The two weeks with Nina was a happy mixture of hanging around the apartment discussing Chinese mystery’s along with revisiting some of the attractions of the Guilin region. For starters Yangshuo is a lot hotter and more humid than we left so when we opened the doors of the apartment it was out with bleach once again in attempt to control the mould that had accumulated in my absence. It was wonderful to share the suburban life with Nina because I knew she of all people would enjoy the communities constant attention to the healthy vegetable gardens and the massive recycling efforts that are part of the street life here and of course the enthusiastic fishing of what appears to be a large hole in a vacant block only a few doors down from the apartment.
I was surprised to find that I still knew quite a lot of the student’s, I received a warm welcome from them and of course answered the endless questions about where Nick was. Mr Hello the local deli owner offered me a cigarette as a welcome home gift and then tried to sell me a beer and a Magnum – Nick’s most frequent purchases. The teaching staff has changed a lot and unfortunately the ones we had made friends with are gone. The ones left and a couple of new ones seem to have banded together to form an unofficial union in an attempt to wag the dog.
Besides the numerous visits to the Yulong river we also attended a cooking school, not really my thing but I did enjoy it and we got to eat our dishes. I really wanted an appointment with Dr Lily, so we had our 10 minute diagnosis and discovered my Qui could be better and Nina’s Yang needed cooling, I signed up for the ‘strong tea’ which I religiously drunk over the next couple of days and now I have a 30 day supply of herbal tea, solves all that what should I drink now issues and I’m drinking herbal tea anyway so it might as well be something that improves my Qui.
On a whim we decided to have a rest from all that decision making and bought tickets for a tour of a 600 year old village Huang Yao, this turned out to be a brilliant day, it only cost 150 each and we got a huge air conditioned bus to ourselves and our own private guide – tourism really is down particularly western tourism. We took in the impressions light show (again for me) and marvelled at the rudeness of the audience and the brilliance of the stage being on water with the gorgeous peaks as the backdrop. We spent a night at the Longji Rice Terraces again a second time for me but the photo’s look very different, I plan to visit the rice terraces a couple of times with the different seasons.
It was sad once the time was up, but unlike when I arrived I now felt like I was more prepared to do this on my own. We had investigated a lot of eating places close to home and found some easy meal options and we have even tucked away a chicken soup and a couple of iccy poles in the freezer ready for the times when I don’t feel like going out. We had a rushed farewell as the meeting place for the bus’s departure changed at the last minute (why am I surprised) and I hoped her night on the sleeper bus did involve some sleep.
