Yangshuo:Day Thirteen

We went to Hong Kong that day, but not until the evening. Since we had time, we went shopping on West Street. This is a street to shop. There were many wonderful items and things to buy. We would have bought about ten times the amount we bought if we weren’t accosted. Shopping here was like shopping in Guilin, but worse. We were yelled at and followed/stalked by people wanting to sell us things. When we looked at something, we just kept saying “we’re just looking.” It didn’t make one bit of difference. “What price lady,” and “come back”, and “look at this, is beautiful. Buy, buy!” We also know there were lies told, because it was so obvious sometimes that it wasn’t true. For example, when we went, it was about 11 o’clock. Tourists, local people, and everyone else were shopping when we were. About five times, we heard, “you are getting a really good deal. You are the first customers.” Yeah right. Again, it was also very hard because how you got rid of people was to ignore them. They are talking to you and it is so hard to ignore them. One other thing that is hard, and you need to do it, is bargaining. You should start with a quarter of the asking price and bargain down from there. I don’t bargain well at all. Why can’t you just pay what they want? I usually bargain down about five Yuan, which is approximately 70 cents. To get to the airport, you have to drive down dirt, rural roads for a hour and a half. It felt like a long time, and I even fell asleep for a long time. The airplane was a typical ride and we got to Hong Kong at about 11 o’clock. The next day we went to Victoria Peak, Kowloon, different markets, and took a ferry boat.
Lianne

Yangshuo:Day Twelve

We got a late start. After finally finishing breakfast at 12 o’clock, we went to a place to get on a bamboo boat. These boats were nicer than the fishing boats, but just because of the seats. It was still a boat made out of bamboo with a person who punts. There were no boats with three seats, so we got two boats with two seats each. My mom and I took one, and my dad took another. The people who punted the boats were very friendly. The ride was about two hours long and very peaceful. We had been going for about ten minutes and the woman who was pushing our boat motioned us to take our shoes off. We wondered why, until we heard running water. Soon enough, we came to a place where people were on floating rafts ready to take our picture. We weren’t expecting it and it was a shock when we went down a small drop. That was one of the many rapids. I came to like them and was happy when we would go down another one. We also had a few parts when we came to a mud wall. When we came to those places, we got out and our punters hauled the boats up. It again was a shock when we teetered over a drop of about six feet. The punters would jump on the boat right as it was going down. The ride had beautiful scenery. The mountains were close by and the water was crystal clear. After the ride, we went and saw the Big Banyan Tree. It is what it sounds like, a banyan tree which is huge. The rocks in the foreground are about as big as a person. Right next to it was a small part of the river blocked off for people trying to punt. We tried it and it was not easy. It made us appreciate what the people had to do in our boat ride for two hours. Our hotel is in a little village and so we walked around it. There were many little stands and booths of things to buy. The sun was going down and so we went back. Tomorrow we’re going to go shopping on a popular tourist street, West Street.

Lianne

Yangshuo:Day Eleven

Today we took a boat down the Li River. The ride was very scenic and we were going along the Karst Mountains. The term, Karst, is describing what type of mountains they are. The mountains are the peaky mountains that are sometimes used as landscapes to paint and take pictures of. We think they are beautiful. The climate is almost tropical and the plants/trees growing on the mountain side are very green and lush. The boat ride was about four hours long and most of the time we spent standing on the deck watching the mountains go by. As I said before, people really want to sell you things. Below is the seating area with glass windows and comfortable seats. So, as soon as we get going, people come along side our boat and try to sell us tourist trinkets. These people are on traditional bamboo boats that they use to fish, sell, and travel. To sell their things, these people take a rope and hook it onto our boat to make the bamboo steady. To get them to go away, you ignore them. This is more difficult than you would think. In America, we are taught to speak to people who speak to you and it is rude to ignore them. Not here. When we got to Yangshuo, we took a taxi to our hotel. Yangshuo is a very rural place and a lot of farming is done. The farming is done in traditional ways. We saw people using water buffalo to plow and we have seen a lot of rice paddies. Rice paddies are the fields where rice grows. It turns out that our hotel was very green. By green, I mean environmentally friendly. When we got to our hotel, it was only about one o’clock in the afternoon. We took a stroll down the street and to a place where it said we could hike up to Moon Hill. The picture of a hole in the hill is Moon Hill. We joked that is was the Arch of China. The bad thing, is that we had followers on our hike. Two old women went along with us and tried to get us to buy their things. They came along ALL THE WAY UP THE HILL WITH US. We didn’t want them to come all the way with us. The hike was supposed to be a leisure hike and take about a hour and a half. I am not a fan of walking fast and up stairs on a steep hill. Just to see if we could get the women away, we went up and down the hill in about forty-five minutes. That night we went to the Light Show. This is an amazing show that was made and directed by the man who did the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics. It was amazing. One of the parts was a bunch of men on their bamboo boats working with five red pieces of fabrics. The fabrics were about six feet tall and as long as a football field. There were also a lot of people with costumes that could light up. Synchro people, I think that Spain’s costumes might have been like this. The women, who had the costumes, would light up in a wave or make it seem like one person was walking among them. The next day we will be going on bamboo rafts on the Yulong River.

