Guess Who's Bizzack?!?!!

I know what you are thinking...Bizzack isn't really a word. I decided to quote a Jay-z song to welcome myself back to the world of blogging. In my hiatus, so many things happened. I traveled to Yangshuo and I even opened a bank account. I know many of you are thinking that opening a bank account is pretty minuscule detail. However, there are several hilarious anecdotes associated with it. To make things easy I am going to break this blog entry into categories. Enjoy!

Yangshuo

"I left my heart in Yangshuo." (Lori VonPingel, 2008) I couldn't have said it better myself.

On October 1, the People's Republic of China celebrates its birthday. This date is known as National Day. It marks a week long celebration for the entire country. Some people travel to their home towns or just use it as a time to relax. For members of my teaching program this marks the first official trip of our China adventure. This year many CTLCers (abbreviated name for members of my teaching program) thought they would have to be confined to borders of China because our visas were still being processed. Fortunately, all of our visas were processed in time to embark upon on various journeys.

Initially, AnaLiese and I wanted to go to Beijing and Shanghai. National Day price increases didn't permit that. Next, we decided to figure out what other CTLCers were doing and get a couple of ideas. National Day destinations ranged from Hong Kong/Macau to the Philippines. With so many options, I was perplexed. However, I heard about a trip James (the head coordinator of my teaching program) was planning to Yangshuo. The trip was inexpensive so I decided to look it up online. I fell in love with everything I read. AnaLiese wanted to travel with Rachel, Lauren, and Taylor I was thinking about going with them. I can't explain the feeling but something was really drawing me to Yangshuo. I decided to go with my gut. Another group of CTCLers were planning to go to Yangshuo as well. It turns out that one the girls wanted to go to Hong Kong instead and that left an open slot for me. It was obviously meant to be. :-)

Lori, Megan, Ranjana and I took an over night sleeper bus to Yangshuo. Please see the picture below:

That's right! It was a bus with bunk-beds. None of us understood the concept of a sleeper bed until we actually saw it. We couldn't stop laughing. Overall, the beds were pretty comfortable. There were two sleeper bus attendants, similar to flight attendants that helped everyone get situated. The bus made several stops to pick up other patrons. Within the second hour of the 12 hour bus ride, the sleeper attendant asked Ranjana to move to another bed. The request was very random and we couldn't understand why she wanted Ranjana to move. Megan decided to move with Ranjana instead of protesting. When they got to their new beds they were dumbfounded. The beds were way shorter. They were obviously children's bed. This wouldn't have been a major problem if Ranjana wasn't 6' tall. Eventually, we all slept for what seemed to be a couple of hours. When we woke this is what we saw:

It was so beautiful. We were surrounded by lush mountains and crisp air. This was just the type of vacation I was looking it for. I can best describe Yangshuo as a college town set to the backdrop of rural unadulterated China. There were rickshaws, and three-wheeled cars and tons of bicycles. We went straight to our Hostel, Yangshuo International Senior Leader Youth Hostel. It reminded me of the Underground/Schatz's at Carnegie Mellon. I was super impressed. There were hand written notes all over the walls about how cool the hostel was and how much fun people had while staying there. There was a pool table as soon as you walked it and a bunch of couches. The staff at the hostel was helpful and they stored our luggage in a spare room until we were able to check in. We hit the ground running and decided to inquire about potential excursions. James' group was going mud caving and we were totally game. We grabbed a delicious Western Style breakfast at a local restaurant called McBlues.
Unfortunately, we missed James’ group because we needed to get appropriate mud caving clothes and officially check in to the hostel. We were still determined to go mud caving. We hooked up with a local travel agent and we scheduled our own mud caving excursion for later that day. While roaming around town, we bumped into Daniel and Mindy and we convinced them to join us for mud caving.
We took a mini-bus to the cave and it was a fun yet bumpy ride. I loved every minute of it. When we got to the cave we noticed that a lot of the other tourists were wearing jeans and other attire not appropriate for mud caving.
Before We Entered the Cave:

*We look like hardcore backpacker/hikers with our tevas!

After We Entered the Cave:

*Our tour guide is the girl in red. She was a local English student.

She was super cute and sweet.

To Be Continued.....I am studying for the GRE. I will write a little everyday to update everyone. I know I am super late and I apologize.