Endless Summer Tiny World

our last day in Yangshuo was good, we headed up to yangdi to try to go on a walk to another town on the river. There are three ferry crossings that go along with this hike. But when we asked how much it cost they told us 90 Kwai each!! That’s about $17 usd!!! To use our own legs to do most the work! The ferry crossing takes about three minutes! No way! So Chelsy and I just decided to walk along the river bank a little ways. It was really nice as it was a little warmer and this part of the river is where the picture was taken for the back of the $20 note. So it was really really pretty with lots of mountain surrounding it. We just hung out the rest of the day until our night train to Shenzhen – right outside hong kong- rich is actually a different country. This bus was an 8 hour bus ride an it was on a sleeper bus. It was kind of cool, with three rows of very narrow and shallow bunk bed type beds. And then they were almost sitting up a little so that your feet went under the people in front of you. We got a little sleep and arrived at Shenzhen at 4:30 am with no idea on how to get to hong kong. So we got on a bus someone told us would get us there but had no clue where it was even taking us so we decided to get on the metro instead as that is a little easier for us to tell where we are.

We finally figured it out and by 7:30 we were through customs and on a train into the city! When we finally got to our hostel around 9 am we were so tired and wanted to sleep but the rooms weren’t ready and apparently wouldn’t be until 1 pm. So we headed out to do some of our sight seeing. We went to the avenue of the stars, rode across the harbor in the star ferry and went to Victoria park and the statue square. We also went up to the ovservation deck of the icf 2 building. That was really high and cool. The rest of the stuff was pretty blah. We headed back to the hostel for some rest and then headed to go on the tram to the top of Victoria peak. The tram is straight up the hill! It is the coolest part of the whole thing. The top was actually a disappointment! It’s amazing but they have essentially put a shopping mall up there! So we stood in line for almost an hour to get up there and didn’t even have very good views of the harbor but could have bought a new pair of crocs or a new handbag. We met a really nice couple from Seattle and walked to the ferry with them to go get a spot for the laser show they do over the harbor each night. It was pretty cool, short and sweet- just the perfect length. We found sone dinner and have been preparing for warmer weather tonight. Our hostel is the worst one we’ve stayed at so far and is the most expensive! It is tiny, as is most accommodation in hong kong, but it’s not very clean and just kind of unpleasant in general. So you can definitely say that hong kong is not our favorite and were both happy we opted to save our money and stay in Yangshuo longer! We miss how cheap the mainland is!!!

Were off to Bangkok tomorrow! Were both super excited! And Tasia and Angie are coming to visit in 6 days so that’s going to be super fun as well!

So we’ve had some days of relaxing and we’ve done some biking in the country among the gumdrop mountains. One day we biked out to where you can hire a raft and went on an hour raft ride down the river. It was so fun. It’s these really long bamboo rafts and there’s about 10 pieces tied together and then two chairs attached to the raft. Then you have a guy with a huge bamboo pole and he pushes you along the bottom of the river. The cool part was there were a couple little dams they take you up and down. To go up they pull the front of the bamboo raft up on two poles that roll and then they slide you along. We went up two of these dams, and the second one was much bigger so we had to get off the raft to get it up the river. The real fun was going back down these dams. The big one was so cool. You just took your raft right back over the rollers. And as you went down they took photos and your raft is completely submerged at one point! Its super fun and they almost treat it like a rollercoaster ride!

Today we went to a nearby town named fuli and there was a market there. It was neat to go to. They had all kinds of things you could buy but the cool part to see was these small pools that had fish in them so you just go pick out your live fish you want to eat for dinner. We tried some fried bread type stuff and we saw our first dog that was meant to be eaten! It was also pretty funny cause towards the back of the market there were men getting shaved right out in the open and people getting their teeth worked on or cleaned in buildings that didn’t have doors!

We’ve really enjoyed Yangshuo and have one more day before our night bus to hong kong!

Quotes:
Chelsy: uggh these are so weird! This was good until those weird little gummy things were in it!! (freaking out after spitting out juice she was drinking!)

Sir Jep: look at this little poop I got for my phone…. And while were on the subject if anyone in this room for some reason happens to have diaherea we have these pills…..
(discussing how to tell matias we have diaherea pills without saying we know he has diaherea)

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