Day 5

I can't believe i'm still talking about China!  Whew.  Its almost over.  Today is the Li River Cruise.  We hopped on a big boat and meandered down a wide and shallow river for about four or five hours.  It was the best part of the trip.  We all sat on the top floor of the boat almost all day.  The best thing was that people only came out to the top when they announced we were passing a famous mountain.  So it was nice to be in nature and in (mostly) solitude.

This is Julie our tour guide in Guilin.  She was really funny and nice to be around.  

In China people gawk at you and take photos of you.  Its so annoying.  We kinda felt like celebrities, but not in a good way.  We just wanted to be left alone.  So we got fans so we could hide our faces when people take photos of us.  Im sure that just makes us more weird to look at, but at least our faces aren't with them forever.  People also come up to you and ask if they can take your picture with them.  Maybe i come off mean, or not very "American" because nobody wanted a photo with me, thankfully.  But my friends didn't have it so easy.

We were on a boat like the ones in the background.

There have been many books about this place and some movies filmed here.  if you ever saw the  movie "The Painted Veil," you were looking at Guilin.  

After the river cruise we went into town and rented some bikes.  Driving anywhere in China is hell.  Absolutely annoying and terrifying.  It is by the grace of God that anyone survives.  Thankfully this town is small and we went out into the countryside pretty quickly.  It was so nice to ride a bike again!  On our bike ride we stopped at a famous house that is over 300 years old.  The original owner of the house was a famous general.  The house is very moderately contemporary.  It has electricity for a fan, tv, refrigerator and some light.  But they seem to use it all very sparingly.  This is inside the house.  The guy in the middle is the great great great grandson of the general.  He was an incredibly happy man.  

They fed us watermelon and "small yellow skinned fruit."  It tasted like a sweet lemon but had the texture of a grape.  It was tasty, but a lot of work to eat it.  

This was sitting on the mantel.  The big fat jar has silk worms in it, and the other has some snakes.  Its an alcoholic beverage for men.  Its supposed to be like olden day viagra.  

The well, it works and was so refreshing.

The happy son had his bird do tricks for us.  His bird did ten flips in a row.  It was pretty impressive.  

The thing hanging on the wall is a fisherman's rain coat.  It is made of a plants and is hand woven.  Pretty impressive.

 On our bike ride we passed a small hotel called "Outside Inn."  I wondered if they had any idea how clever their name was.  

Further on our bike ride we found this guy.  He may have been tied up, but at least he got to escape from the crazy heat.

In this area of China you will see the bamboo boats floating along with a bunch of black birds on them.  The birds kinda look like blackish brown do-do birds.  The fisherman train the birds to to catch the fish for them.  They tie their neck so the bird won't swallow the fish.  At the end of the day the birds are rewarded with fish.  They are kinda like having a hunting dog, and totally treated like one.  It was pretty funny to see. 

Day 4

Today we came to Guilin.  This was my favorite city.  It was small, unbearably hot and full of beautiful landscapes.  Most of Guilin has thousands of limestone mountains all across it.  Due to it raining so much here, the limestone mountains begin to change shape, many look like animals and almost all of the mountains are named.  The Chinese have a very good imagination.

The first thing on our list was the Reed Flute Cave.  With all the limestone rock here, there are thousands of  caves.  This particular cave has been pretty civilized.  There are special lights everywhere and a cement path and stuff like that.  But it makes for some really cool effects.

This is the Christmas tree.  You can't see him, but Santa was there too.

The city skyline

The red curtain of the stage

Lunch time!

Theres a stuffed duck smothered in delicious spices baked inside bread.  Best. meal. in. so. long. 

I don't know why these kinds of recipes haven't caught on.  

 After our oh so tasty meal, we walked around Seven Star Park.  There are seven mountains in the park, and when you see them from above they look like the big dipper.  

This is Mr. Camel.  Mrs and baby are a little behind in another part of the city.  There is a plaque here because President gave a speech here one time.  So random.

Typical and traditional river boat in China.  

This place we are in is a cave that has 1,000 Buddahs.  Some are new and some are old.  And this part is special because if you can fit your hand in between the rocks you are supposed to get a scholarship or something.  Like your hand fits, fate will shower you with money.  I dunno, the Chinese are a little crazy sometimes.  

Close to the 1000 Buddha cave there is Fubo Hill.  Fubo Hill is named after a famous general.  We climbed the hill and it was probably about 100+ degrees outside.  Ive never sweat so much since i played AYSO soccer in the middle of the day in late summer.  So thats probably why i dont look terribly happy, but you can get a good idea of the landscape.  

