China, China, China (Part 3)

After our great day on the Li River, we were convinced by the people at our hotel that we should go see the light show on the river.  We really did not know anything about it, but they said it was one the most popular things in the area.  So we headed out to the show.  Here is the entrance.

We were rather shocked to find out that we had second row seats in a 3,000 seated outdoor stadium.  Here is a shot of the stadium as we waited for everyone to get seated. There were also very few Westerners there.

The stadium faced a huge lake that was surrounded by mountain peaks.  It really was beautiful.  As the sun set, the entertainment started.  We really did not understand most of it, but there was over 600 people performing.  There was lots of singing by girls in stunning outfits.

There were also men floating on boats, doing amazing things.

More singers.

There was so much going on that you really couldn't take it all in.

The end of the show was really neat as it was pitch dark and all the performers came out with lights on their costumes.

What we found out afterwards was that the whole show was designed by the same man, Zhang Yimou, who did the opening and closing shows for the Beijing Olympics!  Most of the 600 performers were from the surrounding area, many of which were farmers.

The next morning we rented some bikes and took a ride through the countryside.

They were just starting to plant the rice fields.

We saw a number of farmers working the fields.

Here is Rebecca with great scenery behind her.

Here I am.  This photo was taken with one of Rebecca's cool IPhone apps.

We kept stopping to take in the view.

We road through a village and the doors were all decorated.  I like this one with the rabbits.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed this Discovery vehicle on the side of the road.  Don't know what they were doing in the area but probably taking in the landscape.

After our great bike ride, we took a cooking class in Yangshuo.  We were driven to a local market where we met our chef.  We started out with some of the pond life.  Some eels anyone?  There are also frogs in the bags!

 

Snails?

Here is a video in the market.

We walked around and talked about all the vegetables on the tables.  Here is some lettuce and the chef was telling us that they cook a lot with the stem (which most of us never see in the store).

 

This looked like a weed of some sort.

This is some type of radish.

Lots of chilies.

Look at this enormous melon!

 Some dead ducks and sausage anyone?
 

We saw bags and bags of noodles.

You could also buy cooked food.

 

Besides the dogs and cats we say hanging in the butcher area (yes...dogs and cats), we also saw live chickens, bunnies, and geese for your dinner plate.

We also saw lots of eggs.  The ones that are blue are their "1,000 year old egg" which is actually pickled and black on the inside.

Here is some pickled bamboo.  This is what bamboo looks like on the inside.  Very interesting.

After the market, we walked over to the cooking school.  It has a few cooking rooms overlooking the river.
 

 A beautiful setting.

We suited up and cooked for a few hours.  Here is Rebecca ready to get going.

 

We had a very small class and learned how to cook many different things like egg dumplings.  Here we are prepping.  Look at the size of our knives!

 

One of the father's in the class took photos of everyone to make sure we captured the event.

Making egg dumplings which was very easy.

Showing off our skills.

A demo from the chef.

Afterwards, we got to enjoy our work.   It was all really good.

Of course, afterwards, we were exhausted.....so we had to sit down and relax with a few drinks.

It was a fantastic day!  More to follow...

China, China, China (Part 2)

From Shanghai, we headed out on our next adventure to Guilin.  When we arrived at the airport, we found these great little carts for hand luggage.

This was the signage on the back of the cart.

Um...I think you mean for luggage only!  We found throughout our trip in China that English was spelled wrong, in the wrong order, or had the wrong meaning.  It was rather funny.  More photos to follow about that later.

We landed in Guilin where a car from our hotel picked us up to drive to Yangshuo, which is about an hour from Guilin.  The whole point of our trip to this region was to see the karst peaks made out of limestone.
Here is a video of our car ride.

We arrived at night and in the morning we woke to a beautiful view. Note: all the photos can be enlarged by double clicking on them.

Our cute balcony.

And the view from our room.

I was jumping at the bit to get outside.....but Rebecca was still a little jet lagged! :)  Yes, she is wearing sunglasses in bed.

After getting up, we could check out the great place we were staying in.  Here is the front of our hotel.

It had a great courtyard where we ate breakfast in the morning.

After getting ourselves situated, we rented a taxi to take us to the Li River for a boat ride.  The peaks were everywhere and they say there are over 70,000 of them in the area.

When we arrived at the Li River, it was absolutely beautiful.

We rented a boat for about £18 with our own private captain.  You can spot the fact that the entire base of the boat is made out of PVC piping! 

 

Here is our captain getting us out of the small marina.

We were then on our way!  The boat had a small motor off the back that was surprisingly fast.

The views were great.

There were many other boats on the river and everyone waved at us as we sailed by.

Our captain docked so we could take a photo.  He picked this spot and took the photo.

We then got back on the water.

We passed some water buffalo who were playing around in the water.

Me taking in the view!

Our captain on his mobile phone.

We stopped off on a rocky out cove to get some more photos.  Besides the PVC piping boats, there were also a few large boats and it was surprising to see they did not bottom out.

We also saw people getting their wedding photos.

A video of the scenery.

After our boat ride, we walked around the small town that was near the river.  We spotted this sign that was on the road (which no one would ever read) that asked us not to ride the raft boats as they were illegal!  They were deemed unsafe for riders.  Oops!

Overall, it was a lovely day on the river.  More to follow.