Lianne

Guilin:Day Ten

There isn’t much to say about today. We got up bright and early in the morning to catch a plane to take us to Guilin. Guilin is the place where the peaky mountains are along the Li river. There are many pictures of them in books. The airport and plane were very nice. The plane ride was about two hours. After getting off of the plane we took a taxi to our hotel. Right next to our hotel are some pretty walkways along a tributary of the Li River. It is very scenic and we walked when the sun was setting over some of the mountains. When the sun was fully down, we went back to our hotel and though a market with people at their stands. The thing about Guilin is that people want you to buy their stuff. No matter what situation or circumstance, they want you to buy. In China, you are supposed to bargain prices down. No one expects that you buy an item at full price. I wanted to buy a jade disc necklace and we tried to bargain it down. It didn’t work to well because it ended with us not buying the necklace and the woman running after us screaming. There’s Chinese buying for you. That was our first real bargaining experience and we ended up buying another necklace for half the starting price.

Lianne

Hangzhou:Day Nine

Today, I had a really interesting day. I went to our guide’s daughter’s school. We have a guide for a couple days and we wanted to see a school. Her daughter, Nancy, is the same age as I am. Her school is like a private school and has about 2,000 kids. It is huge complex! There are a couple buildings, a field, a track, and a beautiful gateway in. This is one of the more upscale schools. The school’s name is Green Town and is K-12. I didn’t stay for the whole day, just 2 classes. The classes are 45 minutes long and the school day starts at 7am and goes until 5pm. This is a really long day compared with my school. The way the school runs is the complete opposite of my school. When you walk in, you go to your class room and sit down at your assigned desk. The desks are in rows and there are about 40 kids in each class. When the teacher walks in, you are supposed to bow to him or her respectively. I was hit with a surprise when an English teacher came over to us and asked me to help teach the class. In Nancy’s school, they learn English, like I learn Spanish. They were at about the same level as I am in Spanish. I stood up in front of the class and read different words to them. I read them twice and the class repeated them after I said them. I could easily read the English vocabulary, but the hard part was the names. The students were learning about famous people from Italy and France. I had never learned about these people and I don’t know how to pronounce their names. I just used my best reading skills and read them how I thought they sounded. I then sat down and repeated more words with the class. The Chinese schools have very different teaching techniques than the ones I’m used to. There is a lot of repetition and just repetition. Since it was Monday, there were morning exercises in the middle of the first class. We ran out to the track and stood in lines. The lines were organized by gender and each line had the same amount of kids in it. The national anthem played and after, different kids went up to a podium. It was in Chinese, but I learned later it was singling out individual people for their work or behavior. The next class was math. I understood the math, but the class was in Chinese. I thought it was interesting because when the teacher said the equations there would be the occasional English word in the Chinese. Another thing they did differently was use chalkboards. I have seen them, but never actually used them. When we were done visiting the school, our guide took us to a tea plantation. It was absolutely beautiful. The tea plants look like ordinary little plants, but there were so many of them. The plants were in rows on rolling hills. After seeing the plants, we went to taste the tea. We went to the tea museum and then lead into a little room. The tea was still in the plant form and leaf form. A woman used different kinds of tools to get the tea out of jars. She then put it in one teapot, poured it in to a cup, washed the cup and added new water. It was a complicated process and it took about 10 minutes to make a cup of tea. I am not a big fan of Chinese tea, so I liked the experience but not the tea. The picture of the flower in a cup is a picture of the jasmine tea. Inside of a plant wrapping is the jasmine flower. As it gets hotter, the wrapping fall apart and the flower emerges. That night we went and saw the Music Fountain on West Lake. The fountain is a fountain with water spurting in a variety of ways and it goes up, down, and changes patterns with the mood of the music. I enjoyed it a lot. This is our last day in Hangzhou, we will fly to Guilin next.

