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I'm back from Guangxi!
Guangxi was a really fun trip. We hiked three out of the four days we were there, so it definitely was a bit strenuous (despite their claims that the hiking would only be 'moderate.' Even though we hiked on stairs, the stairs were pretty slippery and steep, and several of us did fall...) It wasn't quite as eventful as our brethren in the Sichuan trip (hehehehehe...) but it was beautiful. You would really go to Guangxi for the scenery, with it's rice terraces and mountains and such.
It rained while we were there, although not as much and not as hard as we expected it to be. But I'll get to each day with each post... let me start with day 1. Or more like the day we left....
So we left on my birthday (yippee!) and when we got on the bus to go to the airport, Lara and Emily (my roommates) surprised me with an almond doufu parfait dessert from 85 degrees Cafe/bakery. It was such an awesome surprise and not only did they embarrass me, but they were so sweet about it too! They got the bus to sing (we were about 20 people) and even lit a candle for me. It was so awesome! I forgot to take a picture of it before I finished eating it, but I cleaned it off!
Anyways, we took the plane over to Guilin, and when we got off, the air was so balmy it felt like we were in tropical country. Not to mention, there were fake, colored palm trees lined up outside the airport. We all followed this tiny lady, who was a coordinator for our trip from Wild China, named Cara. Tiny lady, big voice! We followed her out to the parking lot, but eventually got separated from the front of the group...because we were following a purple flag!
You know, how NYU always has a purple flag so we'll never lose sight of our leader - well this time, Hannah didn't bring a purple flag, so we were blindly following a Chinese tour group. And then they started taking pictures of us too! It wasn't until Cara called at us, and we all realized that wait a minute, these old Chinese people aren't in our group! And we quickly ran away! So the new rule for this trip was: "Don't follow the purple flag!"
Guilin Airport
The hotel bathroom: Hannah and I freaked out at first, thinking it was a glass-walled bathroom, but thankfully the toilet and the shower has a sliding door. The sink is "outside" of the bathroom.
Hannah - Student Activities Advisor and (for this trip) my roomie! I'm kind of making my rounds around the academic staff here at NYU in Shanghai. In Beijing my roomie was Lisa (the academic advisor). Now it's Hannah; who's next!?!?!
We all checked in, dropped off our stuff, then headed out for dinner. We ate at this nice restaurant by the river (but we didn't get a view of the river) and had a bunch of good ole' Guangxi cuisine. Basically, for the next four days, we ate variations of the same thing. Seriously - kung pao chicken, celery and cucumbers or water chestnuts, eggplant, some sort of stir-fried beef...
Vicki and Justin waiting expectantly to go to dinner...
Walking to the restaurant...
The river that runs through Guilin. Off into the distance there are two pagoda towers that were lit up. The pagoda towers were quite pretty, but we didn't go visit them. Boat rides were also offered on that river.
And after dinner, came the cake! Apparently the cake came up too early before dinner, but Hannah and some others hid it from my view, so I never really saw it. I heard murmurings of a cake, and then John Park says, "Cake!? Whose birthday is it!?" And then he looked over at me (I was sitting on his left) and he said "Oh...right. Whoops." But I totally forgot about it until after dinner, when the private room's lights shut off all of a sudden. And you know what was the first thought that went through my head?
"Are they trying to save electricity!?"
No seriously, if you saw Guilin, it's not as sophisticated as Shanghai is. So it made me feel like everything was going to be about saving energy and more squatters to deal with.
But anyways - I took a picture, and thanks to Liz for taking a picture of me!
I am officially 20!!!! And as Xiaoxia says, I'm not "20-something," just 20.
After everyone got a piece of this scrumptious chocolate cake, we went to walk around the night market. The night market was set up in the middle of a main road in Guilin. It wasn't as impressive as I expected it to be, because eventually they were all selling the same stuff. They were either jade, Tibetan silver, or complete junk figurines. Some tea too... but I didn't get anything. Shopping was to be made in Yangshuo...
The Nightmarket
