Today we took a tourist boat and went on a four hour cruise down the Lijiang River. This river travels 83 kilometres exactly like a jade ribbon winding among thousands of peaks, hills, cliffs and waterfalls (description from our local guide). The local people describe the river as, "One hundred miles Lijiang River, one hundred miles art gallery." Many Chinese poems have been written about the beautiful scenery of the river.
Joseph meant a boy, Daniel on the boat trip. He is also 10 years old and lives in Malaysia. He spoke perfect English. He says that they must master three languages: Chinese, English and their native language. They became instant friends and were together most of the cruise. Daniel never heard of football and in Malaysia they do not play baseball. He plays ping-pong has his sport. It was cute when Daniel asked Joseph, "One thing I always wanted to know about America is does it hurt to be hit by a snowball?" They exchanged e-mail addresses and want to keep in touch. It is funny how two boys who live half a world apart could develop a friendship almost immediately.
We had lunch on the cruise and the feature wine was snake wine. The bottle had a very large snake in it. The Chinese love to eat food such as snake, rats and octopus. We were very glad to see they had french fries as well. After the cruise, we went to a town call YangShuo which is a large marketplace for whatever you want to buy. Joseph is the main attraction for the local people. They take pictures of him and like to touch his face. They call him American boy. They try to figure our family structure. They come up to the babies and cover them up. Many times they touch Angelina's feet because they want me to put shoes on her feet. The Chinese children are so bundled up they look like they should be living in Alaska. They are very nice people and smile and gather around us all they time. We feel like celebrities.
Several of our group went to get foot massages later that day. They are very popular in China. It was wonderful. Joe is going tomorrow with the rest of the group for his massage. After climbing the Great Wall, we all were very sore.
We are enjoying our stay. Angelina smiles all the time. She is definitely part of our family now. She rocks her head side to side when we sing to her. Our guides also sing everyday to the babies. She is having a hard time adjusting at night. She is up many times during the night. Our rooms have little wooded boxes that they have to sleep in. Since Angelina can walk, she gets out of this bed and starts to cry for us. We end up holding her most of the nights. In a couple of days we leave for Guangzhou, I hope they have cribs.
Thanks for all of the e-mails we are receiving. It's good to hear from you being so far away from home.
November 26 --
Hi Everyone,
We went to the Seven Star Park today. It was great seeing the panda bear up-close. Several people in our group actually sat on the tiger. It was pretty scary and the door to the tiger’s area was open. We keep feeling that he was going to get out. Thankfully, everyone who sat on him to get a picture taken left in one piece. In the afternoon, Joe went for his foot massage which he surprised enjoyed.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Guangxi and leave for Guangzhou. It is a short plane ride so now I am packing everything up again to leave.
Good night and we’ll check in again when we arrive in Guangzhou.
