2
We printed out some nice pictures of our trip so far at a little printshop to use as postcards. We returned to Old Street where a brown T-shirt caught the eye of Kareem. After negotiating for a while, Kareem bought his first new shirt in years!Now you must understand that if you are a T-shirt, belonging to Kareem is a great honor due to a rigourous selection process. We left for Shanghai that evening.

8/3
Arrived in Shanghai and went out in search of a hotel. We met a woman who showed us a hotel that was basically pretty awful. We became discouraged and went shopping in a touristy part of town after lunch. After buying some Rolexes, it started raining and we begain our hotel search again in earnest. We found a place close to the train station and went out for dinner and Janet bought a tiny carton of ice cream which cost 35Y (about $5 US).

8/4
We got up bright and early to catch our train. When we got there 15 minutes before boarding, we discovered that there are TWO train stations in Shanghai and we were at the wrong one! We missed our train by about 10 minutes after taking a subway to the correct station. However, the office was able to fix this problem quite easily and we were put on a train for that evening. Since we were spooked about missing the train, we spent the day at the station just to be sure we wouldn't miss it. We were able to get into a enclosed, air conditioned VIP area for 1st class ticket holders and spent hours playing cards. We were introduced by Kareem to the wonderful world of Eucher, a mysterious card game we had never heard of involving winning 'tricks', a complex point system, and left and right bar trump cards. Janet we discovered is quite bad at all manner of card games or even anything involving some level of thinking.

8/5
We arrived in a town called Guilin in the afternoon and went straight to a place called Yangshuo. We found a hotel called the Bamboo House quite easily where we stayed on the very top floor with a fantastic view of the city. This is a very touristy place and we decided to go shopping down the main street.

That's all for tonight. The rest of the update should be up tomorrow and there also may be pictures up as well. Good night/morning!