The first few days in Lijiang

We're in Lijiang. We got here by bus from Kunming Thursday morning. It was a sleeper bus that got us here. Right before we had gotten on we got a bit of a bad review of it from some British people we met in a restaurant in Kunming. The trip turned out not to be all that bad. At times one had to hold on as we sped through the mountains, gripping the rails on your bed. Much to my dissappointment the movie on the bus was not "Cool Runnings." This town is intestesting. There are far more Chinese tourists here than foreign tourists. The people that are in the town are called the Naxi people. There are two sections of the town the new and old town. I haven't really been to the new town that much, it seems to be another city for the most part. The old town is where we're staying. The streets are all stone and all transportation is walking. Canals flow round the streets and are filled with goldfish. Bridges arch over the canals, both stone and wooden planks. It makes for a very peaceful setting. Graham and Brian bought a DVD player yesterday and have been working their way through the fourth season of the Lost series. Layne and Katie went for a bike ride yesterday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle). I think Nathan, Graham, Brian and I are going to do the same today. We're planning on hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge tomorrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Leaping_Gorge). It should take us about 2 days but who knows. We're hoping that we can leave some of our stuff at the first hostel along the path.

They didn't even see us Kunming (it had to be done)

A really quick blog because I've paid for 30 minutes and I have 10 minutes left. We're in Kunming and we leave for Lijiang tonight at 9 on an overnight sleeper bus. We're not planning on getting a lot of sleep on it as it winds through the mountains but we saved 50 yuans by not taking the day one (plus a night at the hostel). We ate at a kind of Western coffee shop called Salvador's yesterday for lunch that was really good. I had a burrito, others had quesidilla, burger, chicken sandwich, etc. It was good. We went to a nearby park and played some basketball. The others then went and played cards while I played Badmitton with some locals. Graham and Nathan payed the small price of 50 yuans for what might have been the best massage of their lives. Last night we ate at restaurant called Mamafu's which was awesome. Turns out there's two and the original is in Lijiang.

-Austin, I was thinking about you yesterday and was thinking about how I'm not going to be able to see you guys for a full year, which is miserable. I thought I'd be back out there by now but my plans have changed. James could fill you in but i'll talk to you when I get back.

The Couple of the trip suffers a humiliating blow to their ego

We spent the day in Chongqing. The city is built in the mountains so everywhere you go is up and down stairs. This place is known as the hot pot(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot) capital so we went off looking for the best. What we found was really good but Layne, Graham, Nathan and I agreed it was the hottest thing we had ever sat and ate an entire meal of (it was too hot for Brian and Katie). Come to find out, Nathan, Layne and I agreed it was just as fiery coming out as it was going in... I'll leave it at that. We walked around the city a bit. Katie lost to Brian in speed (card game) one day after he had learned the game and after she had talked about how good she was. Tonight we were all wanting a meal that we felt would fill us up so Graham and Brian went to Pizza Hut (which is a sit down restaurant here). Nathan, Katie and I went to McDonald's, which by the way has a Hostess in China. Layne came prancing into the restaurant with a bowl of noodles he had bought on the street talking about how he had seen everyone else in the street eating it, as he looked down on us and our McDonald's. 15 mins later Layne was up getting a double cheese burger because he said the noodles were too hot for him. Nathan and I made fun of him as Katie picked up the noodles and went to throw them away, telling him it was okay cause he was still cute; Layne hung his head in shame. Now we're at John's Cozy Nest, the hostel at which we're staying is this guy's apartment. There's about 3 rooms here and his entire family lives in here (about 15 of us here in total). We were just happy not to find John's Cozy Nest to be a prison.

In Chongqing

We're in Chongqing. The train ride last night was about 15 hours of unairconditioned ecstasy. Someone came along in the middle of the night and closed all the windows as well and shut off the fan we had blowing. It wasn't an express train so we stopped every 30 or 45 minutes. At points it seemed like we sat a stops as long as we were actually moving (time wise). We met some people on the train who spoke english. The girl was a student in Xi'an at Northwest and the guy was a big NBA fan, his favorite team: you guessed it, the Rockets. Chongqing is a city of about 5 million. Second to Shanghai thus far in the amount of smog; someone said they read it was smoking something like 30 cigarettes a day. The Yangtze River runs through it, which we can see from the balcony of the mini-hostel where we're staying. We're only spending one night here. We leave tomorrow at around 1:30 pm (while y'all sleep soundly) to head down to Kumming. It's an express train so it should be a bit smoother ride. Paper Rock Scissors update: Drew 29 Brian 19. Sorry there haven't been more pictures, we'll put some up when we get the chance, but trust me, we've been taking them. We just haven't had an ability to put them up yet.

New on the list of things to do when I get back: watch "Who Am I?" It's been far too long since I've seen that movie.

