Day 10

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Today we got up and had another fabulous breakfast and got ready for a boat ride down the Lei River. It was absolutely amazing. The mountains just shoot up out of the ground. I have never seen anything like it before. Here are some pictures. 

This is our guide Mark. He was so cool and the best guide we had while in mainland China.

There were tons of boats that went down the river with us. These boats look like the one we were on. 

We ate lunch on the boat and the kitchens were on the back of the boat. This is the kitchen of the boat in front of us. It was really cool to watch and the food was great!

This is the beauty and wonder that we saw along the river. 

Not only were the mountains beautiful but the river as well. 

It was so beautiful!

I wish the sky was a little clearer. Although they got rid of all the polluting factories in Guilin, the air is still pretty hazy. 

This was a natural waterfall that we saw along the side of the river. The beauty just never ceased!

There were these little villages all along the river. They were pretty neat.

These are the boats that the locals use. They are just pieces of bamboo tied together. It's amazing they can stay on them!

So they would come and attach themselves to our boats with a big metal hook. Then they would take out souvenirs from their bags and try to sell them to all us foreigners. It was pretty cool to watch, but we didn't buy anything. 

This is a picture of all of us on the boat. It really was a fun boat ride and it's amazing the beauty that the Lord has created!

When we finally got to the end of the boat ride there were these Chinese men with their fishing birds on these polls. The birds necks are tied so they can't swallow big fish, then they let the birds go out and fish and bring back the fish that they catch to the fishermen. The birds get fed though, don't worry. Anyway, so they have these birds and they let you take pictures with them if you pay them. So I took a picture from the boat, but as I was getting off, a different fisherman saw me taking pictures so  he asked me for money, I didn't have any on me so I deleted the picture that I took of that fisherman and showed him so he would leave me alone. It was pretty funny. 

This is the name of the little town that we ended our boat cruise. 

Of coarse we had to walk through shops that were catered to tourists but it was fun. I love looking at everything. I got some sun glasses, and a scroll with a beautiful paining on it, and my mom got a bunch of Chinese lanterns. It was fun. Then we went back to Guilin and went to dinner. After dinner we went to an acrobatics show. It was amazing! There were so many different acts that were just incredible. I wish I could have video tapped it but they wouldn't let you so I took some pictures afterwards of some of the performers. 

I'm so glad we went, it was so fun and truly amazing. After the show we went back to the hotel. I had to stay up late to video conference a class. The connection was horrible but I got the gist off things. After the class was over, I was talking to some of my friends and my Professor and I was laughing pretty hard at some of the things that were being said, and even though I was trying to be quiet, I woke up my parents. I felt bad about being noisy, so I got off and went to bed.