Funny enough I have absolutely no idea what the date
is today - I had to really think about it to figure
out it is Sunday. What a whirlwind. On my last post
I had mentioned that we were going to take the Li
River cruise from Guilin part of the way to Yangshou
but that our guide had been notified by government
officials that our group was some sort of special
group because, as it turns out we are teh 5millionth
visitor to Yangshou. I guess it is a bit of a big
deal. They (not sure who) chose someone from our
group to represent us and that was Jeff.
None of us were quite sure what all this involved but
it ended up being quite the big deal. Our bus arrives
at the small port of the Li river and there must have
been 20 boats (ferry like with 3 decks) lined up and
there was this group of official people kind of
waiting around we think for us - yet how do they know
(I guess we are really the only group of Caucaisians
carrying Asian babies around so how could we be
missed?). We get on the boat and it is quite cool,
the scenery is absolutely breathtaking (am loading
pics to snapfish right now)=it is truly impossible to
take a bad picture here.
We all have lunch (Chloe ate strings of seaweed like
it was french fries - she also tried shrimp withthe
heads on and some crabs - real small crabs, pinchers
still on and you eat the whole thing quite crunchy -
also had some soup that we all think was tripe just
not sure what kind of tripe - it was good though).
After lunch they hand out these little envelopes to
everyone which contained a lottery ticket along with
an small ornanament type of gift and then they
announced the winner of the 5millionth visitor lottery
or something and lo and behold it was our group of
which Jeff was the representative along with another
man of Asian descent. I really am not sure how all of
this worked as I was upstairs alot of the time. Jeff
and the other man ended up with a gold sash that
stated 5 millionth visitor and was congratulated by
all of the officials and such.
So life goes on and we are all hanging out on the
upper deck so that we can watch the boat pull back
into port when this woman comes running up the stairs
hollering for Jeff and that he must come down and get
off the boat before everyone else. So he is whisked
down the steps and off the boat and there is band
waiting on the shore with all of these people dressed
in full costume - the dragons from the lion dance were
on each side - we were all laughing so hard it was
hilarious!
Jeff then gets whisked away in a limo with the mayor
while his wife and new baby are left to hang out with
us.
We were supposed to go to an elaborate show on the
bank of the LI River that night but were all invited
to this banquet at our hotel courtesy of the officials
so we had to skip the show and do the dinner. Before
the dinner they took us to this park where you take a
small boat around - rock formations and Asian people
put on a show on the small hills that surround this
little lake as you boat goes by. They supposedly live
in these little hills and this is how they make their
money. We get on the boat and start off and what do
you know here comes Jeff floating by us in the other
direction in another boat - him and all the officials.
Hilarious - by this time we hadn't seen him for about
an hour!
We get done with the boat ride and there is this
fairly elaborate lion dance show with about 5-7 guys
running the lion (similar to what we see on Chinese
New Year but "more") - all in honor of the 5 millionth
visitors to Yangshou. Then the news station and tv
station were filming and recording all of this (XiXI
is going to try to get us copies).
Jeff was finally allowed to leave and we all went to
our hotel checked in. We went to meet the officials
around 6 in a special reserved area of the hotel for
dinner and the food was quite good and plentiful
though much of it, we don't know what it was. They
served rice wine and toasted many times. The person
making the toast must down their drink while all
others can sip (tradition). We were told by our guide
that since we were "new" mothers that we could
probably go by most of the guys must stay and drink
with officials.
I guess the party went on for quite some time - it was
all quite hiliarious and I'm sure Jeff and Kathleen
will have quite the story to tell Macy when she grows
up!
We arrived in Guangzhou this afternoon - mom and I
both swore that we are going to be dumping stuff
before we go to HK. Our Luggage is absolutely
ridiculous and pissing us both off.
I bought Chinese dresses for CHloe and Gigi today so
am hoping to get some good holiday pics.
Tomorrow I think Gi and I go get her medical done and
the visa business. Tuesday nothing and Wed is the
swearing in ceremony at the US consulate - then we are
done and head to HK on Thursday morning.
We ate at the Cow and Bridge restaraunt for lunch and
it was fabulous. Tonight we headed to Lucys and had a
great meal (ps to Kel - this is where we would go and
sit outside to have those cucumber thingies and a beer
- just didn't know it was Lucys). Things have changed
so much here on Shaiman island since 2000. There are
2 Starbucks - one is right by the Victory - not sure
about the other one. Lucys seems much bigger with a
much larger AMerican style menu than I remember and I
seem to be able to get a very wide variety of
vegetables everywhere. When I came the first time,
veggies were hard to find anywhere.
We bought Gige some squeaky shoes today and she is
running all over the place - it is hilarious. She also
does this thing when she gets mad or if she falls down
and bumps her head or something - she will start to
cry and then just not be able to take a breath - she
does not breathe for what seems like the longest time
and it scares the crap out of me everytime she does it
(3 times now)! This one is really going to keep me on
my toes - she gets into absolutely everything.
Ciao for now - I will let you know when I load the
pics to snapfish as that is apparently the only way I
can get pics up.
K
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