As the old saying goes: "Don't marry a bald woman"

Still in Xi'an. We leave for Chongqing tomorrow around 4 pm. Last night Graham and I went to a club near our hostel so I feel up to describing the chinese club. It honestly is like you would imagine it. The music is centered around a steady thumping beat. Above it is mostly remixed song in english.; The thumpingwill stop every few minutes for a few seconds for an effect when it starts back. There were a lot of lights going. This particular club had a screen that was displaying various weird images. Three DJ's were on a platform, their heads boucing with the beat. Once or twice when the beat would stop, bubbles would fall from the ceiling. Every so often dancers would emerge on the stage behind the DJ's; one dance was a guy and a girl dressed like angels moving slowly. The basic dance step everyone did was a smooth twist with their upper bodies. I tried to cut loose when I got there and got weird looks. Dancing with girls was more difficult than I thought it would be. When I would ask girls to dance they looked at me funny then would shake their heads. I figured out the way it had to be done was just dancing on the floor and slowly establishing eye contact. I ran into some trouble at one point when I was dancing with four girls and I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to meet a short chinese guy and his posse. "This isn't english, he said (I didn't point out the irony in his statement). "This is China," he continued as he pushed me. His body language and the girls' seemed to indicate that he wasn't one of their boyfriend. I turned back around to find another behind me (fourn in total). I felt it best not to escalate the situation and walked off. Nathan was out last night with some guys from the hostel and saw two chinese guys smashing beer bottles over each other's head. Today we took a bus to see the Terra cotta warriors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army). They were interesting. There are thousands of those guys. WE jolked about the emperor pitching the idea to the guys who were to build them. The bus ride back was crazy as the bus driver straddled the broken line and honked his horn at everyone we passed. Brian's had McDonald's the last 3 meals. The buy guy loves the chicken nuggets. We are currently having a Paper Rock Scissors battle. Each match is best out of 3. I'm beating Brian 21-12 and Graham 8-5. Brian is beating Graham 8-6. Brian and I are going for the first to 100. A note from an earlier blog, Milton is at this hostel now.

Said I loved you but I lied... cause this is more than love I feel inside

This is a couple of day slate but here's the run down of The Great Wall. We woke up and caught the tour bus at around 6 am. It was a 3. 5 hour treck to the mountains. When we arrived we were all a little cold and we looked around to see everyone else had worn pants and/or jackets while we all had on shorts and tee shirts. The hike in total was 10 km. We walked up a path to the Great Wall. I'd try to describe the wall but I think it'd be pointless. In short though, the mountains are pretty steep at some parts and really steep in others. I couldn't imagine being responsible for carrying the stones to the top of the mountain to construct the wall. The wall sits along the ridge and goes up and down the mountains with the peaks. If you look off in the distance you can see the wall gliding over the mountain tops. It was fantastic. There were people on the wall who wanted to try and be our tour guides. They would walk with us and try and help our walk. We had to just ignore them. My guy, it turned out, grew baby corn. I wanted to ask him how he ate it but it was too much of a language barrier. When Graham (or Johnny G as we have come to call him) went up a tower, his "tour guide" turned his back and Graham ran by him to lose him. For most, the walk was a great stroll/hike. For me it was confrontation with my greates foe, heights. We have pictures of me on all fours scaling the stairs. Graham said I was the first person he'd met who had a true fear of heights. In my defense there were points where we were at the peaks of mountains walking stair cases 5 feet wide with no walls. I don't see how everyone did it. James, I was a warrior; you would have been proud. I thought of you several times, thinking if you were there I would have someone with I could turn around. There were several points where I had to look at the floor and keep moving If I had stopped or looked out, I don't know that I would have been able to continue. It was a great walk in all though. Graham took good pictures and they do the hike greater justice. At the end of the walk there was a lake. To get to the end we could zip line to the other side. The zip line was between 150 and 200 feet above the water. Graham lost his hat when he went down (he's now temporarily wearing a Beijing 2008 hat). Layne video taped as he went down. Even I went down. I guess I could do it because I knew it'd only take on step. I did however scream o nthe way down. Everyone went down the zip line. I was sick but that night the other 5 went with the British friends to a chinese dance club complete with bubbles, lights and a floor that moved to the beat. We're in Xi'an now. We took an overnight train last night to get here. We're here til saturday. Layne, Katie and I are having trouble gettin gmoney out of the bank, so we're about to go to the counter of Bank of China. After this is Chingqing then Kumming then Lijian thn Shanghai then back home. Most of our time is go;ing to be spent in Lijian where we're planning on hiking. The south of China is known for the countryside.

Heading out

I don't have a great deal of time to post right now but I'll just say that we went to the Great Wall today. It was awesome but it deserves more time than I have. I'll write it up and post it when I get the chance. We head out for Xi'an tomorrow at around 9 pm. We're going out tonight for Layne's birthday with our British friends.