Yang Shuo, 3000yr old tree, and Moon Mnt
Published by O-CO under on 21:13
Man do I got a lot to talk about bc I feel like I havent posted in forever. So lets get straight to it.
Saturday nights we usually try to have a couch surfing dinner with all the active CSing hosts in Guilin as well as the CS'ers visiting our city. This time we had it at a nice Chinese place in downtown and had a pretty good turnout. There was 11 of us eating our Chinese dinner when a drunk old guy came over speaking to Michelle in broken English, something about 'your beautiful' 'where you from and why you in Guilin'. She reluctantly answered his questions and then he offered cigarettes to our table. Since I was out and Michelle and I wanted one we both accepted his offer and he stuck around talking his non sense and trying to be friendly. He then asked me if I ever had bai jiu, which is a Chinese rice liquor, and I hadent so he went and got a glass for me to try. He handed me a cup and cheers ed with me, damn that shit is strong! Reminds me of a Chinese style Absinthe. He kept trying to get Michelle to try it but fortunately for her there was a small piece of meat in the cup.. The guy then tried to get it out using my chopsticks, but was too drunk to do it, so I had to show him how it was done.. lol. He thought that was funny. We finally got him to leave us alone so we could finish our dinner in peace. I ate another chicken head at this dinner, and this time on purpose.
After dinner some of us went to a small bar that just reopened to listen to some live music, Chinese style. It was a nice little place and we met and chilled with the owner and his wife, who we know from the other small shop they own. Our friend got on stage with the mic and sang a song, which was freakin hilarious, he did a good job. This small bar was our pre game before going to the clubs around 11. When we got to the club we had a table waiting and we ordered some beer from our server. Michelles boyfriend was with us and he knows mad people at this place so we got hooked up a little bit. Then Michelle and him got into a fight so they disappeared and me and my friend bounced around from table to table of people we knew getting smashed. I think at some point I was drugged because I dont remember shit after a certain point in the night and my friend said they had to carry me out and back to my apt. I didnt drink enough to be that hammered and noone saw me do any drugs or anything like that so the only thing I could figure is someone slipped me something. I have to be more careful because I dont want to wake up in a bathtub of ice missing my kidneys. I also managed to chip one of my right molars on a f-in chicken toe nail when chewing on the chk foot at the club. Son of a bitch, its not too bad, but I probably should go see a dentist now and get it fixed because it kinda bugs me.
The following night after a dreadful day at work Wendy and I went to dinner and then went and seen the biggest man made waterfall building in the world. This thing is amazing! Its like a NYC block long and maybe 30 stories high with water pouring down the front of it. The building is black and they light it up bright white when the waterfall is on, so it looks really sharp. They fluctuate the water flow on different parts of the building too so it looks cascading, really cool to see. Of course I forgot my camera, so Ill have to go back and snap some sweet pics of it. This night was Sunday and Wendy wanted to go grab some beer at SoHo club and who am I to say no so we went there for a little while. Its amazing that the nightlife in Guilin stays packed in the clubs everyday of the week until like 2am it seems then they go home. We met a guy whose bday it was and ate some cake with his group, danced, and had some fun. He works for Boeing and gave me his card wanting to hang out again sometime, he was cool. Michelle and I were going to Yang Shuo the next day so we left the club around 2am with everyone else.
Ive heard so much from everyone about Yang Shuo and I finally get to experience it for myself. The bus ride took about an hour and 20 min, which wasnt bad at all because the scenery on the way was awesome. Tropical flora, farm lands, with the karst landscape back drop is an amazing sight to see. The city of Yang Shuo is a lot smaller than Guilin and is more like a small modernized village than a city. Its all tourism and this is off season so Michelle said it was kinda dead. There were still tons of foreigners and a lot of Chinese people so I cant imagine being here when its packed. Yang Shuo is one of the biggest tourist destinations in China because of its breath taking landscape. Our hostel right in the city center was really sweet for 100UN a night, clean and it had a nice balcony looking over a lake with the mountain background. There are much more foreigners in Yang Shuo and because of this most of the shop owners and restaurant workers can speak some English, so they are always calling you into their shop trying to sell you some shit, which gets annoying fast. All the restaurants have English menus as well and there are tons of western food places as well, which I stay away from because its expensive and I like Chinese food with chop sticks better here.