Lianne

Hangzhou:Day Eight

Today, we went to lots of tourist attractions. We started out the day by going to the Silk Market. This is a market that specializes in silk products. Hangzhou is known for their wonderful silk. The first store we went to had many bolts of different silk in vibrant and rich colors. The patterns woven into it were just amazing. There was nothing but rows of silk. The others stores didn’t have that much, but they had plenty of cool things make out of silk. There were scarves and bags, clothes and everything else you could make out of silk. We then went to the Lingying temple. It is a Buddhist temple and many people come to see the temples and pray. In the temple are huge statures of different gods. One temple had about two hundred different Buddhas for each direction, north, south, east, and west. Taking pictures in the temples was not allowed, so we don’t have any pictures of the Buddhas inside. Each individual temple is on one level of ground and so if you want to go to another, you walk up some stone steps. The top temple is located high above others and has the biggest Buddhas of all. They also have a wall that is covered in different statues of many Buddhas. The temple is in a park and the park is stunning. There is a steam running down the middle and there are stone steps going up to the rock walls. In the walls, a variety of Buddhas are carved in to the stone. It is very pretty and there is like a rain forest all around. It is green and lush with vines draped around the stone. When we came back we cam back by bus, because none of the taxis would drive us anywhere. We have never seen taxi drivers that are unwilling to go somewhere, but we were now faced with this problem. So we took a bus. We believe there were some things that went on in the bus that are illegal in the U.S. To start, there were about 70 people in the bus. I'm not exaggerating, the bus kept stopping and letting more people on. The driver was very angry and hollered at us to move back and squish more people on. In China, it is not rude or mean to push. You are on a bus with 70 other people and pushing is normal. It was an experience. I’m very excited because tomorrow I’m going to a school.

Hangzhou:Day Seven

On day seven, we had a more relaxing day. Until about 2:00pm we just relaxed in our hotel room and read or used the computer. When we got bored, we went and had lunch and took a boat out on West Lake. The boat was like the boat we took in Su Zhou for the night ride. There are many medium sized islands in the lake that you can walk around on. Some had beautiful walkways, gardens, or ponds. The boat we got took us to an island with some pagodas and bridges. The second island we went to was one of the same islands we went to in 2001. There were some big ponds in the middle of the island. I thought that was an interesting touch; there were ponds in an island that is in the middle of a lake. By this time, it was getting dark. We caught the last boat back and went to a night market. I remember going to these the last time we came. It is very enjoyable to walk around a market at night and see all of the lights and stores. There was a new attraction this time, a puppet show. You would pay the person working it and peek though a little glass hole. Through the hole was the puppet show. The puppets were made out of paper or wood and had little sticks holding them up. They weren’t like finger puppets or stuffed animals. That was our day to relax and so we didn’t have as many little adventures as other days.
Lianne

Yiwu:Day Six

I’m behind again, but there is what we did on day six. We started out the day by meeting the old orphanage director, the one who was there when I was. Her name is Lian Lou. We had a great time talking with her about my life and showed her pictures of me at all different ages. We wanted to buy something for the orphanage and our budget was about $500, or 3,400 Yuan (Chinese currency). The people at the orphanage said that the best thing would be to get some diapers. So we went to what we called the “Costco of China”. It was like Costco in that is was a huge, multi-level store with food and household items. I had fun on the moving sidewalks. There were no escalators, so the moving sidewalks were slightly inclined and took you from level to level. The shopping carts stuck to it, you didn’t have to hold it. We just about emptied the store’s supply of diapers. We got all different sizes and kinds. The bags were different sizes, but we ended up buying about 30 packages of diapers. Here we are, strange looking Americans with three carts of just diapers. We drew in many stares and people came over to ask what we were doing. The people at the orphanage were very pleased with what we brought them. After dropping off the diapers, we went back and looked around the Costco-like market. It was called CenturyMart. When you walked in, the aroma of freshly baked bread caught your attention. The smell was coming from a popular bread shop call Bread Talk. We ate lunch there and had “lemonade”. The lemonade was lemon syrup with hot water. Yuck! What also caught your attention was the Crocs display. Crocs’ popularity has grown. When we went to the food department we walked into buckets where live food was swimming. On the floor are buckets of water with eels, fish, turtles, and crawfish. On the walls were the dried ducks and lizards. A bit different from stores in the U.S. Mrs. Lou had been with us this whole time and now said good-bye. It was great to see here again. We drove back to Hangzhou and went to our hotel. We will be here for four nights.
Lianne

