Thank you Hong Kong and you're internet access!!!

Hey all,

So blog has equaled massive fail as this is the first time I've been able to access my blog since the first week I got got to China. Ooops. Also, if I had realized it was going to take so long to upload pictures, I probably would have uploaded far more interesting photos than the ones on my blog right now. I think I'll try to put up a couple pics tomorrow. We'll see.

So I am in Hong Kong right now so this is the first time I've been able to access my blog and facebook because the chinese internet restrictions don't apply here. On that note, I would like to thank everyone for the facebook birthday wishes! I really appreciate it as I did spend my birthday by myself and was missing all of you. Still a good day, but not the type of birthday I'm really used to.

So here is a quick rundown of the places I have been so far.....

Shanghai
Nanjing
Hangzhou
Huangshan (Yellow Mountain)
Tunxi country villages
Wuyuan country villages
Wenzhou country villages (all of these villages are historic but are also filled with people still living a rural life out in the countryside. Which was weird because there were tour groups going through their quaint hometowns and now all of their halls and temples are filled with souvenier shops. Kind of sad really.)
Xiamen/Gulang Yu Island
Yongding (to see the Tulou roundhouses)
Guilin (hiked through the rice terraces)
Yongshou
and this morning, I finally arrived in Hong Kong.

Today has been a bit of a rough day. Let's go back a bit to put some things into perspective.....
So I was recently in Yongshou over the weekend, which was an amazingly active weekend and the town itself really is beautiful and very western friendly. On Sunday, we (Peter and myself) biked down to the water/mud caves, where you get a tour of the caves and then get to go swimming in a big mud pit and can then go to the hot springs to wash off. However, when we got to the caves, we all had to wait for the guides to eat lunch before anyone would take us through the caves and the electricity went out for about 20 minutes while we were in there, so the entire process took much longer than we expected. So afterwards, we had to bike back fast and grab some food quickly cause we had booked tickets for an outdoor show on the Li River, so no time to shower. The show was really amazing though. It was choreographed by the same guy who choreographed the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics.
So the next day, we got up and rented bikes again. We biked to the farmer's market, where we saw all of the animals for sale for eating, including already dead and skinned dogs. It was pretty bizarre. Then we biked to an old bridge a ways out of town and biked back through the countryside. This ended up being a far more challenging excursion than imagined as we were biking through mud pits and narrow paths with drop offs into rice patties. Very fun, but again very dirty.
After this, I caught my 12 hr overnight bus down to Hong Kong which was a horribly unpleasant experience. First off, I was too tall and couldn't straighten my legs (which were already pretty sore from all the biking), but the worst part was that I assumed we would be driving on pretty smooth highway, but of course not, cause it's China. So every few minutes we would hit bumps so large that i was literally thrown up off my bed where I was not even touching the mattress and this lasted all night. Also, around 4:30 in the morning we started arriving at different destinations so they would turn on all the lights and start yelling in mandarin every 20 minutes or so until we finally got to Hong Kong at 7am. I suppose it was worth it to save a few hundred yuan, but barely.
However, I did get to Hong Kong in one piece and it's very warm and nice here. I got a room and had the most magnificent shower, finally getting to wash off all the mud and sweat from the bike ride the day before. Throughout all of these experiences though, I have met some wonderful people from all over the world and have some friends to hang out with here in Hong Kong. I'm really glad that so many people are able to speak English (both Chinese and other travelers) or I would not have many friends. Really makes me feel inadequate.
So that's a quick run down of the last few days. It's been great and I would highly recommend Yongshou and Yellow Mountain to anyone interested in visiting China, but I think I have even more beautiful destinations yet to go. There is much more to tell, but I'll give some more thoughts on here before I head back into the China mainland abyss.

Much Love!