Green Lotus Hotel Guilin

... he did so from the back of a giant elephant. The dedicated elephant worked himself sick. The Emperor of Heaven deserted him, and the local farmers nursed the sickly elephant back to health. The elephant being extremely grateful, decided to desert the emperor and stay on earth to help the farmers plow their fields during a time of drought. The Emperor of Heaven was so angry that his elephant had deserted ...

... warm hearted. The trip has been amazing so far and it just blows my mind to think how many people are in China. The things I have seen are amazing and I cant wait to see more. I’m looking foreword to learning more about the Chinese government and about Mao. It is all very interesting! Well now that I’m done for now I think I’m going to go get an 80 cent bowl of noodles! Later!

... by nature and beautiful
hills.... was great. and very relaxing.
lunch with Ping - the food wasn't very much, but nice to be in a local home.
The (real) water cave: huge cave(few hundred meters long and also high), a lighted path gives you the opportunity to go by yourself. You enter the cave with a boat, it has stalactites (not so nice), the highlights are: a mud pool and small pools of hot springs.
The transportation was by scooters. Eyal drove ...

... usually allow me to take a shot without anyone being aware of it.

On this day, I was up by 6:30, ready for exploration, but the lobby was locked and filled with rental bicycles and motor scooters. Rain was pouring down outside, but I didn't want to let that ruin my vacation, so when the owner opened the doors, I ran outside and headed for West Street. By that time, it was only sprinkling, so I left my umbrella behind, and went for my morning ...

So we arrived safely in China. It feels very different to anywhere else we have been and you definately feel like a foreigner. Sign language has to come out straight away, there is no so much English spoken and our attempts at Chinese illicit blank looks from people....! They have red double decker buses though, maybe Boris could ...

... funny. Then I would turn around go back and pay my offering price. One place we had to leave twice to get the price I wanted. The first time we used that strategy, my teachers said, "you are better than us with this bargaining." The key is to walk away. They are much more aggressive than in Progresso. They will literally follow you down the street.

Oh, and to anyone who gets one of these gifts – don't ...

... to capture on camera the awesome spectacle that we witnessed. The balloon ride was for roughly an hour. We followed a small river and eventually began to lose altitude and landed in a rice field out in the middle of the countryside. A bus arrived a short distance from our balloon to pick us up. Check out the pictures I posted above, but like I said: There is really no way to actually capture the true beauty of the experience. So far Yangshuo has been a blast!

... of the bridge with twin babies. I gave them each a "Hello Kitty" band-aid. We stopped for a bit at the Ancient South Gate and took a couple of pictures. We were not allowed to cross the Rongxi bridge, it belongs to a five star hotel. So, we carried on to Lize Lake and then the largest lake, Baoxian Lake. At the end of this lake we turned up the street and walked by a Church. There were lots of old people exercising in groups or on their own. We also saw a ...

... in learning about Western culture, and the other day he asked us what happens in a Western "night club." For him a "night club" is a place where "bad things happen." And yet, China has, for a generation now, operated under a one child policy. Frank's generation is one without siblings. There is one child "family planning" propaganda everywhere, including large posters that literally translate to "One Child is Good." Frank wishes he ...

... visited every single corner trying to simply get to where we wanted to. It didnt matter though, because we had Kathryn (our supervisor) with us, and that is the only person you have to arrive before. The park grounds surround a university. There was a lot to see. We started by following a group into another cave, after the first group had shut us out completely. The walls were covered with photos of different leaders, and we had a hard ...