Big dog for food-small dog for friends….

We had a four day vacation just last week and we decided to go to Yangshuo and Guilin to see the beautiful mountains and scenery.  It took us 18 hours to get to Guilin on a sleeper bus. The trip there and back was not very fun but the day in a half we had to spend in Yangshuo and Guilin was worth all of it!

  

The title is NOT coincidental! I was talking with a lady who accompanied us to Yangshuo  and she asked if I liked “duck.” I told her yes of course, she looked really shocked that I said yes and I couldn’t understand why! She said most foreigners think its weird that the Chinese like it. I kept thinking in my head this makes no sense and right then one of my friends said to me, “Amber…she said dog…not duck.” What!?!!? Wait wait, people actually DO eat dog in China? I always thought that was a running joke! Then she says to me, “We raise dog until it gets big, then we eat it.” When she saw that I look disgusted she follows up by saying, “Don’t worry, small dog for friends.” So from then on out every time I saw a small dog I thought what a lucky dog he is!!!  That was my favorite quote from the whole vacation! :)

We first went to see the Dr. Seuss Mountains as they are named. We rode on bamboo boats on the famous Li River in China. The sights were breathtaking. I cannot describe in words how beautiful the scenery was. The best word I can think of to describe it is untouched. It was as if it was drawn straight from Gods hands and kept there. I loved being able to close my eyes and feel the wind against my face on the rafts. :) We were on the bamboo rafts for about two hours getting from Guilin to Yangshuo. Once we got there we took a bus into a very small village to get to the city of Yangshuo and explore more there.

 

What a sad sad sight it was to see within that village. The people were very poor. It was probably the poorest city I have ever been to since traveling here. The people lived in shacks, shacks with their roofs caving in. There were people who were probably 80 years old there who were working in the field. It was sad to see them so bent over from so many years of work, one gal was barely above my knee from so many years of being bent over from carrying all the weight on her shoulders.  I have always known that we were lucky in the states to have as much as we do, but how humbling it was to actually see with my own eyes people who work so hard and barely get anything.  It just made me realize why  it is everyone’s dream to come to America. We truly are a beacon of hope to those from other countries. I have so much to say on that subject but for now I will leave it at that.

After seeing the mountains and the village we took a bike through the city to get to the Dragon Cave. I’m going to confirm a fact for all of you, Chinese people really do drive crazy! So add a foreigner and a bike in that equation and it gets interesting! We had a lot of fun biking through the village though. The sights were remarkable. Once we made it to the dragon cave we went on a tour of the cave in a boat! The cave was pretty amazing, a lot of the caves structures resembled dragons and phoenixes, which was pretty perfect seeing as how were in China!! :D After seeing the cave we went back to Guilin and toured around there. We had an amazing meal which I wish I had taken a picture of but it was so yummy! Much better than our cafeteria food that’s for sure! I'll have another update soon on how St. Pattys day went! :) Thank you everyone for your love and support! See ya next time!! 

PS. To see the rest of my pictures from the trip, click here.