Hangzhou and Yiwu:Day Five

On day five, we started the day by walking around the gardens of Hangzhou. There is a lake, West Lake, surrounded by many gardens and beautiful bridges. The area was better than we remembered. It was cleaned up, the plants were very green, and the water was clear. Some of the bridges were very significant to us and we wanted to find them again. One of the bridges is a small bridge and has little stone figures of Chinese lions on it. We have a picture of me when my parents got me and one of when we went back in 2001 with one of the lions. The other bridge is one that my family and I sat on in 1995 and 2001. The picture that was taken there was used for the adoption announcement we sent out when I was adopted. We found these bridges again and took more pictures of us on them now. We walked along for a long time and had fun looking at the different things going on. In the park we saw cats that we believe are feral, eating dried ducks and playing on the sidewalks. Before going back to our hotel, we stopped at a restaurant to eat lunch. We didn’t really get what we ordered, but we did have chicken feet on our plates. Then my dad ate a pepper that was very spicy. His eyes watered and he got a nose-bleed. After that, we went back to our hotel and met our guide, Rebecca. Then we drove two hours to Yiwu, where my orphanage is. The drive was really interesting because along side the highway, are rural farms and houses. There were controlled fires burning and people were farming. The farmers wore traditional hats and lived in old, small concrete buildings. There was also some kind of farming that I had never heard of before, Pearl farming. The farmers have normal bottles floating on the surface of a pond and then have a string hanging down. On the string are clusters of oysters and the farmers put little rocks in them. The oysters eventually put a substance around the rock, thus making the pearl. Yiwu is known for being a big commodities market. When we drove in, we saw many shops and stores selling a variety of items and materials. We drove straight to the Yiuw Social Welfare Institute, which is an orphanage and elderly housing complex. First we went to see Mr. He, the assistant director of the orphanage. He showed us old records of different people who where adopted from there and we found my record. Everyone called me by my Chinese name, Ni Mei. All of the babies and kids have a name that includes “Ni.” Most of the kids are special needs. We played with them for a while and then went out to dinner with two of the boys from the orphanage, two women who help, and the Mr. He. There was so much food! For the whole dinner, the waitresses just kept bringing out more food. It was delicious. Later at the hotel, the director came and talked with us. The meeting was brief, but nice. He was not the director when I was there. Tomorrow we’re going to the Civil Affairs Bureau, the place where I was found.

Lianne

From Shanghai to Su Zhou and Su Zhou:Days Three and Four

I'm writing from day four, but about day three. Yesterday we took a train to Su Zhou. We waited for two hours in the "Soft-Seat" waiting room. We were supposed to get our tickets the day before, and we hadn't. So we waited. And waited. Finally, we got to the train. It was pretty hard because we have five huge suitcases and the seats were at bit cramped. The ride was about 45 minutes and wasn't as bad as we thought. When we got there, we discovered that we had to go down about 3 flights of stairs. These were no small flights of stairs. Once we got down one, we walked about 30 feet. After those 30 feet, guess what? We had to go up another flight of stairs. Then we went to our hotel. It is nice, but so confusing. It is meant to be like an old Chinese house, with beautiful gardens and winding, twisting hallways. I get so lost trying to find our room. Su Zhou is known for its gardens, and there is one right behind our hotel. It is huge and has about five different pagodas and temples. There are waterfalls, flowers, and old city walls that you could go up on. It reminded me of the Great Wall, with the stone and windows. After dinner, we took a boat ride down the Grand Canal. It is a man-made river that is from Beijing to Hangzhou. It is the longest canal in the world. The first 85 km were built in 500 B.C. It was fun to see the city all lit-up. There was a commentary to what we were seeing, but it was in Chinese.
On the fourth day, we got up and went swimming at our hotel. The pool was big and it felt good to get to go swimming. When we come to Su Zhou, we thought it would be a lot of old streets. Unfortunately, most of those old streets have been torn down. Still, there are some that still exist, and we went to one. The street we went to was called Shangtong Street. There were many little shops lining the street. The street was on a smaller canal, and there were houses on the other side. When I looked down the canal, I saw some great old boats. They were tied up by the houses and were made out of wood. Since Su Zhou is famous for its gardens, we went and saw another garden after going to Shangtong Street. We got to the garden by a Pedicab. A person rides a bicycle and tows you behind in a seat. It was really fun, but nerve racking. As I have said before, Chinese traffic is not American traffic. To merge into oncoming traffic, they turned into it. They turned in to oncoming car traffic in a Pedicab. This is not the most comforting thing there is. When we got to the gardens, we saw that it was a lot of someone's house than gardens. The house was interesting and we looked around at the sulcptures, walkways, and artifacts. There were some rock formations that you could climb on and look around. The rocks were pulled up from the bottom of a lake hundreds of years ago. We went back to the hotel and took another train ride to Hangzhou. We have not gotten Internet for a couple days, and this is the first time we have it. I'll post another blog later!
Lianne

