Traveling china

Hello dear readers of my interesting life story. I admit that it has indeed been a month since I've updated, but thus here I am. We just got back (ok by 'just' I mean like 4 weeks ago) from our week and a half long journey of seeing only a small fraction of beautiful China! It was quite the experience and I am going to tell you all about it! It cold be either incredibly long, or I'll get bored and leave out every detail. Well, I guess we'll find out!

First destination: Wudangshan
After teaching the precious children, we rushed outside, grabbed a motor taxie, almost lost rachel in the process, and rode off to the sky train. For fear of missing our train, we were running like crazy people. From the sky train we caught the subway in Guangzhou, then got off at the train station. The train station was very exciting and I'll tell you why, we rode our first sleeper train ever! It was wonderful and full of interesting smells, bad food and atrocious squater toilets. It was actually all very exciting despite the circumstances because we were on our way to Wudang where all our dreams would come true. We had pillow talks on the train and got to know each other a little deeper which was a major perk in the trip. We eventually slept for a minute until I was awakened by a chinese voice at the foot of my bed. I sat up in a very confused state wondering what had happened and if we had missed our stop. I soon realized she was trying to tell me I was in her bed. I was pretty sure it was my bed so I looked above me and said, "Hey guys?" 3 heads poked out. "This lady wants my bed.." We woke the adorable chinese girl in our bunk section and she kindly told the lady she was on the wrong cart. Everything worked out and we got a couple more hours of sleep. Our next rude awakening was the lights coming on at 3 am telling us to get off the train. We groggily transfered to a seated train which was probably 800 times worse than the sleeper. It was full of uncomfortable, straight up seats, smoking middle aged men, disgusting squater smells and food grunge all over the floors. It was probably the most atrocious sight I've ever beheld. It's physically impossible to sleep and literally drains the life out of you.
Anyways, enough of the trains. We finally made it to Wudang and got to our hotel. It was actually really nice. We slept for a couple hours then proceeded to explore the city! One of my favorite things was walking through the houses, not on the busy streets, where we actually got to see how people lived and watch them playing games and making cotton and etc. It was really fun. We took tons of pictures of course. :)
Being the adventure seekers we are, we got on a bus which we hoped would take us to some lake show. After some painful inability to communicate with the bus driver, he made us pay extra and we were slightly ticked off. But meanwhile we met a handsome young tai chi student who offered to take us to his school! We followed and met some of the coolest people ever! We made especially good friends with the chinese guy, Li, and his russian friend, Igor who showed us some kung fu moves.
The next day we went to Wudang mountain and took a bus to every stop up the mountain. The first stop was a beautiful temple where we took a number of pictures. Ok fine we take numbers of pictures everywhere we go. Then we stopped at this bridge where if you've seen the new Karate Kid movie Jackie chan told Dre, "Your focus needs more focus," and held him up barely over the water. We were so excited and took so many pictures there! It was really beautiful. We balanced on the bridge and kissed the ground where jackie chan walked. It was a really cool place and we were all just so excited. Our next stop was another temple, then the top where we hiked a bunch of stairs to another cool temple. Ok this all sounds really lame, but you have to understand that it's hard to make it sound cool when it's just written. Plus I'm already getting bored of it and strictly writing it not for entertainment, but journal purposes. Anyways, the temple really was cool and we saw the spot where the lady did the cobre thing on the ledge. :) again you had to be there. The last stop was just really cool in general. There were some fun shops and we actually met a tai chi master, Master Shining (sheen-yeen), who was actually in the move the karate kid. He was soooo nice and spoke really good english. He offered us a free tai chi class. We met a guy from Washington DC who just lived there on the mountain and did tai chi all day. He was seriously the coolest guy ever and he was just so nice. It was pretty cool. That night we went to dinner with master shining, Igor and Li. Afterwords, Igor and Li showed us around. Li had the biggest crush on Rachel it was hilarious and she just wanted nothing to do with it. Good memories will remain in my head from that moment.
The next day we went back to the mountain and actually hiked over 6000 steps to the top of the mountain. It was such a blast because I seriously love hiking with a passion. Makenna and I decided we're going to take people on hiking tours around the world and teach them nutrition and tai chi at the top. It will also be associated with couples therapy so megan can be involved. :) That would seriously be the life. Anyways, China is so funny. There are always people around that just want to help us. This guy gave us water and kept telling us to drink and eat food and sit down to rest. he gave us hiking advice in his charade actions and just kinda stuck with us. At first we thought it was creepy but he legitimately was a really nice guy who wanted to help us. When we all made it to the top we crashed on the floor. We just ate snacks while a million people approached us and took pictures of us and with us. It lasted about half an hour when we finally got sick of it and continued exploring. It was a really fun day and it was just beautiful. That night we met up with the guys again and went to dinner for Maddie's birthday! They eventually dropped us off at the train station where we prepared for yet another wondrous 10 hour trip.

