Yangshou Day 2

Well I feel like a real "Yangshou-onien" or whatever they're called if you live 
here. It's so cool having a local show you around. You get to see all the behind 
the scenes types of things and really interact with the local people. We started 
our day off at 5:30 AM! (I know, the China Labor Relations Board is going to 
come after me for working my guide so hard at such cheap labor rates!) We had to 
drive for a little while to get to a dock to then pick up a boat (this time a 
bamboo raft but motorized (I'm moving up in the classe system!) and the raft 
took us to this cool spot to watch the sunrise over the karst mountains. Just 
beautiful and so peaceful. No one else was on the river at that time, so cool. 
We then walked to the town of Xingping and looked around. It was market day so 
there were all types of goods for sale (think giant flea market!) and people 
everywhere. Then we hiked up one of the only mountains in the area you're 
allowed to hike up. It was pretty steep and when we got near the top, even Amy 
my guide did not want to go all the way to the top since you had to climb this 
ladder hanging off of the wall and the steps were really narrow and NO 
GUARDRAIL! Sort of like the TLG hike but worse! So I decided to give it a go and 
what a cool view once I got to the top. Just magnificent, with a 360 degree view 
all around. 
 
We then hiked back down and took a local bus over to a small town called Fuli. 
By then it was lunch time so we stopped at this little market area where they 
were selling all kinds of wild things like pig toungue, and pig ear, etc. (sort 
of a G rated version of the Beijing night market!). But the coolest thing was I 
tried the local food with Amy (of course with her ordering because I had no idea 
what this stuff was. We had oil tea, which is sort of like a soup made from 
green tea, but it sort of tasted like beef broth, with peanuts and rice and some 
other type of round thing that was sort of cruchy. Very tasty! We also had two 
types of sticky rice, one sort of sweet that was cold (sort of like a muffin top 
looking thing) and another one that was steamed and served on a pomelo leaf. 
They both were really tasty. 
 
We then took the local bus back to Yangshou. Having gotten going at 5:30 AM, we 
were both pretty tired, so I took a nap and met back up with Amy at 6 PM. We 
then went and had dinner at this local place in Yangshou with her husband and 
another couple. So much fun with all of them trying to speak english to me and 
ask questions and Amy pretty much the only one who was fluent so while a bit 
difficult to carry on a conversation (and you all know how I love to talk!!) it 
was still a lot of fun. We didn't get back until about 9 PM. Long day but very 
fun. 
 
Hope everyone has a great Friday. TGIF! 
 
Jeff