tickets for the overnight busy from Shenzhen to Yangshuo and crossed the Hong Kong border to Szenzhen China. Shenzhen was a small fishing village when the government declared it a special economic zone 30 years ago. It is now a city with over a million people and much of the production for export in China. We spent the afternoon at a Spa (where Richard was snookered into buying a premium service) but we were relaxed and ready to go.
We had only a short time to get from the train station where we were dropped off after the spa to the bus station to catch out bus so we asked a policeman in the train station for directions. He spoke only Mandarin so Judy did the interaction. It was incredible that he said he would show us and proceded to take us on a twenty minute walk first to the wrong bus station and then after asking one of the guards, to the correct station, taking us first to the ticket window get our tickets stamped and then to the departure gate. The bus had beds, upper and lowers and three rows across with aisles separating them. The beds had pillows and blankets and out could easily stretch out. At least someone my size found it possible to stretch out. While it was comfortable, it was difficult to sleep, as initially, the bus television and radio were on, and after that between the driver honking, the baby next to me crying and the man behind us coughing the was constant noise. The weather turned nasty and the rain poured down most of the way.
We arrived at 5am in Yangshuo and had no idea what to do. We had planned on going to a restaurant for breakfast but when the taxi driver took us to an open, water soaked restaurant with the temperature no greater than 50 degrees, we decided to take a cheap room for a few hours and sleep until we were ready for breakfast and to call the school where we would be teaching.
After breakfast, we called and met the director of the school, an expat Canadian who has been in Yangshuo for 7 years now. His position is voluntary and apparently his wife suppports him with
a job heading another English program. He arranged for us to be taken to the school which consists of an adult program teaching ESL to Chinese who are resident at the college and the volunteer program which sends people out to small villages in the area to teach third to fifth graders. They provided us with a dormitory room with private bath with some minimal plumbing and three meals a day from Monday to Friday while we were teaching. The accomodations were comfortable enough and conveniently located in the heart of the Karst mountains of Guanxi.
That afternoon we were taken by minibus with a few other adult students to Moon Hill a famous natural bridge about 15 kilometers from town down the Li River. Trent the acting director of the college led us, Jenny a 42 year old retired Chinese bus
driver drove the van with us and two other students and we hiked up to the top. As the weather started to clear a little and warm up, it was a wonderful hike with incredible views of the mountains and fields below. All the way up, we were accompanied by three Chinese women who wanted to sell us bottled drinks. They walked most of the way up the mountain with us in the hope that we would eventually buy something. Trent told us not to buy anything because they come often to hike the mountain and he didn't want them to always pester him to buy drinks. After, hiking to the top and back we went over to Moon Hill Village and had lunch at a Mother Moon's Farm Food restaurant.
The school and its students are very welcoming. Everyone introduces themselves, meals are family style Chinese and ping pong and badminton games are always going on outside in front of the dining room. We are looking forward to teaching on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment