Asian Invasion: Part Dos

I have finally decided to get back into the blogging world. Since Steve is super busy in grad school I've taken it upon myself to finish off the documentation of our asian invasion tour of August/September 2010. Steve covered Taiwan (as only a past Berhaner could) and I'll finish it off with part two - Guilin, China, and finally, part three - Hong Kong (coming soon). Without further ado, here's what went down in the beautiful land of Guilin, China...

Here we are on the Li River, which also happened to be the day that we celebrated our first anniversary.

Since Joe was kind enough to celebrate our first anniversary with us in Asia, we promised him we'd accompany him to India when he celebrates his first anniversary. I voted for Indonesia after reading Eat, Pray, Love, but Joe insists that there is a super sweet cave that we all need to explore in India. Now all he needs to do is find Mrs. Castleton...

After we disembarked from the big boat, we took a tour of rice paddies and smaller rivers on these sweet bamboo rafts. Don't tell Steve, but I think I'm a bigger fan of bamboo rafts than Venetian gondolas (I had to work UBER hard to get Steve to like Europe as much as Asia, so a statement of this kind might negate all my pro-Europe efforts).

A candid shot of Uncle Joey in a rice paddy doing some of his own documentation of the gorgeous surroundings.

A distinct combo: Guilin mountains and a rice paddy. Yes, we're definitely in Asia.

We spent an afternoon wandering through a gorgeous park and saw this guy pounding peanuts into what would later become delicious peanut brittle. We felt obligated to try some in order to let him know he was doing a fantastic job. We were duty bound.

That same park had lovely waterfalls that captured our fancy.

This may not appear appetizing to some people, but my oh my, this cabbage was the best thing to hit my taste buds in Asia. It is soooo delicious! Figuring out how to make it happens to be my next culinary project. Anyone have a good Japanese teppanyaki recipe that reveals the secret deliciousness of the cabbage? Let me know - it's making me hungry just looking at it.

More scenic shots from the Li River cruise.

This is the little village at the end of the Li river cruise - Yangshuo. The peaceful, serene surroundings are quickly replaced by total chaos and noise in the markets. I don't even know how to adequately describe the people that own the shops in relation to the tourists that come off the cruise boats - bees to honey? mice to peanut butter? me to my cabbage? Who knows - but it was intense.

Bamboo rafts on the smaller rivers coming off of the Li River.

We wandered through small villages that have not progressed much since the Cultural Revolution era. Mud bricks are the base of the mass-produced houses, and even though they are still standing, they are very dilapidated. The step at the doorway was built to keep out evil spirits. In Chinese tradition, evil spirits have stick-straight legs that can't bend. When they approach a doorway, the step causes them to trip and fall to the ground, which essentially destroys them since they can't get back on their feet.

This bird show was thoroughly entertaining. The man in the picture would chuck fish from the blue pale into the water and the birds would go diving for them and come back with full gullets. The man would then reach inside their throats and pull the fish back out. It was awesome. And then he started over and did it all again for our viewing pleasure. It was really fun when he'd chuck the fish right by our raft so the birds would come at us - or so it seemed - in attempt to get to the fish before the next guy. I hope you noticed the huge bulge in the bird's neck - yup - that bad boy is carrying what he thought would be dinner.

We went to a show full of Chinese acrobatics and ballet that blew our minds. These kids have no spinal cords - they are made out of rubber, I swear. The stuff they were doing made Cirque du Soleil look ordinary - and the majority of these performers aren't even teenagers yet.

The Manship reunited. Joe made plans to meet us in Scotland right after we got married since he was in Russia the day we got married. Unfortunately, Steve didn't have his visa in time to be there when Joe arrived in Scotland en-route to the States, which meant that I got to show Joe around Edinburgh while Steve was stuck in Bountiful. We lead very crazy lives/schedules. Luckily, everything worked out this time.

We saw some AMAZING scenery during the Four-Lakes-Two-Rivers night cruise. The silver and gold pagodas were among the many sparkling highlights.

This is inside the Reed Flute cave that we explored on our first day in Guilin.

I am particularly proud of this shot - again, inside the Reed Flute Cave. The small pool made for some really cool reflection shots.

If you have ever wanted to see a 1,000 year old turtle - CONGRATS! - now you have. They had a couple of these "millenial turtles" parked throughout the caves, decorated with all sorts of money and jewels.

Classic Guilin scenery.

More of the same, with a really cool pagoda.

Uncle Joey and Steve - just like old times.

Beautiful Chinese architecture - I love the carved wood lattices and curved awnings on every building.

Another sweet pagoda on the night cruise.

Every so often, out of nowhere, a show would start on the banks of the river we were floating on - it was 0 to 60 in five seconds. All of the sudden the lights turned on and music accompanied Chinese dancers and performers that I can only assume were strategically positioned to begin the festivities the instant the boats came into full view.

And that is a glimpse of our adventures in China. We had a blast exploring this beautiful city, known for its distinct mountains and landscape, set against the Li River. We tried to do this place justice with the pictures we took but that's impossible. If you ever find yourself exploring China, definitely keep Guilin in mind, we highly recommend it.

Next up - Hong Kong...