This is inside our hotel.  It was totally groovy and decked out in 70's funk.  Like nasty pink colors, fuzzy chairs and nasty curtains.  Oh man, we both cracked up when we opened our hotel room door.

The woman in the middle is Monica.  She put together our tour and really wanted to meet us.  She is very kind and was wonderful.  She gave us all postcards and on mine she wrote "I hope we can be best friends forever."  Right on.  The next time i'm in China i might just call her up.

We all went to a ballet/acrobatic show.  It was awesome.  More acrobat than ballet.  They did a good job, the costumes were a little tacky, but that's Asia for you.  They totally made up for it with the way the people can contort their bodies.  Wow.  There were also some really young kids in it.  I was surprised to see such young kids, maybe like 8 years old.  If you ever go to China, go to an acrobatic show.  You'll be happy you did.  

Day 3

We got off the sleeper train around 8am.  None of us got a whole lot of sleep, but we made it to Xi'an and meet our new tour guide.  Today is the Wild Goose Pagoda and the Terra Cotta Warriors.

The Wild Goose Pagoda was first on the list.  It is a very old Pagoda that used to be used but now all you can do is walk to the top.  It kinda leans a little, not a s much as the Leaning tower of Pisa, but just enough for you to notice.  There is a temple built all around the Pagoda where monks like and worship.  We learned a bit about Buddism while walking around the area.  Here are some pictures from our time there:

This will soon have a carved dragon face on it.  How exciting!

There's supposed to be part of the first Buddah's bone in here.  Its hard to believe, it just looked like some rocks.

These are all prayers.  It was kinda cool because they were in so many different languages.

Before we saw the real warriors we went to a ceramics studio where replicas have been created.  It was pretty fun:

the kiln

Now, off to the thing we've all been waiting for!  The thousands of warriors.  So a brief bit of history.  The same dude who had the wall built also had the warriors built, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.  Like i said before this emperor wasn't the most liked or the best guy.  He was cruel and abused his power.  He came into power at the age of 13, but his mom reigned until he became of age.  At age 22, he killed his mother's boyfriend (or someone very dear to her) and put her into jail.  This was also the time he took full reign.  He also buried many philosophers alive because he thought they were gossipers.  Obviously he we powerful and incredibly jealous, and dare i say ignorant.  He also took an elixir that was supposed to make him "immortal."  However, it was made up of mercury and arsenic therefore it killed him at the age of 49.  Irony is a bitch isn't it?  He wanted his sons to reign like him and carry the name, "The first Emperor."  But the dynasty collapsed four years after he died.  

They have not opened the tomb of this incredible emperor because they feel they do not have the proper equipment to do so.  Its nice to know that China does value its history and doesn't want to turn everything into a tourist attraction.  

So why the warriors?  What is their purpose?  Well, this emperor was a horrible man.  He was afraid people would try to come after him in his after life.  So he built an army to destroy them.  He made hundreds many even thousands of workers/slaves work all day one after another until more than 8,000 warriors, horses and weapons were created all for the sake of having peace in his afterlife.  It seems to me, his army should be growing exponentially due to making so many people slaving away for his sake.

The army men were built in an underground room.  A huge friggin room, im sure theres a better word for this.  But the place was built specifically for the arm men.  They have found about 8,000 soldiers and are still finding more.  The problem with some of the findings is that many of the soldiers are broken.  Not because they were buried, but because when the emperor died the people went on a crazy rampage, destroying everything they could that reminded them of the emperor.  So, many warriors are lying in pieces.  Some have been reassembled and others are still very much in tact.  The warriors were originally   hand painted, and they all have exquisite detail.  And yes they are all different.  They also have about five different poses.  There is the standing archer, kneeling archer, calvarymen, generals and a couple more.  You will see many of the warriors without heads or missing hands.  Which tells us that the warriors were made in pieces and then fit together.  If you wish for more info click here.

And lastly, a farmer discovered this great find one day around 1986 when he wanted to build a well.  He realized he found something big and had a team of archeologists come out the see the findings.  This man no longer has his farm, but he is a celebrity and is in one of the souvenir shops signing books all day long.  I dont know if he's is happy, but he's probably rich and well taken care of now.  

Here's pit one, the largest pit. 

The hole on the back  is actually a tomb of someone who was buried on the farmers property.  There were a couple in this pit.  

 Pit 2

So sad to see them all broken like that.   It was a pretty remarkable day.  

And then we had subway for dinner because we are deprived of sandwiches in Korea.  It was cool to see it in Chinese.