Chapter 9: Beautiful Places

It's been a long time since I've blogged, I've been busy moving from one place to the other!
I got into Kunming this past Thursday, and left on Friday with my family and the other foreign teachers from the college for Gui Lin and Yang Shuo. These two cities are known as some of the most beautiful tourist spots in China, and they definitely live up to that title!

Gui Lin and Yang Shuo are both famous for their hills that pop up all over the place. And everything there is so green, so the scenery is just gorgeous.

  We climbed mountains, saw caves, walked through the cities, and had a lot of fun just exploring the tourist spots. In Yang Shuo we spent one evening in the West Street, which is also known as the Foreigner's Street. It has a ton of restaurants and pubs with western foods, and it's a popular place to hang out on the weekends for foreigners and locals alike. So it was a good balance of seeing the pretty sights and hanging out in the fun places. 




One really cool thing we did in Gui Lin was a visit to a Pearl Museum/Store, and a tour guide at the museum showed us how they take the pearl out of the oysters. It was so cool! I had always wondered where the pearl sits inside the shell.

 

Probably my favorite part of the whole trip was connecting with Caro, the girl I'm standing with in this picture to the left. She is Chinese and teaches English at the college where Dad teaches. She's a few years older than me, but we connected and spent pretty much the whole trip together. She's a really sweet girl and very fun to talk to. We had some really awesome conversations. She and I shared with each other about our cultures, our beliefs, our hopes for the future - so many cool topics. I have great hopes for her life, especially as I'm going to be connecting with her more and talking to her in the future. So keep her in your thoughts!
So, all in all the trip was good. Now I'm back in Kunming and will be here with family for a week and a half. I'm still working on my project, and hopefully this week I will go shopping for the materials I need to make the posters! I'm so excited for this, especially as I keep doing research and ask people for ideas - Gd is definitely providing me with ideas and opportunities that I never could have found or thought of on my own. He is so good!
More to come next time! Hope you're all doing well. :) Blessings!