Ya-ya Yangshuo!

Left to right: Winnie (my cousin Liyan's best friend), Juliana, some geek with glasses.
Juli and I in the water caves
Floating down The Yulong River in a bamboo raft
Yangshuo scenery--this is how I imagined China
While floating down the Li River
西街。AKA Western Street
View from our hotel overlooking beautiful Yangshuo scenery and the Li River.

To start off, I have to mention the bus ride to Yangshuo from Guangzhou. My friend Juliana and I decided to take a trip to Yangshuo after being in hectic Guangzhou Canton fair. We decided to take an overnight bus. We bought tickets and apparently they were for 22:30 but i thought it was 23:30. We missed the bus. Shit. I did not want to stay in Guangzhou one more night because the whole city was booked out because of the Canton fair and if there was a room available, it was expensive. Luckily, there was one more bus at 23:30! I paid 60RMB to change the tickets which is less than $10 and i was happy to pay as long as i could get on the bus and go! Well, the bus wasn't going after being delayed 30 minutes they said the bus was broken and it wasn't going. I think they did this because there were only 6 people on the bus. Juli and I refused to accept our money and insisted we go to Yangshuo. Well, they returned our money for the tickets (but not the 60 RMB) and kicked us off the bus. I told them they had to check us into a hotel because we had nowhere to sleep. They took us next door and were going to check us in, but there were no rooms. So the bus station lady said wait here (in the hotel lobby) and she left us. Crap. What were we going to do? 15 minutes later she returned and said, ok we go to Yangshuo now. We got on the bus and took off for the 8 or 9 hour bus ride to Yangshuo, just the 2 of us and 2 drivers and a bus lady. Not to mention they also returned my 60rmb. After a horrible fright, we were off to a great start to a great trip (and a free bus ride)!
We arrived to blue skies, beautiful scenery and landscapes which I have never seen before! I knew this was going to be a good trip. The pictures explain themselves. This is China as I imagined it in from a story book. Floating down a bamboo raft enjoying natural scenery and good company, this has to be one of my favorite past-times.
西街, Xi Jie (west street) is a famous place which makes Yangshuo a bit interesting. As you can imagine by the name, the street is full of western restaurants, cafés and shops. We started every morning off by eating outside and having western breakfast or as I began to call it Juliana Breakfast because it is her favorite and she doesn't function without it. Then we would shop around, float the rivers, go on bike rides, explore caves and mud baths, and just relax...
After 4 days in Yangshuo, we were scheduled to leave on a bus Saturday night. Saturday afternoon we were talking about how we should stay one more night but then we thought we better get back to Zhuhai to see my family for another day before I go to back to Beijing. My cousin Liyan's best friend Winnie just arrived to Yangshuo Saturday and we met briefly to say hi before we left. She was there with about 25 other people who work at her fathers factory in the marketing department, some of whom I've met. After talking with Winnie for a few minutes she said we should stay one more night since they had extra rooms at their hotel and so we could have dinner and go out to the bars together. All I could say was "WHY NOT!!!" We ate Chinese food and then went to the bar...and drank a lot. There were about 8 of us playing "dai wa sek"at one table and I think we went through.... too much vodka... I have to note that Colombians say they know how to party but Juliana was the first to pass out over the rest of us Chinese! Winnie impressed me. It was a great time and I am glad I stayed the extra night.