So remember my rage about National Holiday? Well, I have another rage. Bus tickets went on sale the last Saturday before we left so me and Maegan journeyed to the station to get the tickets for the 8 of us going to Yuanshuo. We went to the counter and gave them the note our coordinators had wrote for us. One lady looked at it and laughed. Then she went and showed all of her coworkers around the note and they all laughed. OK. COOL. Than after she laughed at us she told us no and pointed around the corner. Me and Maegan looked pretty confused and walked to the other ticket counter. At this point the lady looked at our note and said "No. Wo." Wo is 5 in Chinese. We needed ba tickets.(eight) So we only could get 5 tickets which meant 3 would have to stay home and lose a day of vacation. Sadly I was one of those three. Which was okay because I have already been to Yangshuo but still a bummer.
On Tuesday the 5 girls left and Taylor, Maegan and I decided to go to W-oggies a good pizza place and watch movies. It ended being a pretty prime night. We got an early start the next morning and caught our bus. Which turned out the bus had wifi. The National Holiday was redeeming itself. FINALLY after like 9 hours on a bus we got there. Chilled that night, got some henna, had some fun.
On Wednesday we went drifting. Which is pretty much just white water rafting. At first I was kinda terrified I mean us and China do not have the same safety standards...at all. BUT it ended up being like the highlight. It was so fun! Every once in a while we would get to like a checkpoint where we would have to wait in a huge line to go down a huge drop and it was full on battle to see who could get down first. It was us vs the Asians. Me and Kenzie were in war. I do not think we won. But, we did make some friends so it's ok. That night again we went to West Street where we got some airbrush tattoos, braids in our hairs and became Asian hippies.
Thursday was a chill day. Tay, Maegan, Clara and I rented some bikes to ride around while the girls who had not been to the mud caves before went there. We found a cute little field with a love sign so it was time to bring out the selfie poles. But we had to get the ultimate selfie. I saw a bamboo raft in the middle of a little pond so I told Tay to go sit on it so I could get a sweet picture. She ran around the field and as got on the boat. Well, the boat was not as secure as suspected. She made it. Got the sweet selfie. Went to get off the boat annnnnd there she went. I cried. It was so funny. She is a trooper. We took her back to the hostel to shower and get clean while we ate some lunch and went back out on the bikes. When the rest of the girls got back we packed up all of our stuff and headed to Guilin to catch our train to Zhangjiajie.
Unfortunately, because of dang national holiday we only could get standing seats for our 8 hour train ride to Changsha. So when everyone was on the train we found some empty seats. Me and a couple of the other girls found seats next to this lady who spoke a little bit of English so she was talking to us a little. She then also made out noodles for us and sold us some towels. Not just any towels they are like magic towels I swear. Well, I guess she wasn't really selling them but she spoke Chinese to the sales lady for awhile pointed at us paid 20 for two towels then told us all they were 25 for two. SO, thinking it was a great deal and being a little tired..we bought the dang towels. Then, after we all bought the towels the sales lady came over, high fived our "friend" and gave her another towel. Betrayed. We were betrayed. Then, we made a stop and people came and kicked me and Kenzie out of our seats. So for the next 5 hours we walked the train sitting down for short periods of time before someone else claimed their seat.
After finally getting to Changsha we transferred trains and had sleepers the rest of the way.
Somehow we ended up at a travel agency on Friday trying to figure out what to do. Finally we found where ziplining was and our guy set it up. It was supposed to close at 8 and we left around 3. He told us it would take about an hour to get there and then our driver would take us home. We hopped in the sketchy van and drove to the park. Once we got there though after like an hour and a half of driving they wouldn't let us in. CHINA. They just decided to close at 4 that day. Who decided this. Why. So then we had to drive all the way back. Pretty much we paid 50 yuan for a 3 hour car ride. Real big bummer.
The next day we were smarter. We left our hostel at 6 am to go to the Tienanmen Mountains. Like I cannot even express how amazing that place is. SO COOL. It was breathtaking.
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| Stairway to heaven...turns out there is an escalator..so that's good news. |
Next day was the Avatar Mountains. Or the Tianzi. I have never seen Avatar..but I think I became one. Really though these mountains were amazing. They are the mountains that the movie mountains are based off of. I love those mountains. So much. It was a little bit of a hike to get to the top but it was an amazing view.
I love China. I cannot say that enough. It is so beautiful. I am so blessed to be able to be here. The people are awesome this place is awesome. It is funny, every time we go somewhere we are always like how do we get around. How does it just work? We are 12 girls traveling around China..we don't know Chinese we aren't that experienced but somehow it just works. We always get where we need to be. But let's be honest. The only way we are getting around is because people see us and help. I have met the nicest people who are so genuine and just want to help. So many times we have been lost and someone points us in the right direction or will even take time out of their days to walk us to a bus station. It is amazing. I love this place. I love these people.
