Hotel Of Modern Art - Homa Guilin

... either. But let me make this abundantly clear - say no to tour groups. And for that matter, say no to school field trips and say no to Disneyland. Waiting on a bus for strangers, following a flag-wielding tyrant in a sea of tour guides, and being dragged to a Chinese infomercial-style knife demonstration is not a great way to spend your holiday. To make matters worse, the first week of October is one of the busiest times ...

... of all, learned some Chinese! <br><br>She and her sister gave us the words for Hello (ni hao), Goodbye (zai-jian), Please (qing), and Thank You (xie xie). Manners first of course! Then on to the more important stuff... We learned how to say chicken, duck, goose, rice and noodles. Also 'Not Too Spicy'! We also learned how to count in Chinese and how to say 'Cheap Hotel'. Ha Ha we have our priorities right! She wrote all these words in Chinese for us aswell so we ...

... from the nearby food stalls by mean of frantic pointing and nodding and even managed to secured some in coach entertainment by means of some crayons and oil pastels. Getting on the bus we handed water and tinned congee (we're still not sure what it is..) and set off for the 4hour drive to the border...<br><br>...as we descended from the bus at the border, we were given badges with our coach company on it and left to climb ...

... in the distance. Oh yes the sky got dark and so did the night. I was just about into 3-hour of my short walk now. I was getting more than a little tired. But up head the streetlights gave me hope, I could even see some new skyscrapers. All of a sudden the little mud road I was walking on turned into a grand wide roadway with new buildings. I could even see a taxi in the distance, I have been saved. As I walked towards the taxi I ...

... no clearly marked path <br>-meet up with local Yao ladies hiking through hills that lead us to Zhongliu village <br> -we go, we go, lunchy lunchy, mi fen, mi fen, c'est bon, c'est bon montra <br>-sketchy lunch at yao ladies house in Zhungliu <br> -she picked weeds and flowers that cooked up really good along with tarot and rice, was really good. we passed on the meat.. see pic <br>-on towards dazhai trying to find our way <br>-amazing scenery through here.. so many pics

... between a Peruvian's pronunciation of "dog" and "duck" ended up being duck instead. To make a long story short, it wasn't terrible but wasn't my favorite, having a texture fairly similar to lamb. It's probably a good thing I didn't fall in love with the flavor though, as I can see myself scaring people to death in the U.S. if I responded dog was my favorite food! Another highlight of the past month was going to Hong Kong again ...

... was different......aside from the usual meats there was the delicous option of dog, two dogs...well actually one and a half, its a bit surreal to see that especially when they still look like they are running!....deciding not to grab myself a leg of dog i did the cooking course in the stunning karsk surroundings and was amazed to find how simple and delicous it was to make (like the thai food). with a full stomach and a complete opinion reversal of China i moved onto Kunming!

... in Chinese! Luckily this really didn't matter as we could still enjoy the spectacle of Zhang Yimou's wonderful direction. Mike and I managed to stay awake until the Aussies finally came out, 3rd to last before China, but by that stage it was almost midnight and the kids were asleep. We couldn't believe how appalling the Australian uniforms looked - we had to wonder who on earth designed them. It was quite ...

... 10 hours ahead, so 7 p.m. PST is 10 a.m. the next morning for us... If you need to mail us anything, you can still send it to us at school: Postal Code number: 425400 Jiangyong Yi Zhong - No.1 Middle School of Jiangyong, Jiangyong County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) Put our Foreign Affair Officer Zoe's phone number on anything you send: 1363.8414.900 Bye for now and hope you're having a great summer so far!

... reading that didn't grow up in the outskirts of San Francisco, Pier 39 is known to "locals" as the ultimate tourist trap. We visited Moon Hill yesterday. When I went in 1990- I don't think they even charged us to go up the "hill" . I remember climbing up and as we went a very elderly gentlemen greet us about half way. He was sitting there with drinks and asked if we'd like one. I think we declined but he told us to enjoy our climb ...