Yunnan 云南 Province - bordered by Tibet (NW), Myanmar (W), and Laos and Vietnam (S)

The main purpose of this part of my trip is to see and hike Tiger Leaping Gorge 虎跳峡。 It claims to be the deepest river gorge in the world.  I’m planning to spend 2-3 days hiking in the gorge and photographing the magnificent scenery.  Below are some pictures I found online. When I return, I will show you my own pictures!

There are two different paths to take: the high road and the low road. I plan to take the high road. If I'm going to make the trip all the way down there I'm going to make it worthwhile. Thankfully there are hostels on the mountain.

The mountains surrounding the gorge have an elevation of 18,000+ feet. On one side of the gorge is "Jade Dragon Snow Mountain" and on the other side is "Haba Snow Mountain" I wonder what the terrain will be like in the winter... 😉

I'm very excited to see mountains!!

After the hike in the gorge, my plan is to stay in Lijiang for a couple of days and explore the area. There are many other things to do there and I’m looking forward to getting lost in the area.  (Don’t worry, Mom, I don’t actually mean “lost”)

Guangxi 广西 Province-bordered by Vietnam (SW)

After my time in Yunnan Province, I will take a train from Kunming 昆明 (also in Yunnan) to Guilin 桂林 in Guangxi 广西 Province.  Guilin is a really toursity town, so I only plan to stay there long enough to either get a bus ticket to Yangshuo 阳朔 or take the boat tour down the Li River. I’ll have plenty of time to make that decision later.  Yangshuo/Guilin areas are known for their Karst Topography.   I’m very excited to visit this part of the world.  Below is a photo from my hostel in Xingping 性平 village, near Yangshuo.   (Interesting side note:  as I was doing some “research” for my trip–wikipedia saves the day again–I discovered that Yangshuo is a ‘sister city’ to Rapid City, SD.  Now I’m even more excited!)

Yes, that is a random, unknown person in the photo. It was the best one I could find.

After a couple days of hiking/biking/photographing the area of Yangshuo, I will take the bus (three different buses, actually) to the small village of Dazhai, which is about 4 hours north of Yangshuo.  Near Dazhai there are more (although smaller) mountains.  This part of the country is best known for its rice farming.  I will be staying at a hostel in the mountains surrounded by rice terraces.  It is called “Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces”. 

This is a photo from the hostel website. I don't know what the terraces will look like during this time of the year.

I kind of wish I were taking this trip in the warmer months so that I could see this:

I wonder how they thought of the name...

Or this…

🙂

When I’m done hiking in the rice, I’ll head to Hong Kong for the FOC retreat.  I’ll get to spend four days with the other Americans from all over China.  I’m excited to explore Hong Kong again, too. If you remember, the last time I was there was a very short trip.  I’ll see what kind of pictures I can get! 

Please pr-y for my safety, my health, and a working camera!  I’ll update when I return to Beijing sometime during the week of February 14th.  I will mostly be out of touch during the next three weeks!

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐！Happy Spring Festival! 春节快乐！

Jinshanling

It has been almost two months. I’m a pathetic blogger.  Instead of writing down events from my life, I ponder how my life is like that of a Chinese kindergartner. (except they can speak Chinese better than I can)  I still marvel at how we acquire language when we are very small and how it is different from actually learning/studying a language.  My Chinese reading ability is actually better than my speaking.  It’s a bit odd but I’ll take what I can get.  My speaking confidence wavers.  My excuse for this is that I don’t want to sound like an idiot when I don’t know how the sentence is put together.  So, I just don’t speak. I actually prefer charades and grunting.  🙂

Things are going well in the Capital City.  Temps are low but spirits are high.  We had a great Christmas party with a large (250-300) group of Chinese friends. Christmas Day was also fun as we exchanged gifts among our FOCbeijing family. I really could not ask for a better group of people to work with this year! I’m so blessed! 

Below is a smattering of photos from the past weeks in Beijing.  Included in this group are some photos I took of my most recent excursion to the wall.  This time it was to a different place. This is my new favorite place! 🙂  Enjoy the photos

See that painted Chinese character above us? That's "chai" 拆。 This means "demolish" or something like that. Unfortunately this character was found on the outer wall of a favorite restaurant of ours. Most likely this restaurant will be torn down to make room for yet another fancy new building where people can't afford the rent. Thankfully, Handsome Chuar Man (not pictured) has informed us of his new location! 🙂 The restaurant no longer exists. 🙁

These are my 4th Grade Hooligans. I love them dearly....most of the time. I have two Saturdays left with them and then I get a much needed break!! 🙂

On the left is Fiona, on the right is Gretl. I love these girls!! 🙂 This was taken at the Christmas party!

These are some of the Tuesday night B studiers. From L-R: Peter, John, ZhaoWei, Me, Gary, ZhaoShu and Jessica is in the front

One view of the wall

Me, Tim, and Fiona pondering life...