End of the first quarter

Tomorrow marks 45 days since we left. If we stay for as long as we planned, that means we are 25% done with the trip. Blows my MIND! Time flies when you are having fun I guess. We're just about finished with China.. Just 2 more stops: Hong Kong and Macau. Macau is the Las Vegas of China, which I am really excited about. We are only staying 1 night, so I don't think I'll have enough time to gamble all of our money away. Maybe just half of it (OR, maybe I'll double our money). I am definitely looking forward to the next leg of the trip. We are heading to Thailand so I can get SCUBA certified as cheaply as possible. From there, I think we will make our way to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. That's the plan as of today, at least, but it may change tomorrow.

We hit up an amusement park yesterday and I have to say, I do like the way China does rides. There were some pretty crazy roller coasters as well as weird rides that would make even the strongest stomach a lil queazy (ask Hbf.. haha). One ride held us upside down for like 10 seconds and then twirled us around and then just stopped. We weren't sure what was going to happen until we were screaming and flipping through the air (ok, maybe I was the only one screaming). There was a roller coaster that we went on at least 4 times and it made me see stars every single time from the first giant drop that went straight down. Those are my kind of rides.. The ones where you may just black out. Exciting :D We were supposed to go to a water park as well, but it was closed. I hid my tears well and we had a wonderful day at the amusement park. The little chinese (cantonese?) children loved us and we were constantly being barraged by Hello! Hellllloooo! We even saw a magic show, a bizarre 4-D animated movie (um, aliens try to kill all the dinosaurs but the fire breathing dragon saves the day and takes down the mothership. Some dinosaurs end up living) and an action show called danger island. Good stuff. The funny thing was, most of the actors in the show were white. They had a taped dialogue so they weren't really speaking Chinese, they just pretended to. It seemed like a pretty good gig to me and the Chinese people seemed to love it. I wonder how much they get paid.. Maybe that can be my next job.

Number 1 I can understand.. But Number 2?

So. I got food poisoning. Oh the humanity! After about 2 days, I had my first (pseudo) meal of broth and toast. I fought to keep it down. Lemme just say, for the record, that I hate barfing. It's just so funny that Hbf eats things like river snails and beer fish, but I'm the one who gets sick off of porridge and toast. The irony is so thick it chokes me (and makes me puke). Alright, enough of that talk.. Let me transition to something a bit different: Poop. Reader discretion is advised.. If you can't handle poo talk, maybe you should skip this entry. But it's not my poo I'm going to talk about, so don't worry. I saw the most disturbing thing the other day.. I think it was in Dali. Before I describe what I saw, let me give a little back story.

Before we even came to China, a friend who had already visited told us a vivid story in which the children of China don't wear diapers. They have slits in their pants and basically pop a squat (or have a parent holding them over a garbage can/grass patch/whatever) wherever they are at the moment. I couldn't believe this story. No diapers! I scoffed. But lo and behold, those Chinese children had slits in their pants and there were no diapers to be seen. Hbf and I have seen children going pee in the streets numerous times, and we leaughed and laughed. We even sought to take a picture of the event because we didn't think people back home would believe it. But this all changed one day when we were walking to a restaurant in Dali. Dali has canals running through the streets and you can see people washing dishes and vegetables in the canal. That's probably where they get their running water from. As we walked, I spotted a little girl, perhaps 4 years old (old enough to know better) assuming the position over the canal. I started to point her out to Hbf, when I realized she was going Number 2! In the street! a BUSY street! I just couldn't believe it.. She was waaaay too old and she was doing it in the canal! My mind flashed back to the woman washing her vegetables.. Suddenly, it doesn't surprise me at all that I got food poisoning.

Ok poo time over. I have mosquito bites on the tops of both my feet, which has really hindered my shoe wearing abilities. I walked up moon hill in bare feet, which is like a zillion stairs, but worth the climb. We also went to the mud caves yesterday and I don't think I have ever been that dirty in my life. Check out the pictures on Flickr :) We are staying in Yangshuo a couple of more days in order to really pack everything in we can.

Food for thought

I've been gone for a month now. Some people didn't think I would make it this long (I'm looking at you, El Dub). The most worrisome part of this whole trip has been the food issue. I'm what some call a 'picky' eater. I've been this way since I was able to communicate my opinions to my parents and I can't even remember the last time I had milk in my cereal (makes it soggy.. and sogginess is my mortal enemy). How have I survived without my daily bagels with cream cheese and cereal? In a 6 month period, I'd prolly have chinese food maybe 3 times and now I'm expected to eat it 3 times a day. Um.. no. I thought I would be able to get by eating rice and in Beijing, I learned that I don't really have much of a tolerance for tasteless rice. I also learned that I get cranky when I'm not fed what I want (Hbf learned too) and that basically I'm a slave to my cravings. This was not good news. In Beijing I subsisted on cookies, mostly. Delicious butter cookies, but cookies nonetheless. There would be an occasional meal that I could pick at some noodles, but nothing was really to my liking. The situation was worse than I thought.

Once we got out of Beijing and into the smaller, touristy areas, something wonderful happened. Cafes offered western food. And not just western food, western BREAKFAST food. Now, breakfast happens to be my favorite meal of the day and I often have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was delighted by what I found in every little town we went to, of course, but let me make myself clear. The food isn't up to par with a delicious breakfast restaurant in the states, but it is always edible to me. There were things about the food that I had to get used to..

