- Cookery course
- Went to the market, which had dogs (blowtorched, some alive in tiny cages, and half of a dog's head on a table), pig tongues and snouts, chicken feet etc. Lots of veg. Our chef lady bought supplies and explained the various foods.
- Back to restaurant
Cooked:
* Gun Pou Chicken (Peanuts)
* Pork dumplings (I wasn't too great at their presentation)
* Veg and Noodles
- We got cool chef hats and aprons, and a HUGE knife.
- Liz and Charlotte cooked a veg selection, including awesome deep friend eggplant.
- Was surprisingly nice and I ate far too mcuh.
- Short break, coffee + cafe. Hot.
- Calligraphy lesson
- Learnt numbers 1-10. Progression of characters Wood>Tree>Forest.
- Wrote my name, which translated to Basic, Success, Kind.
- Everyone else's was way better
Liz: White Beautiful Lady Nice
Martin: Success, Clever
Lydia: Wealth, Wisdom
Charlotte: Summer, Water, Knowledge
- Took a private bus to station and then the overnight train to somewhere near the 3 gorges and the Yangzi river. Nice again. Good sleep.
- No surprises that we were up early again.
- This was mainly for our Tai chi lesson, that was pretty good, and taught us the correct way to hold watermelons.
- Hired bikes and a local guide to cycle to moonhill.
- Very scenic, paddy fields and mini-mountains.
- I had an awesome red and yellow mountain bike, lydia and charlotte had crazy pink girlie bikes.
- Big River.
- Reached moon hill then had insane climb to the top
- 'step to the moon'
- Loads of wet, slippery steps. Was shattering. Old women followed us all the way up trying to sell things.
- Finally got to top without death. Very sweaty. Lauren and group were at the top. Big natural rock arch, looks like a crescent moon from below. We rested a while.
- Headed back down. I went down chattering inanely to an old chinese woman, as I was worried I would "jandal-slip" to death. She offered to hold my hand all the way down, and thought Charlotte was my wife. Nope impressed when we didn't buy anything from her at the end!
- Ate awesome meal cooked by farmer's family, big shovvling of food situation. Then it poured with torrential rain.
- Double ponchoed up. Charlote got a flat tire. Cute dog and ducks at fixing place, probably for eating.
- May have eaten Beer Fish. Slight situation with Lydia being petrified of fish.
- In evening saw amazing light show designed by same guy as the Beijing Olympic ceremony. Better than Disney.
- EPIC.
- Arrived in Yangshuo
- Sort life and soul out
- Walked around town and grabbed lunch
- Bus down to river for river cruise on smallish boat
- As we got on, HUGE thunderstorm erupted, the very fabric of this ethereal world shook around us!
- Front window of the boat swung shut and smashed over David!
- Hard to see much, but there was nice scenery somewhere
- Various boat leaks
- Went ashore, old village/hamlet. Temple
- Short hike to 3 coloured pools. Only saw one because of rain, it was of the infamous colour "murky".
- Cobbled streets and classic chinese architecture provided a very slippery environment. Lydia's flip flops broke and David came to the rescue.
- Nice views from top. Very long boat trip back
- In the evening went to see the fisherman fish with cormorants.
- Tie off their necks, so they can't swallow the big fish, and so they swim close to the boat and dive under to grab fish. They seemed happy enough as they were eating just about all the fish anyway, or had indeed learned to just go for the small fish.
- Dude let one sit on my arm. Only got 2 fish between 8 birds, mainly because of their hungry hungry tummies.
- Ate a nice dinner at the Movie Cafe Blues
- They sold dog and bamboo rat but was insanely expensive in relation to everything else. Very nice local beer though and our beds were comfy.