Second destination: Zhangjiajie national Park
We arrived there in the morning and were exhausted, like usual from the lack of sleep. We wondered around for a bit, found our hostel and napped, then got ready and went out. We went to the Dragon caves which was at this really pretty location with all this awesome stuff. :) It was kind of overpriced, but so was everything else because it was a national holiday. Funny story though, on our way there this guy who we couldn't understand was trying to get us to go with his taxi to the national park. He was so annoying and would not leave us alone. They are so pushy and just stay at it forever. One thing I probably will not miss at all is middle aged chinese men yelling at me in chinese to take their taxie or get on their motorcycle (motortaxi), and cat calling and saying, I love you! because it's one of two things they know how to say in english, and laughing at it. I mean, have some dignity. Anyways, some aren't that bad, just a couple. So this guy just would not leave us alone and his voice was just so harsh and we weren't sure whether to trust him. It was interesting. We finally went with him and he took us there and had us follow him to the ticket booth and pay him our ticket money. We were really skeptical but in reality he was just trying to be nice. It's kind of hard to determine though sometimes. We were all kind of frustrated at him and went into the caves. We cooled down and had a good time in these cool caves all lit up by colorful lights. When we came out, he was there and we all just thought, "NOOOO!" He kept trying to talk to us and we tried to ignore him for a while but he just kept talking. We finally asked some girl who spoke english if we should trust him, and she talked to her husband and he said yeah. It was kind of sketchy and a couple times we thought we were being led to the deep dark dungeons where they'd take out our kidneys. Alas, we made it home safely and all was well.

The next day we took a gondola up to the top of the Tianmen mountains! It was an awesome ride, and the mountains were beautiful. We hiked all the way around the mountains on this hanging ledge thing. It was seriously beautiful. Ahh I loved it up there so much. A couple of the girls stayed with one girl who was really sore and couldn't walk it, so we felt bad for making them wait for us, but they were really great and patient to stay with the girl. 

Our next stop half way down the gondola was the stairway to heaven! It was soooooooo beautiful. We had so much fun there and took tons of pictures. It was really cool being somewhere where we've seen pictures and thought, oh cool I'd love to go there. Dani decided to climb the stairs and Rachel helped her all the way up and Maddie, Kambrie and I helped her down. It was so fun being with those girls. They're seriously the best and we have so much fun together. It's really hard to explain in writing but I wish all of you could have been there and seen it! We got home and ate dinner at this super delicious rice place. In my opinion it was an awesome day. 

The next day we really wanted to go to the Tianji mountains (the avatar mountains) which is basically the reason we came, but we didn't get to because people were sick and we were all tired and needed a break. It was kind of disappointing but I hope we get to go back sometime. So we basically just relaxed all day which was kind of nice, but it was hard because we were in such a cool place and had so much we could have done. It was interesting being so torn between wanting sleep, and wanting to not waste time sleeping. We caught the train at about 4 and took a 4 ish hour ride to Jishou. We caught a bus there and rode 3 more hours to Fenghuang. 

Third destination: Fenghuang

Fenghuang was very different than I thought it would be. Everyone said it was kind of old chinese, like mulan, but it didn't really seem that way. Well, I guess I can see that, just the little shops and things everywhere.  It was really really busy because of the weekend, but it had such a cool feel to it. There were so many lights and a river ran through it where people would boat and it was just a beautiful place. I can't really explain it, but it was really really neat. Even as tired as I was, it just ave me this burst of energy. It was such a cute little place and there were little markets outside with watermelon and other foods and little shops selling jewlery and scarves and all kinds of whatever else you can think of. It was kind of a party place as well, there were clubs and dancing, and food everywhere. We got settled in and went right back out until midnight I think. We just shopped around and explored and basked in the night life. It was perfect for me because I'm kind of a night owl and I do't want to go to bed early for fear of missing out on something, even if theres nothing to miss out on. This is what I've been missing by sleeping! :) just kidding I haven't turned into a partier, but my point is I liked the feel of it. 

