Home From China!! Part 1

 Me on the street in front of our hotel in Guilin.

 Mom heading out for lunch in a Chinese restaurant - imagine my surprise!

 Took this out the window of our bus.  Typical landscape.

View from the Li River in our little bamboo rafts.  Kinda fun.  We are about half the size of the boats in this picture.

Hello all!  We are officially back, although I caught some kind of "Asian Flu" the last day that knocked me for a loop on the flight home.  Combined with jet lag, I didn't go to work today.  Went to the doctor and got an Rx for antibiotics today.

This is our first stop of the 13 day journey.  We will post a bit each day to not bore you.  We flew into Shanghai the first night, drove through the heart of the city (very modern, cosmopolitan with lights like Las Vegas) in the rain to our VERY NICE hotel.  Crashed for a few hours, then got back up for another flight to Guilin early the next morning.

Met our tour guide Steven (that is his English name, can't remember his Chinese name).  Very nice, single guy, graduate, about 30.  He gave us some real insights into Chinese culture, pro and con.  You can see the countryside in the photo's above - it was like that everywhere.  Jungle, humid, although not yet hot.  It rained all around us but never on us - very lucky.  The rain around us gave an unique feel to the surroundings, kinda misty.

Got on little bamboo rafts and took off down the river for about an hour, got hijacked by vendors on a little island.  They are EVERYWHERE and hyper-annoying.  Fortunately there is always one member of the group who acts interested and they all flock to him/her like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Ended the day at a big outdoor event that tells a Chinese fable about lost love, etc. all done on the water with amazing lighting.  It was interesting, but so many of us where exhausted that we fell asleep, me included.

Ate very well everyday.  However, I have had a three year supply of Chinese food - after the 13th Chinese lunch they all start to look the same, although when they are in front of me I didn't seem to mind.  All very good. 

For whatever reason, Mom slept like a log in China, for which we are very grateful.  Our group of travelling partners was GREAT.  More on that in future posts.

All for now.  Glad to be home - really.  We thought of you and prayed for you every night.  Dad/Jim