Vacation!

Kirk and I enjoying our chips on a stick at Snack Street.

We hiked to the top of Moon Hill.

Our group dressed up in Ancient Chinese garb. Apparently, men dressed like Snow White.


Li River boat cruise. This was my pose of the week.

Hanging out with our new friend Shane at a Yangshuo coffee shop.

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Well, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve given you an update on my life in China, so here it is.

The first week of October in China is a holiday: National Day (kind of like our Independence Day) mixed with mid-Autumn festival (not sure if that has any historical importance). Sixty years ago was when the Communist party took control of China, so it was a pretty big deal here. There was a big parade in Beijing, but I didn’t watch any of it on TV.

Since we had the week off of school, the other teachers and I hung out with some friends here in Wuhan before heading to Yangshuo for a few days. We went to a local Wuhan hot spot called Snack Street, which was a lot of fun. Basically, it’s a street that is maybe a half mile long with TONS of vendors selling just about every kind of Chinese food that exists. I had some noodles, a fried banana, barbecued lamb on a stick, and potato chips on a stick with ketchup and pepper. It was all really good and really cheap, about 13 yuan ($2).

On Saturday afternoon, we took a train to Yangshuo. The train ride took about 14 hours. Sitting in seats that long wasn’t great, but it was fun talking with the other teachers as well as some Chinese people. By the way, I dominated the hour of Uno we played! After an hour and a half bus ride, we arrived in Yangshuo around 7am Sunday morning with no sleep.

Yangshuo is a common vacation spot for both foreigners and locals. It has some amazing scenery. There are hills/mountains all over. We hiked some of them which was a lot of fun. We also took a boat cruise on the Li River and saw a lot of water buffalo up close. We visited a famous Banyan tree that is 1,500 years old. While there, we dressed up in ancient Chinese outfits and took some pictures of ourselves. I’m not sure who took more pictures of us, ourselves or the Chinese people around us.

A few of us teachers went to a local Chinese market which was kind of depressing. As I’m sure most of you know, dog is a fairly common food here. In the market, we saw dogs (among other animals) in tiny cages about to be killed and cooked.

While we were in Yangshuo, I got a really bad sinus infection that spread to my left ear. The night after our train ride, I didn’t fall asleep until almost 4am because it hurt so bad. I still have it a little, but I think I’m mostly over it. A few of the other group members are struggling with a cold, so we are all hoping to get better soon!

Other than that, things are still going well here. I’ve had some pretty cool conversations with Chinese students at Mr. Mai’s. Many of the foreigners who go there are brothers and sisters, so conversations are commonly about the Father. One friend of mine just became a brother after talking with another foreigner. I’ve also talked with a few students who are interested. They would just like to know more.

Hope you all are doing well. Below is a short video of Snack Street (if it works).