Hong Kong today, Guilin tomorrow

Thursday October 25th, 2007

After class Martina, Judith, Simone and I left HKUST and hopped on the KCR up to the Hong Kong/ Shenzhen border. We bought our tickets for the train (soft sleeper, there were no hard sleepers. ~450 RMB one way). We were concerned that everyone else wouldn't get tickets in time, but everyone except Michelle and Whitney made it for the 5:28pm departure. We killed time waiting for the train by getting manicures and pedicures. We nearly missed the train doing that. We all ran for the train waving our feet and hands in the air trying to keep our nails from smudging. (Hey, for 70 RMB for a manicure AND a pedicure? What the hell! ;)

We all ran for the train waving our feet and hands in the air trying to keep our nails from smudging.

The four of us shared a cabin. Once the train started moving everyone piled into our cabin and we played Uno and drank whisky the boys smuggled in. By 8 we were all hammered and brought our party to the restaurant. It was full of locals having dinner and drinks. Old dance music was being repeated over and over on the tv. After another bottle of whisky, Simao got up and started singing and dancing. This brought lots of laughter from the locals who started watching us because we were making a scene. Diego and Kenny soon joined him. They sat down when the song changed. They encouraged the girls to give it a go, and they all agreed but chickened out once I actually got up. As soon as I got up and started dancing the room started chanting and clapping. Feeling bold, I marched down to the locals and shoke my booty at some of them which brought more laughter. After everyone got up and started dancing. The locals came over, the exchangers mixed with the locals. At one point Simao got a lapdance from one of them! It was hilarious. Two songs really stood out- "Shalala in the morning" and "P-A-S-S-I-O-N". A woman gave us mandarin oranges which I found to be quite cool considering she herself spoke mandarin.

Friday, October 26th, 2007

The train brought us ito Guilin just after 6:30 in the morning. We met up with Whitney and Michelle who caught the night bus at around 9 at our hostel which was conveniently located across the street from both the train and bus station. Unfortunately in this area of China toilets still are not that common. This means we had to use the holes in the floor. Until this point I had managed to avoid using them in Hong Kong. Honestly- I'm not a prissy girl. But toilets are one thing I do NOT compromise on. Obviously I had to get over this fast when in the morning I got an upset stomach. To say the least it was a very traumatic experience for me. That being said, it was very humbling. Although we mask it with our electronics and Cosmo magazines, underneath it all we are animals like everyone else. Around lunch time we headed out for the Lingji village to look at the rice patties. Next landscape. Everyone seemed really breathless with it, but the hills to me reminded me a bit of Canada. The rice patties were really cool though. We ate a restaurant in the village where they cooked up a poisonous snake for us. They had to drain the poison first before they kill it and cook it. It was very boney; not a lot of meat. A bunch of us dressed up in custumes overlooking the rice patties and got our pictures taken for kicks. The costumes were clearly not Chinese lol. We passed the village of the long haired women and some were up in Lingji. Supposedly these women never cut their hair in their lives. Some looked like wigs though. You can't take a picture of them with out paying them. We all snuck pictures by pretending to pose near them. The day took a turn for the worse when Katherina had her wallet stolen right out of her bag in the village. She noticed when she went to pay for something and her bag was open. All her credit cards and $300 euro dollars worth of RMB were gone. Thankfully her passport was safe. We stayed in the village for a while after it got dark so the police could arrive and take her report. Our bus drivers translated for us and tried to help. One of them told a woman of the village who visibily got upset and told others in the village. A gathering of women arrived and they all stood around looking angry and muttering to each other. It was clear that to them this theft was shameful and they wanted to know who was the culprit. The bus ride back to the hostel was an experience of it's own as the driver tried to keep from falling asleep and weaved in and out of traffic. There are some funny pictures of him looking tired I'll see if I can get from people later. After we dropped off our things we went to a club around the corner called Cesar. Apparently nobody told us it was stoner night. With the exception of shirtless and spacey locals the place was empty. We had a good time anyway.

 Saturday, October 27th, 2007

We got up to catch a boat ride down the Li River to Yangshuo but were told there was a delay. Instead we went to a another scenic point for travellors. The bus driver just referred to it as a beautiful waterfall. The waterfall itself was a joke but the nature area was beautiful. We took a bamboo raft through to one area of the park where a local sang to us from the river. On our way out we all took the zip line down. That was awesome!! :) Then we headed for our boat ride. The boys negotiated the purchase of 25 640ml bottles of beer for about $1 CDN a bottle. The ride was fantastic and beautiful. We got to the riverside near Yangshuo and were taken by a car similar to a large golf cart to a small town. A few of the girls and I had to use the washroom and were confronted with what can only be described as the nastiest washroom we have ever encountered. Three `stalls` were about shoulder length high that hovered over an open trough for you to sit and squat over. Water was poured in from behind so that waste was pushed down the trough past other people. So if you couldn`t see high enough over the already short wall, you knew what people were doing anyway because it flowed right between your legs. The smell was atrocious and the floor I *hope* was covered in mud. (Martina said the one at the train station was worse- there are no doors and you see other people doing their business. AHHH!!) After that we boarded an overly packed bus to Yangshuo. Finally we arrived, checked in, and quickly zipped out to check out Impression Liu Sanjie. It's a cultural performance on the Li River by locals. Incredible visuals and sound. So glad we went. After a quick bite to eat, I went to check out DVDs with a few girls and the rest of the gang went for a cheap hour-long massage ($80 RMB). I made it back to the room before Simone and passed out quickly. Apparently she pounded on the door and rang the little doorbell for a well before she realized I left the door unlocked for her. I didn't hear a peep!

Sunday, October 28th 2007

Sunday we split up. We all went biking in different areas of the country side with a guide. I went with Najalae, Katherina, Manu, Simao, Kenny, Diego and Luis. It was probably my favorite part of the trip. You got to see a lot of raw China. You could tell this is becoming an obvious tourist attraction as many peddlers were out to let us take pictures of them for money. A lady with a pet monkey let us hold him and take pictures. Manu took pictures for everyone which I should get later. It was adorable!! I was slightly worried about him biting me though..don't want to catch any weird monkey disease! (Didn't AIDS get started from being too friendly with the monkeys?) We stopped and bought hats from a local for 10 RMB each and wore them most of the day. The funniest part of the day was when Najalae tried biking with out hands and she fell off the bike. Luis was filming her when she did it. It's going to go on facebook and youtube soon. Kenny bought some sugar cane and he let me try it. You bite it and let it disolve in your mouth, then you spit out the rest. It's very yummy! We made it back to Yangshuo and did a bit of shopping then took the bus back to Guilin to make our train back to Hong Kong. Not as much partying in the train this night as we were all spent from the weekend.

Monday, October 29th, 2007

We got back late because of construction on the railway. Simone and I raced ahead to try and make it for our 1pm class. We were 20 mins late. My teacher laughed and asked where I was coming from when she me since it was so obvious I had just come from a trip. Unfortunately Manu forgot his camera on train and realized 2 seconds after he passed through Hong Kong customs. There is no way to return with out clearing customs again, and to do that he had to take the KCR back to HK for one stop, then return. He had to wait 5 hours at the police station until the train could be reopened. Thankfully, they had his camera. We were all worried sick since he had taken over 650 pictures of the group on the trip.

....and that's it!! Great trip!! My favorite so far!! I should note that the currency coversion for CDN and RMB is about 7.5 RMB for 1 CDN dollar. As well- I played around with my camera and changed some settings so my pictures turned out lovely. Hope I will write my blog entries! See you all later! :)

-Haley