Impressions of Shanghai

I really liked Shanghai for all of the contrasts it had. I was walking around in a busy street filled with what seemed like a million people, and then I looked down an alley way. There were only about five people and they were doing traditional things, like cooking traditional foods, playing a board game, or doing Tai Chi. Then when we ventured down these streets, I saw many people doing physical labor or hanging up laundry. The picture of the man biking with the load is one out of many you see in the streets. Others might be carrying of towing loads on carts. We saw one man who was carrying a ladder when he was biking through an intersection. When you walk back to the bigger streets, you see everything is modern. The people, men or women, young or old, are with the current styles. We have yet to see some practical shoes. We have only seen the tall boots and spikes heels. The women in the picture are not stylish for Shanghai. The haircuts are like haircuts you would see in a fashion magazine. There are TVs all around outside on buildings and some of them show fashions shows. This is what struck me most. Back in Boulder, you don't see either of these things.

Lianne

Shanghai:Day Three

Today we went and walked around the French Concession. The French Concession was the part of the city that the French owned. It was somewhat disappointing, there were supposed to be a lot of old colonial houses and gardens. Instead, there were only about two. The ones we saw were cool and very European-like. When we were walking around, we saw a couple dogs and cats. One of the dogs was a Huskie and belonged to an older man. When he saw me looking in their direction, he came over and motioned to me to take the leash. I took it and my parents took a picture of us. When we were trying to find the French Concession we stumbled onto a nice park with gardens and a fountain. There are motor scooters all over on the sidewalks and we wanted a picture of them. We saw one with two women riding one. I took their picture and they came over and we "talked". They knew no English, and we knew hardly any Chinese. It was fun trying to communicate with them and we laughed a lot. The only problem was we had no idea what they were trying to say and vice versa. After that we had lunch at a very nice dumpling restaurant. Then we went to the Shanghai Aquarium. It was really cool and one part had a moving sidewalk through different places with the water surrounding you. You could look to the right, left, of above and see an amazing animal. This was our last day in Shanghai. Tomorrow we are going to take a train to Su Zhou. It is supposed to have beautiful gardens and is not a big city like Shanghai. I have really enjoyed Shanghai, but we're moving on!

Lianne

Shanghai:Day Two

Today we walked all around Shanghai. There are so many people! The scariest thing is walking across the street. It doesn't matter if the light is green, red, yellow, or purple, everyone goes. People will walk into traffic, the cars honk and drive on. As everybody else goes across, they walk into the street with ease. As I go across, I usually scream that everyone will die. We also walked around by the Bund. The Bund is a walkway along the Huangpu River. There are a lot of historic buildings on the Bund. When we were on the Bund, we took a boat ride on the river. We saw many boats with different kinds of objects/materials people were transporting. We also saw a puppy on a boat! When we walked along in the city, there were the tall skyscrapers and the gardens. There is the People's Park, which is a park with gardens and little ponds. Many elderly people were grouped around other people who played games and were doing Tai Chi. Some of the old streets were just amazing and you could get a sense as to how people lived. There were clothes and laundry hanging out to dry, rusty bicycles, and people sitting in the door ways. Tomorrow we're going to go to the aquarium and going to see the French Concession. The tall building is our hotel.

Lianne