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This past weekend Mike and I went to Zhangjiajie. (J-ang-Jia-Gee)
A place the Chinese claim parts of Avatar was filmed.

Or at least that what we think this sign says...

It was super fun! After 7 hours on the bus Mike and I were glad to arrive in the city. There were loads of men with taxi's waiting outside the bus terminal, and normally these are exactly the type of taxi's you avoid.($$$) But as it was nearing the haunting hour...or midnight, we figured we'd better not take our chances. 

Once our taxi driver saw the address to where would be taking us, he just kept repeating, "Boo how, boo how!" which means "No good", But we had reservations, so he would be taking us there. Grudgingly he abliged and after arriving, and still ranting at how terrible our hostel would be, we paid him, and went up the elevator to the fourth floor to find a surprisingly cute little hostel. It kind of looked like a log cabin on the side of an aparment building. And! Our room had a duvet. How I miss duvets.

p.s. that's me moving at inhuman speed out of the picture

So after a glorious nights sleep in our duvet, we headed out to the Zhangjiajie National Park. 

Our first attraction was the Yellow Limestone Caves. Here's a video of the 3 hours in and around the caves. It was rather phenomenal.

I'm sorry about the quality of the movie, my internet won't let me upload anything bigger.

 Next we took a 7 minute cable car ride up to the rocks. It was pretty unbelievable up there.

Once up there, we explored around a bit, before taking the free bus to our hostel in the mountains. Here are some of the sights.

Really? Who thought,
"This is the perfect place to sell giant wooden eagles to tourists! On top of this mountain!"

This is what I pretended I looked like climbing all 100,000,000 of these steps...

...but this is what I really looked like.

Our classy little mountain hostel

At around 7pm we finally made it to our hostel in the mountains. 

After a day full of "mountain climbing" were we ever happy to be there.

Bicycles

When I was a little girl I rode my bicycle everywhere. I fell off my bike more time than I can count.
I did love riding my bike!
But then something happened, I'm not sure when, whether it was in Cardston or when I moved to the city, but I stopped riding my bike.
I guess we must have had a falling out, bikes and me.
But here in China we have no choice but to ride bikes everywhere.
So Mike and I swerve through traffic and cycle through the masses.
Our riding motto: We Ride for Justice.

Say Hello to the Dusk Warden...

...and the Pink Pucker!

Alright, that's enough of that...

Yes, We Ate Dog.

The first exotic treat in China we needed to try was dog. Mike loves dogs but even he felt the need to try this Chinese delicacy.
Turns out it's not really as common as you'd think. A lot of Chinese people were offended at the idea. Who knew?

Anyway, after searching the numerous restaurants in the beautiful Yangshuo we, along with a few of our fellow TESOL trainees found a place that served up some succulent dog.
To be honest, it wasn't that bad. It tasted simalar to beef; the only problem was the fact that we were eating "Man's Best Friend."
But it was worth the experience.
Can't say we'll do it again, but we can now say we've done it!

Thanks beautiful Yangshou!

Holidays in China 2

The biggest Holiday in China.
Chinese National Day.
To understand the grandness of this holiday, imagine a few billion people in one country getting an entire week off of work.
Our dreams for this holiday were just as grand. Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, and finally Chengdu.
Unfortunaly the rest of China had the same idea, and got there first.
So we ended up only going to Xi'an. And it was amazing! Xi'an(pronounced Shi-ahn) is home to the 8th wonder of the world; The Terracotta Soldiers. Information about them here.
It was so unbelievable. So unbelievable. So unbelieve...I think you get it. But seriously, I felt like China was playing the hugest joke on me. It was like when my dad got his eye lasered and stopped wearing his glasses all the time. Implausible. Inconceivable. So I made a little video for your enjoyment.

Enjoy.

Holidays in China

Our first holiday in China was the Mid Autumn Festival.
Holidays in China always have a very interesting history. If you want to know more about this one you can go here.

Every year they buy each other little delicacies called moon cakes. In everyone's excitment to see the white people...let's just say we got more than our fair share.

various moon cakes styles.

That weekend a student invited us to his farm for the weekend. Considering we had to speak through his little english to everyone, it was still a super fun weekend!

p.s the student english name is Angelino. A creation he made all on his own. We like it:)