Alan and I woke up at 6:30am to go for our morning run. As you can tell, I am becoming a bit determined to lose some weight. We ran along the river and tried to check out the elephant trunk hill, but we had to pay 25RMB for it and neither of us had money. We figured our boat ride down the Li River to yangshou must pass it. After our run, I realized I miscalculated the time a bit, so we had time for stretching.
Alan being a fantastic runner never stretches, thus not very flexible. We got into a discussion whether stretching is necessary if you don't get soreness on your muscles. I tried to explain flexibility is important when you are aging so you don't get injured as much. I explained the rubber band and elasticity to him and how eventually it snaps. He still didn't believe me, so when we went back I asked steph. Steph also said its for soreness and if you are not sore there's no really dire need to stretch, especially since boys in general are less flexible. So we googled it. One benefit to stretching is to prevent injury. One point for me.
We quickly showered, changed and packed our bags for our motor boat ride. Because there was four of us, we hired our own private boat to yangshou. To our disbelief, the boat was pretty small and our luggage was pretty big. We had four 75 liter backpacks and 4 small carry packs. The boat couldn't fit one of our big packs in the front storage space, so we had to put in alan's. We squeezed our butts into the boat and stacked our luggage. Off we went.
The ride was pleasant. Very scenic and enjoyable. The mountain formations continue to amaze me. We saw the elephant trunk hill, which is a giant rock formation with a hole through it making it look like an outline of an elephant. We also saw water buffalos and cows grazing.
I am also loving how the chinese use the river - fishing in it on their bamboo rafts, washing clothes, swimming for exercise, cleaning the river, and diving for crabs (maybe?). The chinese are also very creative in naming their land formations. There's elephants, tigers, turtles, camels, apples...use your imagination and you can see them too.
Also, despite all that is going on in the financial world, this shows life goes on. People are still living their normal life not being effected by the situation. Maybe they're naïve, uneducated, or even ignorant, but I find some comfort to see there can still be peace and normality in this chaotic world. So with this trip, I'll try to stay abreast on the situation back at home, but will try to live the normal traveler's life too...which I have to say we have been doing really well so far.
After 3.5 hours of motor boat cruising, we reached yangshou. It was really hot, and we forgot to call in advance for the taxi to pick us up. So, we had to wait 20 mins for it and walk a decent way before reaching the taxi. By now, we all looked like we took a shower. Yes, we were that sweaty.
We are staying two nights by the mountain and one in the city center. When we arrived to our hotel - snow lion - it wasn't so impressive at first. But once we got to our room we were rather impressed. It's the nicest hotel we stayed at in china. Nice, clean, and comfy with ac and a view of the mountains...the extra bonus was that it only costs 368RMB ($54) for the triple per night. We are happy.
We ate lunch here and it was delicious. It's easy to get lost here by the mountains given there aren't that many hotel residents here. They've just opened in 2006 and it isn't in the center of town.
Afterwards, we were all a bit lazy. Erik, steph and I took a cat nap, while alan was on the internet. We figured we would rest up before the Liu Sanjie light show by the lake.
The show was pretty awesome, but erik didn't think so. They weren't in sync like you would expect to see in a broadway show. Nevertheless, I thought it was pretty impressive with the amount of performers and the beautiful lights. It was outdoors at 8pm and the backdrop was the mountains, which looked fake since it was so picturesque. The story was about a village girl Liu Sanjie who had a beautiful voice and married a fisherman. I didn't really get any of the plot, but was still able to enjoyed it a lot.
Alan got especially excited when the performers were doing a bathing dance and removed their clothing. Disappointing he found out it was a nude leotard.
The show was directed by Zhang Yimuo, the same director of the ceremonies in the olympics and the movie hero. So you could imagine what a production it was. There were ~500 people making the show happening with 2,500 audience seats. Performances are 1 to 2 times a day costing 188RMB ($28) per ticket. Well worth it to me.
We went to the sister hotel of snow mountain to have dinner. Steph's greek wrap came out quickly, alan and my chinese came second, and erik's chicken cordon bleu came our after we were all done eating. Our food was delicious.
After yummy in our tummies, we decided to call it an early night so we can be well rested for our run tomorrow.
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