We got back to our hostel where we slept in the basement and pushed 3 little beds together for the 7 of us. It was quite the experience. We were all worried about bugs and creatures in the beds and we were totally right because at the last place we were, Kambrie had bed bugs. She was eaten everywhere pretty much. I'd never fully understood bed bugs but that is really ultra disgusting. Anyways, we survived and continued our adventures the next day. We got up early and just continued exploring and shopping and doing other such things. We went to this little bridge where there were stepping stones all across the river and took pictures, of course. We went to this beautiful bridge which had an amazing view, and then proceeded back to the hostel to get ready to catch our bus. 

Here comes the exciting/scary part of our adventure. We went to the bus stop to take us to the bus station but the bus didn't come so we decided to walk to half hour to the station. When we got there, they said our bus wouldn't leave for another 3 more hours. This was a problem because it takes 2 hours or so to get back to Jisho, and our train left in 2 hours or so. We were really panicked at this point and studied the very very expensive option of staying another night. WE decided against it and looked for other options. We could maybe take a taxi? no, the traffic was way too bad. Ok we'll take a motor taxi. Yes, a motor taxi for 2 hours to Jishou. We started out and had to to a taxi with all our big backpacks and other bags. Maddie dropped her hat as we started, and I jumped off and grabbed it, and I took Kambrie's bag and put my bag onto rachels bike because she rode by herself. It was just kind of a stressful time. We started off and I was pretty sure everyone was ahead of Megan and I when all the sudden our bike died. Ok.. We're running late and now we're doomed. We prayed, and finally another motor taxi came. We got on that one and the girls showed up behind us which was a relief. We started and all split up again. We were going super slow becasue of traffic so we thought everyone was ahead of us and that we were doomed again. We eventually got out of traffic and came onto a dark winding rode through woods and villages. It was dark by that time and raining and really really cold. I didn't really notice the cold because I was praying so hard. Haha It actually really funny to look back on right now. Anyways, It was cold and Megan and I were in so much pain from sitting on the bikes. We had one foot holder so we took turns putting our feet on top of each other, and my back was super crooked as I held the heavy backpack to the side of me. We were extremely squished into the guy and I felt really bad, but what can ya do I guess. I eventually started to tear up because we hadn't seen the other girls and I had no idea where we were and I was in so much pain and we still had like an hour. it's still sprinkling and cold and we're quite numb by this point. Finally we get there and he drops us off somewhere at this bus stop. umm... Ok where are we? We tried to find someone but nobody spoke english. We ran into a store and showed our train tickets and nobody understood. Finally a lady came out and asked us what was wrong. We told her we need to get the the train station really fast. She grabbed a taxi for us and told him where to go. We were kind of relieved but we were still colse to missing the train. At least we were in a car and off that darn bike. I got a good look at Megan who had black makeup streamed down her face. haha it was sooo sad how pitiful we looked. We finally made it to the train station with a few minute to spare! We ran inside and... where were the other girls?! Oh  my gosh they left before us, where the heck are they. continued our 3 hour consistant prayer and asked people if they had seen americans in the one word we knew of that sentence, "meiguo?" (America?) no wonder that got us no where. We went back outside and saw them across the street. We made eye contact and ran towards each other screaming in joy. We all embraced and frantically told each other our stories. I was just so overcome with relief that tears streamed from my eyes. haha It's embarrassing now that I think about it, but I couldn't help it! I don't think I realized how stressed I was until I felt the relief of safety and making our train. During the whole experience I didn't actually feel that stressed, I think just because I knew I had to man up and figure things out. I was in kind of a "Get things done, Ok we can do this" mode. When I saw everyone though, I guess it just caught up with me. Oh man that was quite the experience. Its really really funny thinking about now and I'm glad it happened because it makes for a fun story. :) I also can't believe how cool it was that so many of our prayers were answered. We were able to stay calm and be safe. It was such a tender mercy.

That night the train ride was torture, just to add to the crazy adventure. We sat right by door where everyone smoked and talked really loud and hauked loogies.  It reeked of bathroom, smoke and B.O. We didn't sleep because it's impossible to. Long story short we managed to survive and made it to Yongshuo finally. :) 

Final destination: Yangshuo

This is the last one I promise. :) Yongshuo... was seriously the best. I love it so much. We stayed at a cool hostel and got all rested before we were to continue our adventure. We went out that night and experienced something similar to Fenghuang where there were millions of shops and food and parties and people and fun. We stayed out partying (meaning shopping and eating...) and had a blast. We met these 2 guys from america and went to a fisherman show with them, which was actually kind of lame.. but that's ok. :) The fisherman has a bamboo raft on which he uses his trained ducks to catch fish for him. We also went to dinner at this American restaurant called Minority Cafe. It became our favorite place and we proceeded to eat there every meal the rest of the trip. :) That's basically all that the night consisted of, and rest was much invited. 

The next day we went to breakfast at minority cafe, felt kind of guilty for spending more than we should on food, then realized it was our last couple days to eat american food and didn't feel bad anymore. Next we tried to figure out something cool we could do that day, and explored our options. We eventually decided to split up while half of us to the med cabes and half of us go kayaking. Maddie, Kambrie, Rachel, Dani and I went kayaking for about 3 and a half hours which was such a blast. We didn't have a tour guide, we just were out by ourselves and it was so beautiful. One of the girls was scared to go by herself so I went on a two person kayak with her. About half way through Maddie and I jumped in the river and swam for a bit. We then switched kayaks so I could try the one person. It was a lot easier I'll tell you that. It was so fun, I cold have been there all day. Thanks Madds! :) But all together it was a fun experience. that night we just went out and partied like usual. We ate at our favorite place, and went out on the town. :) Poor Kambrie was sick and didn't feel well all trip, so she went home with Dani, but rachel, Maddie and I went out. We got kind of dressed up, (as much as possible for only having two crappy t shirts and a pair of shorts..) and shopped and had lots of fun. We went club hopping, meaning, we would run into a club and dance for a minute while everyone stared then run out. It was kinda fun, and we made fools of ourselves but nobody noticed because they were all drunk I'm sure. We also wlked by this super cute guy and all stood there "looking at a menu" and  daring each other to go talk to him. Finally Rachel manned up and went to talk to him. We followed after a minute and all sat there. He was super sweet and offered to buy us water or a juice when we refused his beer offer. He was really entranced by Rachel the whole time so Maddie and I just goofed off. It was about 1:30 when we got home, then went onto the roof. Up there we pillow talked until about 3:30. It was a good time, I tell you, a good time.
The next day we got up fairly early, got all packed and ready to go home, checked out, and went to Kelly's hostel. Oh yeah Kelly, Star and Mary met up with us in Yangshuo! It was soo fun and they are seriously adorable. Anyways, we rented bikes and rode them to the mud caves. It was a bit away so we got a good ride. It was soooo fun. I miss riding my bike. We got to the mud caves and basically swam in the mud. :) yeah that wasn't very detailed, but I'm getting bored again.. It was cool though, we basically just swam in a giant mud bath. The weirdest thing about it was that we floated in the mud. It was so funny, and we took some synchronized mud swimming pictures. It was definitely an experience that doesn't happen every day. It was way fun. We showered off, which didn't help because mud was caked every where we touched anyways. We got in the hot springs next to the mud caves and swam around a bit. Oh SDing in the murky hot springs with a million people around, what a good time. Well that's about it for the mud caves, we rode back and ate, and got on a sleeper bus that took us back home. after 10 ish hours.
WHAT and awesome trip. It was such a blast and I just wanted to keep traveling and keep seeing china forever. I could do without the trains, but other than that it was a blast. Coming back to teaching was kinda hard, but after the next day I realized how much I missed those cute little buggers.
I love china! And I'm having such a blast. I have a lot to catch up on since I've been home because it's been a month, but I'll get to that eventually. Thanks for reading! :)