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Guilin, Yangshuo, and my new Chinese family

Oh where to begin...where to begin. What is it like day 5 now? And it has been a couple (few) days since my last entry. Which means there are so many things I need to tell you about. Several times throughout each day I take a step back and think to myself, "This is really something. I need to journal this." And everynight I am exhausted and so my new Walmart spiral journal remains pure as a winter snow.

So over the next several paragraphs, I'm going to try to recall as many of the most interesting things as possible. I think the best way to do this is by day, and if I remember correctly the last time I journaled I had just arrived to Guilin, with 3 New Yorker's that I met on the bus. Ok, I'm going to back track just for a second for something I don't think I wrote about that day.

As you'll remember we took a 12 hour overnight bus to Guilin. After a day of visiting the Reed Flute cave (see pic), and the Solitary Beauty Peak, I had just about had it. (I explained the sore feet from Hong Kong) However, when you are hanging out with three other guys, who you just met, the last thing you want to do is sound like a pansie and bail out of an activity because your "feet are sore (?!)". So rather than sissying (yes it's a word) out I agreed to visit one last tourist attraction, the Seven Peaks Park. Ok sure we saw a Panda, and had the chance to take a picture snuggled up in a cage with an enourmous tiger (which I opted not to do only because I didn't want to spend the money-again not because I am a girl), but the best thing that happened was right at the end as the park was closing. Apparently the keepers expect you be prompt when the park is closing, because before any of us were out the released all the monkeys. Awesome right? Right. We are making our way out with monkeys flying over head, I think it's their dinner time, when one monkey drops right out of the tree onto the sidewalk in front of us. We all think it's funny and laugh and the cute little thing runs off. But then some 15 seconds later much larger monkey comes running towards us with his possie. This monkey runs right up to one of the other guys and I am watching not sure what's about to happen. Monkey is hootin and holerin with teeth bared and grabs my friends leg on the way by. SWEET! My friend is a little freaked, but I'm loving it, no harm done. Then the monkey turns around for round two, and I'm the next closest human.

Now what they don't tell you in the Lonley Planet Travel guide is how to defend against attacking monkeys in a public park. So I have in one hand an empty water bottle, which I am debating to use for noise or beating. The monkey runs up to me slapping the ground like a freak, the other guy closest to me has now taken off like white lightening, and I decide the best thing to do is just man up. I turn and face the monkey preparing mentally to how to kick this freak show while beatin it with a plastic water bottle, and keeping all parts of my body in tact. Just at that moment, in a timely manner, one of the park keeper starts blowing his whistle and yelling and the monkey runs away. This, I remind you, is day one in mainland China.

Well that took much longer than I expected. I think I will close this entry out and start another one. Because of the computer I am on I can't tell, but I think there is a picture of me with my "Chinese" family in this entry. I will explain that in the next entry... so tune in next time to find out just what happenen to our travelin friend to be surrounded by an entire of Chinese people none of which speak a lick of English!

posted by Travelin' D @ 8:10 AM