Weekend in the Country

Not the city!

I'm back from lovely Yangshuo, and it was just as relaxing and refreshing as last time, although about a thousand times rainier. I should have expected this, of course, considering the current rainy season in Guangzhou and the fact that Yangshuo isn't that far away. But, first, before I attempt to amuse you with various anecdotes of my trip, a quiz!

On a boat?

Where was Hannah at 6am on Saturday morning? Was she...
A. on a bus
B. in a bed
C. in a bar
D. on a boat

On a bus? In a bed?

If you had trouble deciding, you're forgiven, as in fact, I was in all of those places on Saturday. However, the correct answer is C. At six in the morning on Saturday, I was sitting in a bar, drinking a beer, being told how to be a good teacher by an actuarial student from Leeds.

one misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather...

No, really. Could I make something like that up? Let me tell you the whole story. The 8:30p sleeper bus from Guangzhou to Yangshuo got in a tad earlier than I had remembered, and so we were deposited onto a silent, rainy street at about 4:45am. We made it to our hostel, but we hadn't actually been able to book a room for that night. The rooftop bar, however, was still open, so we headed up there. It was remarkably crowded still, with about seven people (counting the two who passed out on the couch shortly after we arrived) and we decided to chill there for a few hours. Well, what do you do if you're in a bar for an hour and a half? You drink beer and talk to your fellow patrons. They mostly seemed to be British, and I got to chatting with the aforementioned actuarial student from Leeds (we never did exchange names), who is in China for a few weeks visiting his friend who's been doing a study abroad semester (he was one of the ones passed out on the couch). We talked about math, the relative merits of financial math versus engineering math, and teaching.  He then proceeded to give me his views on how to be a good teacher, based on his understanding as a student. I listened and agreed to most of what he said, but I also spent a large time worried about how old he thought I must be, if I seem that disconnected from the student perspective. Ah, well. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt, as he had clearly been in a bar for at least six hours and I was looking rather travel-weary at the time. The bar closed about 6:30, and we were told there would be a room for us at 8am. So, we wandered up the street to the 24-hour KFC and spent an hour and a half drinking coffee and poking at youtiao (it's like a not-too-sweet Chinese doughnut? KFC in China is the king of localized menu items). Finally, it was 8, so we returned to our hostel and fell into bed for a couple of hours.

Safety first.

It was still raining when we re-awoke. We went to have a lingering real breakfast/brunch, and then spent some time checking out the souvenir shopping opportunities on West Street and getting whacked in the face by everyone else's umbrellas. By the time we made it down to edge of the Li River, the rain had actually stopped a bit, so we jumped on the opportunity to check off one of our vacation activities and hopped on a PVC bamboo boat for a hour's cruising about. I now have about forty more pictures of karst mountains. My apologizes in advance to whoever has to sit through my post-trip slideshow.

It's raining, it's pouring, but no one is snoring...

Sunday and Monday followed the same weather pattern. It would rain all morning and taper off around noon or one o'clock. Then, it would be mostly dry until about dinner time, when it would begin raining again. Our pattern became: sleep late, have a leisurely brunch, go for a stroll, have tea/coffee if it was still raining, and then, as soon as it stopped, do the day's outdoor activity (most of the fun things to do in Yangshuo are outdoors). On Sunday we went for a bike ride (our guide tells me that it always rains during Dragon Boat Festival, by the way) and on Monday we took a walk through Yangshuo Park and loaded up on souvenirs. Souvenir shopping is hard for me. I see lots of things I would like, because I am the type of person who appreciates Cultural Revolution-era propaganda posters. As for all of my friends and family -- this is my third trip to China. There are only so many silk scarves and fans I can give you guys. And let's not get started on shopping for the male members of my souvenir circle. I wish you were the type of people who wore bathrobes or man-jewelry. Well, not really, but it would make this easier.

Modern propaganda posters.

One last amusing story. On Sunday, my flatmate bought a tee shirt from one of the many vendors of amusing Chinese tee shirts that said ‘听不懂’ (ting bu dong) or ‘I don’t understand (what you’re saying)’. It’s personally amusing because it’s what our students are always saying to us, and because she doesn’t really speak Chinese except for the most bare-bones survival basics. She wore it on Monday, while we were shopping, and a good half dozen vendors decided to call it out to her like it was her name, trying to get her attention, which cracked us up beyond all belief.

Awkward bike pose!

We had planned to take the 9:30 sleeper bus back to Guangzhou, but it was overbooked (meaning we'd have been the lucky people whose 'beds' were actually the floor of the aisle) and so we hung around the hot, humid, sticky bus station until the 10:30 bus. It goes directly to GZ without making any stops, and we arrived  back in the city at around 5:15. That's too early for the subway and most of the buses (and the only ones that were running from the coach station stop don't go near our apartment) so we hopped in a cab. Guangzhou feels very different in the early hours when there's no traffic and you can actually cruise around at a normal driving speed. We made it to our apartment, took quick showers (all day in rainy/hot Yangshuo+1.5 hours in disgustingly hot bus station + 7 hours on bus = feeling kinda gross) and went back to bed. Alas, I had to be up again after a short nap to get to Chinese class. Good thing I had today to chill out and do laundry. Although you know what? It's raining again.

the Yulong River