Day 2 in Yangshuo

Iona

After a good night sleep in the New Century Hotel we all got up around 8 and headed down for some breakfast, which was an experience to say the least. We had access to the buffet with Chinese styled food but curiously enough our breakfast tickets said “Western Package”, which we didn’t see before loading our plates with congee and buns. Given the Western Package, we were served typical American breakfast foods such as toast, eggs, sausage, etc, even though we had already served ourself at the buffet. With quite the spread in front of us, we leisurely ate breakfast and enjoyed each other’s company which eventually resulted in Kelbs literally crying tears of laughter with Liz and Mrs. Waterman and I following suit. Something we’ve learned this trip is that it really doesn’t take much to get Kelbs going and once she does— there is no stopping her. Just now as I’m writing this blog post, we’ve all just recovered from a ten minute long laughing fit where Liz made a roast, I reacted, and Kelbs started to laugh at my reaction, and I start laughing which gets Liz laughing and Liz’s laughter sends Kelbs overboard which makes us all die. We have fun.

 
With food in our stomachs and happiness in our hearts, we left the hotel for a day of exploring the village of Yangshuo; we made our way to the lake with a few stops along the way, one of them included a stop at a local cafe for some milk tea that we sipped through the walk in on and off rain. The lake had a beautiful view with rolling hills in the background and a calming sense of awe. When we had decided to head back into the centre of the village, we walked down West St which had many print shops, jewellery vendors, food stands, everything. Last night we had walked the same street but the bright lights and big crowds made for a very overwhelming and less relaxing stroll. Today, we were able to take the time to venture into the shops that interested us and we found, bargained, and bought quite a few different gifts for our families and loved ones. I managed to haggle a gift that started at 120 RMB to 60 RMB which was a pretty big accomplishment; Kelbs found something for 150 RMB but we managed to lower the price to 75 RMB because Liz was also buying one, so together the price of two was haggled down to 120 RMB as opposed to the original 150 RMB that one gift cost!! Go us!

After much walking and haggling later, we went to the hair salon so Kelbs, Liz, and I could change things up a little :). Liz went shorter than her already short hair, I went shorter than my medium length hair, and Kelbs went for it with light blonde highlights at the top of her head. Quite the experience. We ended up spending a good portion of our afternoon at the salon and Mrs. Waterman went for a walk in the garden across the way and actually climbed the steps all the way to the top of a nearby hill with a pagoda at the top, very impressive— she keeps us young.

After the salon adventure, we kept on exploring the busy and plentiful streets of Yangshuo and found ourselves guessing at snacks in a local convenience store; curious items included a matcha flavoured chocolate bar and cucumber flavoured crisps. Happy snacking!

Snacks aren’t meals, however, so we went to a seemingly fancier restaurant that had been recommended to us by our tour guide Elaine (but she is not with us for these few days as we make our own itinerary). The restaurant though was less than successful and did not end well. We decided to leave after not understanding how to order the food via WeChat which apparently was restaurant protocol; instead, we went to a perfectly decent noodle shop and had dumplings, seaweed, and noodles for dinner.

After dinner, we strolled back to our hotel to recollect ourselves after a full day of being out in the village and all decided that we would like to spend the rest of the evening in the hotel, we were so exhausted. So here I am, taking this time to reflect on the day in this blog post and edit the vlog footage from earlier— and thank you so much to all the positive feedback we have been receiving!!
With that, we are all going to sleep well with food in our stomachs and happiness in our hearts :)