I have left Yangshuo, Hong Kong has come and gone, and now I am with a new tour group and we are back in China in a place called Kunming.

I left my last entry talking about my great day in Yangshuo. What I didn't get to mention was that we had to oppourtunity to teach at a local school for the afternoon, which was absolutely amazing! We split into groups of twos and together taught two classes. I had 5th grade and 3rd grade. The fifth graders were a bit of a handful, the girls were wonderful students while the boys sat in the back and refused to participate a lot of the time (typical!). For the third graders we just taught them songs for 40 minutes (our line up included You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and Old Macdonald), which was much more fun.

After that the group had another overnight train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was our final destination, so we all went out together one last time :(. But since most of us are continuing on through Asia, basically doing the same route, it will be almost impossible not to bump into each other again. Most of us were actually staying a couple more days in Hong Kong- I was waiting for my next tour to start, others were waiting for airplanes/trains, so we booked in the same hostel and went around the area together.

I was supposed to already have a hostel booked for this time through my travel agent, STA travel...but when I went to the hostel they said I didnt have a reservation so i needed to book again. I decided to just book in with my friends instead and sent STA an email letting them know that there was no reservation for me. Turns out I HAD booked the hostel already and had been charged for it, so I ended up paying twice, and now STA is giving me issues about refunding me because of silly stuff that is boring so I wont go into it. Anyway, the hostel I booked into was absolutely atrocious. It was the worst one I had stayed in so far. I saw the showers first and they were so cramped and flooded that I decided I would just go without one until I moved into the hotel for my next tour...but after staying one night in my tiny room with four other people i felt so dirty that I had to rethink my earlier decision.

Every night at 8 pm in Hong Kong, they have a light show. I don't know how much you know about the city, but Hong Kong is actually made up of Kowloon, which is on the mainland, and Hong Kong Island, which is about a 7 minute ferry away. The light show uses the large corporation buildings on the coast of Hong Kong Island, but is best viewed from a boardwalk on Kowloon. It is a gorgeous skyline (I am going to upload the pictures after this) duing the day and night. A bunch of us organized to meet up and watch the light show together, which was pretty cool, and then we just walked around for a bit downtown and I made plans with Cheryl and Claire to meet up the next morning and go see the Big Buddah.

The Big Buddah is...a big buddah! It is the largest outdoor sitting Buddah in the world..and it is pretty big. It's also takes a pretty big effort to get there. It is on one of the outer lying islands of Hong Kong, so we had to take a subway to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon, then take a ferry to the next island. Once on the island we decided to go see the Tai O fishing village, so we took a one hour bus to the other coast. The Tai O village was pretty cool. It is a fishing village that is built on stilts, called "the Venice of the East". Not that it was actually anything like Venice, but it was really nice to see. It is a recently new tourist attraction, the bridge connecting to the village was only built in 1993. Before that tourists had to get a hand pushed raft across a 10 foot wide gap. From there we took ANOTHER bus to the Big Buddah, which also has a Monk Monastry at the bottom of it so we grabbed some vegetarian food before walking the 268 steps to the Buddah. There were some really nice views up there (get ready for the pictures!), Hong Kong is much more tropical than I imagined.

The next day I finally got to move into a hotel (out of that dingy hostel) and that night got to meet up with my new group! It turns out that this group had done the exact same trip that I just did, only a few days behind me, and they were continuing on until Bangkok. They had already been together for three weeks, which wasn't what I expected, but they were really welcoming and it didn't take long to feel like part of the group. There are 11 of us, three guys and 8 girls. there is one couple, and one group of three girls, and the rest are single travelers. There is one italian, one australian, one irish girl and 7 English. We left for Kaili the next day (back into China!), where we were staying in the mountains, similar to the Longji Rice Terraces. After the warmish weather of Hong Kong, Kaili was FREEZING! The guest house where we stayed had no heating...only a small stove that we all huddled around and electric blankets (which were really really nice to have). After the first night there, we were supposed to hike 4 hours to the next home stay but our leader let us know that it was supposed to be colder there and they didnt have any heating, no stove, and no electric blankets...also it had rained the whole night so the path would be iced over. We voted, and decided to stay where we were instead of moving on, and those of us who wanted to trek could go for a trek and the other could stay at the stove. So some of us went for a trek with our leader, which turned out to be amazing! We saw some awesome waterfalls, and got invited to have lunch with the locals. Also, we had a local guide, whose name was Louisa, and she was about 4 feet tall and in her twenty's and was the happiest person I have ever met and with so much energy! She started telling us her story of growing up during the one child policy, and how her grandmother had tried to kill her when she was born, but her mother just kept moving her around so she could keep her alive. Louisa's mom even changed her registration so her birthday was before 1980 (when the policy started), and gave her a different home town. Louisa even taught herself English, which we were all amazed at since her english was impeccable! I got her talking about everything on video, but won't be able to upload it till I get home.

When we got back after 5 hours of trekking, all we wanted to do was rest but the locals invited us to a ceremony for the dead..so we went! After walking in the freezing cold for 15 min, it turned out that we had missed the ceremony, but still made it to the feast after walking back into town. The food was...disgusting...the locals think that fat is the best part of the animal so they save it for their guests..so luck us, we got bowls of fat put infront of us! It makes me sick to think about it! BUT hanging out with the locals was really fun.

THe next day (that brings us up to yesterday) was just full of travelling. We took an hour bus back to Kaili, then a three hour bus to the train station, then an over night train to Kunming where we arrived at 5 30 am, and then went to the hotel where we are still waiting (at 9 30 am) to be able to check into our rooms. I haven't sleep a full night (or even just 6 hours straight) in days, i havent changed my clothes in days, i havent showered in days..I am greasy and tired, BUT we did get an awesome WESTERN buffet breakfast this morning at the hotel for cheap cheap cheap.

Oh, and the entry date on my Vietnam visa was wrong so I had to get another one. Which I am extremely frustrated about since it cost me DOUBLE what my original one cost alskfja;lsdfja;ldksja;lkwej. anyway. I am going to try and upload the photos now.