Yangshuo, China! And a museum!

I've spent yesterday and today in Yangshuo. It's in the southernmost part of China closest to Vietnam. If I was any more south I would actually be in Vietnam. It's a subtropical zone I believe and the countryside is beautiful. It's so gorgeous. I took lots of pictures which will be on this blog as soon as I get back to Xiangtan and as soon as they provide internet for our computers. As of right now there is no internet in my apartment so I can't upload them. I might go down to an internet cafe to do that but I'm not sure if they'll let me put pictures on the computer. I'll get it figured out.

For various activities they have a bamboo raft ride down the Yulong river which is one of two rivers surrounding Yangshuo. The other is the Li river. The Li river is larger but you can't take a ride down it. It's so gorgeous here I can't say that enough! It's a pretty impoverished area though. Riding down the river you see all the peasants and their homes and they have very little. If it wasn't a tourist area then I don't know what it would be like. While on the river you would ride by rafts where people were trying to seel things. The main item was beer! They knew only two words which was "Hello! Beer!" and they just repeated it over and over. You can also go to a mud cave but I decided not to go because I was exhausted after the river ride. The rest of my group went and they just jumped around in the mud in the cave. They really liked it but I was happy I went home and ate and went to bed. I rode the bike I rented back to Yangshuo (you had to ride a bike to the dock where the river ride was) all by myself and I DIDN'T GET LOST! That's pretty much a first and only time for me considering I had never been in the area before and I'm in a foreign country. Luckily I know how to ask where things are and I can hold a basic conversation but I never had to ask anyone! I just got lucky I'll be honest.

The shops are so cute and there are so many different things. When you're walking down the street you're accosted by the shop owners trying to get you to buy their wares. They are very persistant much moreso than in America. They will literally come right up to you and hold out items for sale and follow you for 20 feet or so holding them right up to you. It's just how they do things. Bartering is very fun too! When a person tells you the price for something it's going to be about 5 times more than what it's really worth so you have to haggle down the price. I was shopping with some of my friends in the group and we were able to get chopsticks that were originally priced for 60 yuan for 25 yuan! I didn't buy them but one of the girls did.

Oh before I forget before we came to Yangshuo we went to a museum in Changsha the capital of the Hunan Province. The museum's main attraction was this wife of this important dynasty guy. She was like 2000 years old or something like that I don't remember. Anyway she was buried in like 5 coffins that were sealed with this charcoal paste that preserved her so well. When they unearthed her she was still slightly moist (not from decomposition) and her hair was completely intact and she had blood in her veins still. She is probably one of the best preserved bodies ever. I took some neat pictures and I'll put them up with the ones from Yangshuo. I honestly don't think she had decomposed at all. Of course she was a little shriveled but that's normal I believe. Anyway it was way cool. We got to see all the items from her tomb and it was cool. On a side note they wouldn't let us use the flash on our cameras. I'm not sure why. We could still take pictures just not using the flash. A couple times I turned off my camera and turned it back on to take more pictures and the flash is automatically on when you do that so I forgot to turn it off and I took a picture with the flash and I was a little nervous about getting arrested because that would have been bad but they were just like "sir please turn off your flash."

I'm really enjoying China but it hasn't really sunk in that this is going to be my home for the next 4 months. It's going to be so much fun but at the same time it's going to take some adjusting. Oh! P.S. they don't use diapers here in China. The pants for the babies have a large slit in them and the parents just whistle holding the kids up on the street and they go to the bathroom right there on the street. It's very strange but normal for China. I probably didn't explain that well enough so I hope you understand but I can't think of a better way to explain it.

Well that's it for now. I'll keep this updated! Love you all!

I finally made it to China!

After leaving The JFK airport Thursday August 21, I got diverted to Korea instead of the planned destination in Hong Kong. There was a typhoon that hit the Hong Kong coastal area and that forced the airport to shut down until it passed. That's why I went to Korea. I landed in the Incheon airport close to 2 or 3 in the afternoon went through customs and then was taken on a shuttle to a hotel the airline provided for us in Soeul which is roughly an hour from Incheon. I stayed the night and left at 3:30 in the morning to drive back to the airport for the 6:20 AM flight that would take me the rest of the way to Hong Kong. Only one other person that was going to China with my program flew with me the rest all flew in one large group. After we landed, her and I went and got our tickets changed to a new flight to get to Changsha the closest airport to Xiangtan in the Hunan province. The flight was set for 3:55 PM but got delayed to 6 PM then got delayed one more time to 6:30 PM before finally leaving. We got to Changsha around 8:30, I want to say, where there was someone waiting to pick us up. They took us to the University and we got settled into our apartments and then went to bed.

The rest of our group has been stuck in the Hong Kong airport since Friday all the way to Monday morning for some reason I'm not sure of yet. They flew out this morning and they should be here within the next hour or so. Somehow after their flight to Hong Kong they left the airport to take a day trip in Hong Kong since they had a 10 hour layover and for some reason they couldn't get back into the airport until this morning. I'm not sure what happened exactly but I'm glad I didn't get stuck there with them. Well I'll update you in a day or two once my orientation starts! Love you all!