Guilin and Yangshuo

Well, I got back late last night from celebrating China's National Holiday.  We got out of school for a whole week.  So what did we do?  We took off to one of the most beautiful places in the world:  Guilin and Yangshuo.  I was only able to go thanks to two of the most awesome people in the world, Vivian and Stephanie.  Thank you both for helping me get there!  We left Saturday afternoon from Nanjing on a 20 hour train ride down to Guilin.  It was actually a pretty fun ride.  There was a group of 10 of us that all traveled together and did most of everything together the whole week.  So when I got to Guilin, I was totally impressed with how beautiful it was...  Then the next day, we went to Yangshuo.  Unfortunately, it was dark when we got there.  When we woke up the next morning, however, I was totally blown away with the beauty of the place.  We went up on to the top of the roof of our hostel just to take in the beauty of it all (that being the first picture).  The first full day in Yangshuo, we rented bikes, biked through the most gorgeous country side ever to the Yulong He (He is pronounced somewhat like huh and means river).  There we swam for a while waiting for our bamboo raft which we floated on for an hour or so.  We got back on our bikes and went to Moon Hill, hiked up there and then took a minivan to a mud cave.  We were so wiped out by the time we got back home that day!  But it was totally worth it!  My batteries died one the first day there, so I'm going to have to steal pictures from others before I can post them on here for you all to see.  We just haven't had a chance to swap pictures yet.  The next morning, we all got up early for a river cruise on the Li Jiang (jiang also means river).  The scenery, of course, was breathtaking.  Shoot, there is so much that we did that it's all getting muddled up in my head.  We went night fishing, or more of watched these way cool birds swim in front of a bamboo raft who would dive down and catch fish for their master.  It was pretty darn cool.  Of course, there was some bartering, I bought myself a bamboo scroll with the Dao De Jing on it for about $7 USD....  Awesome...  We rented scooters and took off to some more amazing places.  We went to this little village.  Basically we just had the time of our lives hanging out with friends in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I don't really have much time left, so ask me more questions when I get back home about everything I did, and I'll be sure to give you all the great details.  Aren't you jealous!?