Traveler extraordinaire!

I am sure that you have all given up hope that I will write any more entries on my blog (I know that you all just LIVE for my whitty posts! haha) but I am going to surprise the HECK out of you all with this one :D

It has been such an amazing month and a half having my parents & Connor here! I thought I should fill everyone in on what we did!

First, while my parents were here we spent a few days in the incredibly huge city of Beijing. We stayed at this amazing hotel & my folks even treated us to some upgrades including free access to the lounge with happy hour, full breakfast, internet, hang out spots, etc. It was so awesome! We did the typical touristy stuff there - Great Wall (amazing!!), Forbidden Palace & Tiannamen Square, Olympic grounds, Temple of Heaven, trendy shopping districts, peking duck, and so on! There is so much to do and see in Beijing, I don't even think we scratched the surface. I feel that way with a lot of places in China - it's just too big!! We definitely took advantage of the time we had there & enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

The week after Beijing, Connor arrived with bells and whistles on (not really... that flight is deadly... he was so pooched!) I had made this awesome sign saying "Wilbur missed you" (my blow up moose that he gave me) & had the sign strung around his neck. It was perfect! & then I came to the ferry late thinking that he would take longer at customs then he did... anyways, long story short - I didn't get to stand at the waiting area looking like a crazy person with an inflatable moose :(

That weekend we took off to Hong Kong for some sight seeing. It was a fantastic weekend, jam packed with the best tourist sights in HK. Because there were three of us (Hong, Connor & I, my parents stayed in a very nice hotel), the three of us decided to get a room in a hostel than impose on Mr. Rizkalla. We got a room at the Cheung King Mansion. This place is infamous for the many hostels inside one building & they even offer the ever so classy "by the hour" rates. The outside of this place is just lined with guys trying to take you to other hostels to receive a commission. We were like bullseyes for them with our backpacks. Our hostel was ... interesting...lined floor to ceiling in bathroom tiles (everywhere!) I think that it was the most expensive place we have stayed at to date, but one that was not worth the money. I guess that's what you get in HK though - so pricey! We all went up to the Victoria Peak, rode the 360 Gondola up to the giant seated buddha, had Korean BBQ, rode the star ferry, saw the light show of HK Island, whipped through the night market, Cosway Bay bars, Lau Kwei Fung (sp??) street, etc. I always love going to HK.. it was a great weekend!

Back in Macau we took Helen & Virginia out for some Hot Pot, had a little birthday dinner for me at a Sushi restaurant & had some RNR. &... there was a little teaching in between all of these events. haha... that's what I'm here for - right?

My folks left in the morning of May 14th :( & headed back to Canada. The next day, Connor & I took off on an adventure to hopefully land in Guilin for the weekend. Flights are sometimes tricky to book here as many websites & airline companies will not accept foreign credit cards unless in person at the airport. We wanted to fly out of Guangzhou (which is about 3 hrs drive north of Macau, inside of China) so we had to just show up at the airport hoping to purchase a ticket! We had decided beforehand that even if we couldn't go, that we would still have a fabulous time in Guangzhou. (not the most exciting place in China to say the least). Connor's wonderful investigating skills managed to get us to the Guangzhou airport in the nick of time (after 1 hour waiting at the border in Macau/Zhuhai, a 3 hour bus ride from Zhuhai - Guangzhou, and a one hour cab ride to the airport!!). We purchased tickets about 45 min before the plane took off & headed to security, only to be harassed (for their own amusement we were presuming). The lovely security officials ransacked Connor's bag, only to find books & clothing, confiscated my hand sanitizer while scolding me & then mocking my response to each other, and pretty much just wasted our time. It was brutal. Anyways... that experience was not going to spoil our excitement over actually making it onto the flight!! Got to the gate & it was empty except for this one gentleman & another guy. This one guy just clung to us like static & wanted to be our new best friend. For the next journey to the plane & then from Guilin airport onto the shuttle bus - this guy creeped the crap out of Connor & I. I'm sure he was just trying to be nice.... but you don't ask strangers to rent a room with you & then proceed to ramble on about how foreigners never trust Chinese people & that we should trust him. It was just a very strange experience!

We didn't stay in Guilin for very long as we wanted to hop onto a Li River cruise ASAP & get to Yangshuo. Stayed in a very run down, eery hostel that night in Guilin & got up bright & early the next morning to get on a ferry! We didn't exactly know that you had to go to a travel agent, book a ticket beforehand & then go to the piers, so the taxi driver (very sweet lady) was so confused when she was asking if we had tickets in Chinese & we were producing absolutely nothing. She even called a friend of hers to try & speak some English to us!! So, in the end she took us to a travel agent, booked something very last minute & basically ran to catch the bus & then onto a boat. Connor was stoked to experience the Chinese tour.. it wasn't that bad, but didn't start out good! ha We apparently didn't get the 'upgrade' that everyone else on our bus did, so we got dropped off separately first. When we got to our seats, I was placed beside a lady that took up her seat & half of mine. We tried to escape outside, but these camera guys kept yelling at everyone to go back inside (we're assuming) & not to come out onto the decks (the boats were much like house boats). At this moment we were thinking it was going to be a long day. Luckily!!! We were actually aloud outside later on, had such a wonderful afternoon meeting folks that were on a business trip, drinking beers, having some lunch & getting friend by the sun :) The scenery was gorgeous & the friends that we met were great.

In Yangshuo we met some folks right away & found a nice little hostel to stay in. We were right smack in the middle of all the action, which was lovely in the day time but very loud in the evening. Thank you earplugs!! There was so much to see & do in Yangshuo, but the absolute highlight was when we rented some bikes & biked around the country side for a few hours. Wow... what an amazing day! Guilin and Yangshuo are quite popular with tourists, so with that comes a lot of hackers & pretty much everyone just trying to make an extra buck. Although it was exhausting arguing for every dollar, as they saw us & immediately thought they could rip us off, it was such a beautiful trip! This is definitely one of the must see areas of China. Our last day was spent inside the Guilin airport & exploring around it (even to the very empty airport hotel & surrounding) as we had to ensure that we were going to be able to catch flights to our respective cities. I was heading back to Macau & Connor was continuing on to Chengdu (in the Sichuan province). We spent the day researching Connor's next destination, eating food, playing some crib & catching some rays! ... oh and did I mention that we did this for about 8 hours?? We made the best of it however & ended up having a really great day.

It's about 2:20am here... so I think I will try to get some sleep tonight & continue on tomorrow :) Goodnight!