1. The only way they know how to cook eggs is to fry them. If you say scrambled, they nod their heads like they understand but here comes the egg, fried. I've acquired a taste for fried eggs now.. And if you put them on toast, they are very tastey.

2. No syrup. Sad, sad, sad.. I miss syrup terribly. They give you honey or sugar, but it is really not the same at all. I've learned to cope, of course, and maybe when I get back I won't even like syrup. Right now though, I am mourning the loss of my precious syrup.

3. If they say pancake, beware. A pancake can be anything.. And it is rarely what you think it is.

Back in the states, I would maybe have eggs once every 2 weeks. Now I eat eggs daily, sometimes more than once. I've also taken a liking to oatmeal, which I would never touch back home. Hbf would always try to get me to eat oatmeal when we went camping, but I would refuse. The stuff was repulsive and I always had my bagels and cream cheese that I loved. In China, I can't get enough oatmeal! They call it porridge, and it usually comes with fruit. I'll prolly never touch it once I get back, but right now it tastes soooo good (see how my standards have lowered?). I also drink hot chocolate like my life depnds on it. I can't get enough of the stuff.

Anyways, I hope this answered some of your questions about how I am staying alive over here in China. I must go to search out some porridge. P.S. The Stone Forest was awesome. :)

Hiking is like walking, except when it's like going up 10,000 stairs

We hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge yesterday and the day before. Spoiler alert: I didn't see any tigers leaping anywhere. However, I did see amazing scenery along with some goats (sadly, they didn't leap either). The gorge is beautiful, complete with bamboo forests, waterfalls and a path right on the edge of a cliff. Everybody had warned us about a certain part of the trek called the 28 bends which consisted of switchback turns going straight up. I dreaded that part of course, but we passed it without any problems, chatting the whole way up about things we had seen here in China (a man with a squirrel on a leash. True story).

After a wonderful evening at the Tea Horse Guest House, we set about our second day of hiking, which had the best scenery as the views weren't obstructed by so much foliage. We could see straight down to the (unfortuantely) brown water very far below. I was done hiking about noon, but alas, we didn't finish until 3:30. The saddest part was that the most intense and physically challenging part of the hike was the last 2 hours. I think Hbf couldn't help but notice my discontentment those last hours.. But let me back up. We came to the official end at noon. I was stoked! We had done it! And it wasn't even that hard! Hooooold up there Booty, we aren't done yet. You can actually hike down to the water, which is a mile straight down. With the utter delight that lit up Hbf's eyes, I couldn't say no. Down, down we go, with A LOT of Chinese tourists.. We walk down for more than an hour and we finally reach the (disturbingly) brown river with very large rapids. While I am walking down, I am hoping there is some sort of elevator up.. There's not. We decide to go up another way, where there aren't as many tourists. This way entails ladders, so I'm thinking we just climb a ladder all the way up. I think something was lost in translation because there are only 2 ladders, and they only took us up about 50 feet. The rest of the way was filled with incredibly steep steps. Good times! There were times I didn't think I was going to make it.. I think I told Hbf to go on without me and he actually started to, but then I hastily yelled that I wasn't serious and please carry me. He wouldn't. Moral of the story is: the 28 bends are nothing compared to going down to the water and coming back up. Hikers be warned!

I'm alive though, and after thinking about it, that hike was nothing compared to Yosemite's Half Dome (HELL Dome I lovingly like to refer to it). We are back in Lijiang, which is prolly my favorite place in China so far. I have actually found some very delicious food, western style, of course. The rooms here are cheap and nice and have a real toilet! It's kind of sad to think that my criteria for a nice room is that it has a toilet, but that is definitely what it has come to.

If it weren't 20 lbs, I'd carry it everywhere

Dry your tears people, I'm back. Sickness got me when we were in Chengdu, but it was a nice enough place to recover from my sick bed. It even had a giant statue of Mao giving the Heil Hitler salute which cheered me up a bit. Nothing like commy sentiment to raise the spirits. I was also swept up in PANDA-mania! Those guys are just freakin adorable and if Hbf weren't so tight with the cash, I would have held one. The adult pandas seriously look like guys in panda costumes eating bamboo. They've got the pseudo thumb which makes the costume theory even more plausible. It was a lovely day, filled with my favorite things: animals.

We flew to Lijiang and everything went smoothly until we picked up our luggage. Or rather, Hbf's luggage. Mine didn't arrive. Can you say instant puddle of tears? Let's see.. no one speaks english and everything that I have for the next 6 months of traveling is missing. When Hbf tried to talk to me about logistics (what was irreplaceable, what I could buy again), I lost it. The thought of losing everything just like that was too much to bear at 9 in the morning and I withdrew to a chair in tears and alone with my miserable thoughts. I'm so thankful Hbf held it together and took care of everything. His patient way with the Chinese people got our message across, and we were able to find someone in town who spoke both very good english and mandarin to help us even more. Moral of the story: I got my bag back, miraculously.

Apparently, we are celebrities here in the back country of China. People come up to us and want their picture taken with us. I'm not quite sure if they really think we are famous or if they've never seen a white person before. And I'm prolly like the whitest white person they have ever seen, since they don't let pasty people on TV. Anyways, it's nice to be adored for no apparent reason at all and they are all so grateful once they have their snapshot. There is also a lot of staring from everyone, maybe because we are just so beautiful, or maybe because we are just so white. Since I don't speak mandarin, I'll prolly never know.

We are leaving for a 3 day trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge the day after tomorrow. I think I am going to wish that I had a horse to carry me.