Nightlife in Yanhg Shuo kinda sucks compared to Guilin, because the clubs are small and its mostly bars. Since its the off season most places werent busy and looked empty, but we managed to find a packed one and chilled for a while playing drinking games. K is bigger than I originally though here in China, and I see people sniffing the shit in the clubs all over the place. It seems as thought the waitress's just ignore it to because I know they see it. We left around 130 to go get some street food before we went to sleep. The next morning we woke up kinda early to go rent scooters and tour around the area. 55UN per scooter with is about 8 bucks for the day, pretty sweet deal. Whipping an electric bike through the area of Yang Shuo had got to be one of the funnest and most beautiful rides Ive ever taken, the landscape is out of this world. Our first stop was a 3000yr old Banyan tree about a 20 min ride from the hostel. Think about this the tree formed 1000 yrs before Christ in 1000BC, thats unreal. The tree was amazing, soo freakin big, the branches grow so enormous that they have to grow support poles that grow back into the ground and hold up the branch. This is an awesome piece of tree engineering. The down shoots will rest right on a rock and grow around it as well, the only tree in the world that does it. This tree is the oldest living thing Ive ever seen I think, if anyone knows otherwise please let me know. A bunch of Chinese girls came up and wanted to take pics with me which was fun, they were students traveling around and they were cute. There are people selling all kinds of street food around the tree as well and I tried some algea cake thing, which had more dough than algea, but whatever it was good. There was also a guy with two diving birds he trained to catch fish and bring them to him. This is popular in China and the birds are Kumarands, dont know if thats spelled right. They tie a string to the birds foot and put a small ring on its neck so it cant swallow the fish it catches. I feel bad for the bird. There was also a guy with three monkeys which he had all dressed up in costume and had chained to a stand thing. Also sad.
After the big Banyan tree we went to Moon Mountain, which has a trail you can hike to get to the top. They have steps most of the way up which must have been back breaking work and must have taken for ever to put in. It takes about an hour to get up to the main area. We had two old ladies follow us up with small coolers filled with drinks. They follow everyone knowing that they can sell drinks to us once at the top because its an exhausting hike. We bought a couple from them. They were soo cute too and wanted us to come back to their village with them and cook us dinner after the hike, we refused though. The second leg of the journey is a small narrow dangerous trail that takes you up to the tippy top of the mountain. The mountain is called Moon Hill because it had a hole in the middle of it so it looks like the moon I guess. We were high as shit when we finally reached the top and its dangerous up there. They dont have fences or chains for protection like they would in the States and you have to be really careful where you step because you could easily fall off and that would be the end of you. This is one of the most amazing views from a mountain Ive ever seen and you cant really get a feel for the terrain of this area in China unless you are in the sky. There are sooo many more of these karst mountains than I imagined, they are everywhere. Like I said before this area was once under water so all these limestone mountains have had all the other softer minerals eroded away and you can see that in the rock, which reminds me of aquarium live rock from back home. When I think about it I was on the top of the only place in the world with this type of terrain or landscape, truly spectacular. After about an hour at the top we headed back down.
On our way back to the down town area we stopped and bought a palmello from a local farmer. These are Michelles favorite fruits she says. They look like a huge 8" tall pear shaped lime or lemon when they are ripe, but taste something like an orange. They are in the citrus family. You have to peal them really good and it takes a min to eat one but they are really good, dont know about the best fruit ever though. For dinner I had duck and ginger along with some other vegetable dishes Michelle ordered. My dish came bones and all and the waitress had to check with me to make sure I knew it, I thought that was funny. I told her I wouldnt take it any other way, lol. I sure did eat the whole thing and suck the head of that little ducky too :) Again Michelle told me I was sick in the head. Before paying another 2 bucks for the bus ride back we picked up another palmello. Bye Yang Shuo, Ill be back again soon!
