Thoughts.com Blogs - Sept. 28th

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Sept. 28th - Shuhe

Today started off a little different than most days. I woke to my alarm at 8am. I turned on my computer and watched the bama georgia game, bad decision. I watched georgia go in to halftime down 31-0. Then I watched as I quietly got my hopes up that they'd make a comeback and become the #1 team in the country. It's ok though, all they have to do is when the sec and they're in the championship game. Luckily, Florida lost, too.

During this game, I tried to remain calm because I was explaining the game of American football to Vivi. This is not as easy as I thought it would be. She understood most of it, I think. I didn't even try to explain penalties because that would just be too hard.

After the disappointing outcome, we went to lunch. We went to the same place we went to for lunch and dinner yesterday. The husband and wife who run are great and the food's amazing (I've been taking pictures). We had a sausage and mushroom dish (they love fungus in China), a ground beef dish that was very similar to stuff in America and then the green vegetables. The green vegetables in China are much better than the ones in America and I'm going to do my best to find then when I come back.

We walked around a little more and decided it was time for a nap. I didn't sleep very well last night because my back's been bothering me quite a bit after Tiger Leaping Gorge.

After the nap, Vivi wanted to check out another village called Dayan. Everyone told us it was just a 15 RMB ride so we hopped in a taxi and set off. As we pulled up to the entrance to the Ancient City of Lijiang, I told Vivi to make sure the driver knew where we wanted to go. Just as I finished my sentence, he turned around and said here we are.

She explained that we didn't want to go to the Ancient Lijiang, we wanted Dayan. He kind of smiled and told us that they're the same. Dayan is technically the name of the village that everyone else refers to as the Ancient City of Lijiang. I thought this was hilarious because during the whole trip, if I ever questioned anything, Vivi would reply with, "Don't worry, I'm Chinese." For the next 5 minutes, I only said, "Don't worry I' m Chinese." in a sarcastic tone. So the fact that she didn't know what the name of the village was cracked me up and it bugged her that I thought it was hilarious. In her defense, I'm sure 90% of Chinese who do not live in Yunnan have no idea what the name of the Ancient City of Lijiang really is.

It wasn't all for waste though, we both had stuff we wanted to buy in the city before returning to Dongguan. I won't say everything I bought because I want some to be a surprise but I also bought myself some stuff, which is not typical.

I bought some wood art that this area is famous for. I just loved it the first day I saw it and finally went back and bought it yesterday. I'm going to have a hard time bringing it back but I've decided I'm just going to have to leave some clothes behind. Also, both pairs of sneakers that I brought are completely torn up, dirty and smell extremely bad so I'm just going to leave those, too. I figure, if I'm over weight with my bags, it'll cost me $150 I believe I was told. I can replace t-shirts and socks for much less than $150 so I'm making the smarter move here. That's at least how I'm rationalizing it.

It started to rain a little so we decided to head back to Shuhe and go relax by the stream and enjoy the rain by playing some cards. She's become addicted to Rummy.

By the time we were tired of cards, it was time to eat. We headed to the bar street area and ate some new food, yet again, great. I forgot to take pictures this time though. We hung out there for a while after listening to people sing classic Chinese songs and even a couple American songs. It's very entertaining being around Chinese people when they start singing, especially in front of a crowd because nobody boos no matter how bad they are, people just cheer louder and it's a lot of fun.

We eventually called it a night and headed back to the hostel. After all, it would be Monday morning and that means Sunday night football. I'm always eager to wake up and check all the football scores on Monday morning. Too bad the Falcons didn't beat Carolina, but that's ok, nobody expected us to be 2-2 either.

We're planning on flying directly from Lijiang to Guangzhou on Sept. 30th and just taking a short bus ride back to Dongguan. We might stay in Guangzhou for a night depending what we feel.

I'm sorry about the lack of pictures but I just haven't had a lot of time and dont really want to sit inside when I'm here, so I'll be sure to post pictures when I get back in America.

Posted by ndwalke on 2008-09-28 22:38:39 | Rating: