China, Day One- Guilin

I'm finally posting things on our blog. So much has happened I can't even begin to start, but I gotta start somewhere. I picked China since I have the pics on this computer and the memories are pretty fresh in my mind. So China was Awesome! I'm not going to do all the pics in one day cause shoot! We were gone for two weeks so it would take hours. Plus blogger is being sweet and I have to load the pics one at a time. Anyways to get started. My generous in laws took all of their chitlins on their 30th anniversary trip. Sweet eh! So for two weeks we explored China. We left August 7th from LAX. We flew to Canada and then took off for our 12 hour flight to Shanghai. We landed in Shanghai at 2pm on Sat and jumped on another 2 1/2 hour flight to Guilin. We got to Guilin around 930pm Saturday and by then we were pooped! We were so excited to jump into our nice soft beds. Now that's a joke! We jumped onto our bed face first, arms straight out to land upon a nice hard box spring. Yup, they sleep on box springs with a thin pad. It took some getting used to but either way, soft bed or not, we were just so happy to be able to sleep. The plane from Canada to China was awesome though. We watched movies the whole time so the trip went quick. After a nice nights sleep we got on our tour bus and headed for our LiRiver cruise. The cruise took us through a beautiful area of the river. They say the most scenic part of china. An area of the cruise that we passed is on one of their bills. We ate a traditional meal with meats in sauces that even if I could guess what meat it was I would probably be wrong but still was pretty good. They finish all their meals with watermelon so that was the yummiest part. We got off at Yangshuo where we enjoyed shopping all the little markets. IT WAS AWESOME!!! I got a purse, a panting and Drew got a watch that was a Rolex'. A Rolex that every night would stop working and he'd have to reset the time. haha Quality! We dabbled in there 'milkshakes' which consisted of warm milk and fruit. Not cold at all. We then ate pizza from a different cafe and were so thankful for western food. After shopping and what not we headed back to the bus. We walked the streets of Guilin at night for a little then headed back to our hotel. We got up and ate from a little market down the road. We ate bread alot because thats what we knew. The people there eat noodles alot or they'll eat this dumplings with stuff in them. They have vendors all over the street selling this. After breakfast, we headed to the airport to get onto our plan to xi'an. Stay tuned for day 5 of our trip... now to explain our pics. They are completely backwards. The cruise is at the end and the end is at the beginning. In this pic we were done shopping and waiting at one of the nicer hotels in yangshuo. Can I just say, China is so flippin hot! you literally sweat none stop all day! Guilin was probably the hottest city we were in though. In the pic from left to right.. Logan (Drews bro) blue shirt Sadie (Logans Gf) Megan (Drews sister) Me Drew Dad W Mom W

A frequent occurrence on the streets. People carrying all sorts of things
Mid shopping...
The crazy shops their. The people will follow you begging you to bargain with them. I got a burberry purse for 12 bucks! Ya probably a fake but who would know?!
on the LiRiver cruise. So stunning!

Wild bison in the water just drinking
Love the dramatic land scape of the mountains
on the cruise excited to get underway
more of what we saw
my hunka hunka burnin love! ;)
you see these little guys all over the place. They tie bamboo together and sell their product to the cruise ships
us on the lower level
Heading out