Traveling in China - Day 2 - Going to Chongzuo (崇左)

26 hours spent in any space can be tedious. Especially if you only have 3 feet above and to the side of you to move around. In the morning I pretended to sleep for as long as I could. The guy snoring I think did a better job at pretending. Rock solid performance.

Eventually I conceded defeat and decided to turn on some tunes and look out the window. I must admit, after seeing the dismal, flat and cold grey setting of Zhengzhou, I was a bit relieved when I looked out the window and saw some green and some mountains! By time we "woke up" we were just about in Guangxi province. At about 9:00 we passed the city of Guilin. This is considered by much of China to be the most beautiful place in the country. I have heard a few times that it is also considered one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is a tourist city and as such, the train station actually looked clean. How nice.

The reason Guilin is famous is because of the mountains. You know how when you think of Chinese mountains, you think of these steep pointy mountains that you would see in Kung Fun Panda or a Chinese watercolor painting? These are the mountains from Guilin. These type of mountains are called karst. If you have seen all the Star Wars movies, then you have seen images from Guilin. The mountains were used as background images for the Wookie planet Kashyyyk. (See these images)

This is a picture I snapped out of the train window as we were passing Guilin. Not much, but you can see some of the mountains in the background. 

We rode through Guilin pretty quickly so I was not able to see much, but I was certainly grateful to get an idea of the beauty that is in China. The rest of the train ride was spent just looking out of the window and waiting to finally arrive in Nanning.

Eventually we made it. It felt so good to get out of the train! Well... it would have if we were able to walk freely among the crowds... but still; it was nice to be (mostly) walking. Since we were not able to buy return tickets when we were in Zhengzhou, we decided that we would buy our tickets in Nanning. We called the student we would be staying with to ask about tickets and after getting an incomprehensible runaround (oh if that was the only time that would have happened) we decided to just buy the tickets while we were there in Nanning. We waiting again in a huge line only to be told that we would have to wait until tomorrow to buy the tickets. Yay. 

We left and boarded the bus that would take us to the bus station (¥2 | $.30). At the bus station, we missed the bus going to Chongzuo by just a few minutes, so we bought our tickets (¥60? | $9.50) and waited for a couple hours before we could leave. We went to a place in the bus station to eat. I think it was a Dicos or something similar (it is a chicken chain restaurant similar to KFC [which they also have a lot of]). 

After eating, we decided to settle down for a game of Settlers of Catan.

I like the content look in Jerry's eyes... for some reason, these two have not gotten sick of playing Settlers of Catan every day.

It was a two hour bus ride from Nanning to Chongzuo. I got a good nap in.


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Once we arrived in Chongzuo, we called our friend who we would be staying with. She met up with us after about 30 minutes. She asked us if we wanted to take a taxi or not. She said it was only about 10 minutes to walk so we thought it would be nice walking and seeing some of the city. 35 minutes later we finally arrived at her house (which was not in fact at all close, but on the other side of the city).

At her house we quickly met her parents then sat down as they made dinner for us. I was excited to have a nice home cooked meal. It had been almost three days since I had eaten anything decent.  They brought out some Zongzi 粽子 which is rice and such wrapped in leaves. The other things we ate were bone on meat thingies (or the other way around depending on your perspective), fungus stuff and vegatable? Hmm... The zongzi were pretty good, but I sadly didn't eat much of the other stuff. Turns out, what you don't eat for dinner just become breakfast the next day. Lunch after that.

The zongzi was pretty good. I don't really know what the rest of this stuff is. Probably a chicken?

After dinner, I asked if I could use the restroom. I didn't need to go to the bathroom, I was just excited to take a nice warm shower and wanted to scope out the facilities. After having not showered in over a day it was kind of hard to think of anything else... The first thing I noticed in the bathroom was that it had a squatter. Not a real toilet. Kind of a bummer, but what can you do? (get it? bummer? oh the sarcastic irony! More like bumless) It also appeared that the bathroom doubled as the laundry room. Or did it? I don't really remember anymore. After I got done doing my business, I looked in vain for a way to flush the toilet. No dice. I also happened to notice that there was a large opening from the bathroom to the kitchen. Really convenient if you want to shower or go to the bathroom while having a conversation with someone cooking in the kitchen. Really inconvenient if you don't want to shower or go to the bathroom while having a conversation with someone cooking in the kitchen. I guess I am one of those weirdos who does not really want someone to poke their head in on me while I shower.

So anyhow, I asked the student how to flush the toilet. Super easy. You just get water from one of the many buckets in the bathroom and dump it in. Oh. So simply and fun! Next I went to check out the room where I would be sleeping. The plan was for Loida to share a room with the student and me and Jerry would be sharing their extra room. Without a blanket though. Who really needs a blanket when you can see your breath anyhow? Oh yeah... I am not sure if I mentioned before or not how Chinese people love opening the windows no matter how cold it is outside. I guess "fresh" air is better than warm air. This house was no exception (and yes, we literally could see our breath in the house).

Revised plan. Spend the first night in a hotel. (¥75 | $12 a night)

Me with Loida's English student who was kind enough to let us stay at her house and be our tour guide.