My Week 8

  Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang, China
Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Things have slowed down a bit.  Life is back to normal.  Lots of Chinese tourist still be nothing like last week. These mostly come for the day.  The weather has been great.  I am thinking about taking a side trip or two with some friends.  Time will tell.

Did lots but sorry did not have the time to get online to update. 

 It has been an interesting week. Each evening I meet with a group of people at 5pm in the park by the river and we have open discussion.  Some times there is only 3 or 4 and other times as many as 30.  It is great fun.  They call me teacher and I call them my students.  As always with English language classes here one of of 15 is a boy.  These students come from all over China to spend a week to 6 months to learn English and meet foreigners.  So we chat each evening.  Sometimes other "foreigners" join us.

  Took the bus to Guilin.  It was exciting for only about $2.00 you get a two hour bus ride and thrill ride combined.  Two lane traffic and they used the lane with the least traffic.  Did not matter it was towards on coming traffic.

One of the reasons for the trip was that it was my friend Marina's birthday party.  She had it in a little club call the "shire", yes all set up like the "Lord of the Rings".  We had a great time.  I am sorry my "toy" camera does not work well inside at night.  We had 4 different guitarists playing.  Two from china, one from the UK and one from South Africa.  They had a great time jamming.  The music was great.   Then we did the traditional (western traditional) birthday cake.

The other reason I went was to find a camera.  As usually everything in China is more expensive then in the states.  I got a camera similar to the one I broke but with a lot less features for about what I paid for mine last year.  I needed a camera this toy back up was not going to last me the rest of the trip.

The next day we returned to Yangshuo.  The evening I ran into a friend of my and he invited me to join the local Friendship Club.  It is made up of local business people and foreigners.  Since I was the only foreigner there this time I was the center of attention.  During the meeting I was introduced to the Fire Chief and he asked if I could do him a favor.  They we doing a new book on fire safety and needed to also have an English Version.  He wanted to know if I could translate a section.  I said I would be happy to.  So we were emailed the text and spent all day trying to understand what they were trying to say.  Then translate it into English.

  
Another friend came by and asked me to visit his new school and wanted my help in getting it set up.  It is going to be the China Cultural Center.  He wants me to help him recruit foreign teachers to teach English and Spanish. 

Most of the life is centered around the Li River.  Every morning you will find people doing there wash there.  You will also find many people practicing Tai Chi there.
 
Life in Yangshuo is slow and peaceful.  The Li River flows the boats flow and the local just relax. 
Another hard day at work as the moon rises over the Li River I bid you a good bye.