It's about time that I (Ben) contribute something meaningful to this blog. As you all know, I've been exceptionally bad with keeping everybody up to speed with my time in China. Hopefully I'll do better now that I have some impetus (named Kristen) to improve on said communication skills. I'm first going to try to briefly give a final wrap on life in Dingxi, then I'll fast-forward to today.
So, the final days in Dingxi were at once stressful, nostalgic, stressful, sad and... great. I was able to say final goodbyes to almost everybody that I had hoped to, and those that I wasn't I at least let them know that I wouldn't be back next year. One of the biggest highlights was a goodbye dinner for all of the English teachers and administration hosted by none other than Angela and myself. Angela deserves a special mention in that she arrived in Dingxi the same time that I did and we've enjoyed the roller-coaster that is Dingxi together. In any case, we were able to treat all 25 Chinese staff to a wonderful hot-pot dinner that included a great deal of sliced meat, fungus, toufu, vegetables, noodles and beer.
Faaaast forward to the day before yesterday. Waking up and saying goodbye to Lindsey and Courtney, Kristen and I left on a jet plane for Guangzhou (aka Canton), Guangdong province. Home of dim sum and an unintelligible dialect, we spent the day checking out the Museum of the Nanyue Kingdom - a fairly well preserved tomb that hadn't been discovered or raided until 1983. We then spent some time in a very nice tea garden where we met Aaron and Claire who you will hear more about shortly.
After an overnight train ride Kristen and I arrived in Guilin, capital of Guanxi province. Very well known in China, this place has been an inspiration for countless artists for it's impressive limestone karst formations, rivers and lakes. While paling in comparison to Yangshuo, it was a decent place to spend a day climbing a rock or two and checking out a city park.
The highlight of the day was seeing a troop of monkeys doing monkey things; eating, scratching themselves, chasing off annoying camera-wielding Chinese tourists...actually their day wasn't that much different from mine. My favorite monkey, however, was one that you certainly didn't want to get too close to. Apart from some impressive canines, this dude carried around a shank. That's right - the monkey had a shard of a mirror that he would alternately check himself out in and then wave around like Michael Jackson in the 'Bad' video.
To finish off the night Kristen and I wandered around town and had some terrific beer fish (local specialty). One great constant while traveling in China has been the terrific food. Below is a picture of Kristen eating breakfast (Guilin noodles and rambutan ). That's all for now - give me some time for this blog thing people, I'll get wittier, I promise, maybe. Obama/Biden in 08!
1 comment:
Glad to see that the first few sentences you were working on for a few days turned into a full post! Hurrah!
Post a Comment