When was the last time you saw a Buick station wagon?

1972.

The Buick Sportwagon.

I saw one yesterday. Not a Sportwagon. A new Buick station wagon. And though it nearly rips the fabric of space-time itself, I have to admit that it didn't look half bad.

Which bring me to my topic. Cars in China. Being as I am a car junkie, I have to crane my neck every time a Citroen drives by - Just because we don't have 'em in the States.

So here's a list of the cars I have seen that are not common in the states, or are weird to see in rural China -

Peugeot 207
Peugeot 307
Puegeot 307 Police Car

Honda City
Honda Fit
Honda Accord Police car
Honda Odessey sports station wagon. (Eli, you would LOVE that one : )

Innumerable miniature Chevys unheard of in the states

Jeep Cherokee

Toyota Landcruiser (Lifted / snorkled / "safaried" beyond all reason)

...and as I'm typing this I'm realizing that only my brothers, and maybe a guy in his garage in Milwaukee will care at all about this post...

Brothers (and random guy in Milwaukee), I will take pics, and then give you a proper post when the time is right...

what's in a name...

Well, being as the Chinese put a lot of effort into their Chinese names, you would think there's a lot in a name. My Chinese name for example -

Jiang Si Fuo - My first name is Joseph, and Jiang Si Fuo sounds phonetically close. But secondly, SiFuo means "like Buddah" (also can be used as "a kind teacher"). I was given this name my first week here because they said that I reminded them of Buddah, in all his kindness.

Awesome. Great. Maybe there is something to this whole importance in names thing going on here in China...

and then you learn a Chinese person's English name. I will list for you just a few of the names of the students at our school

Females -
Apple
Spider
Ice
Angel
Sunny
Rainbow
Lemon

Males -
Wolf
Tiger
Silence
Dorix

And I think to myself, "self, maybe names don't mean so much after all."

Weekend 2 (Sun)

I went to a Barbecue on Sunday. And it was nice...

Kind of.

I got sick that night with food poisoning. Barfed my guts out a bunch of times throughout the night. That's bad enough by itself, but it really sucks when you're staying in a concrete block of a room 8,000 miles from anything you would call comfortable.

But back to the Barbecue. We went to a market in the morning that had all sorts of awesome things in it (like every vegetable and animal possible. Including Dog :) ) and picked up what we needed. We then proceeded to walk for 40 min out of town down little Chinese back roads with little Chinese homes lived in by little Chinese people to a "secret beach" that everyone knows about, where were set up for our barbecue.

Chinese barbecue doesn't involve a grill by-the-way. It's more like... ummmmm... sticking once-living-things on a stick and then charring them in a flame. Chinese barbecue, it's what's for dinner.


You'll notice in the picture below that I am holding a stone. My favorite stone.

What was actually happening was that everything we ate was washed in the river (remember the food poisoning?). So somebody had to get in the water to wash the "stuff"... that's where the rock comes in :)

Happily walk down to the water with some delicious vegetables, bend down to wash, and *KER-SPLOSH*!! I got 4 people that way.

4.

Vengeful.

People.

The result of my tomfoolery was me wading into the water thigh deep to retrieve my sandals (which had been innocently thrown in) while 4 gleeful Chinese girls threw in huge stone all around me. Good times.

We headed back later in the day and then all hung out at Sunny's since her husband was in town and had another big meal which couldn't be beat. And I barfed all night :)

Weekend 2 (Sat)

During the week I did all sorts of awesome stuff.

Which I'm not going to tell you about here. I will tell you about my second weekend here though :)

On the 5th (Sat.) we got a late start for a place called Moon Hill. We went and rented bicycles around 11:00 and proceeded to ride for the next hour in 110% humidity all up hill.

Really, it was all up hill. Not like dad's "when I was your age we walked to school..." type of up hill, but REALLY up hill the whole way. It was an arduous ride for the whole group honestly, especially considering the Chinese tendency to ride SUPER wobbly at 1/2 a mile and hour.

Thankfully we weren't going to climb some ridiculously high hill or anything...

At the base we ate a few pieces of a fruit called a Pomelo, and then we started the ascent. The winding stone steps took us up through a shady (albeit sweltering) path trees and Bamboo. On the way I carved my Chinese name into a piece of bamboo that was covered with other Chinese characters (which I idiotically forgot to take a pic of) and generally enjoyed the fact that I was climbing huge hill in China. It took us about 35 - 40 minutes to arrive beneath the arch (which you can see in the picture) where I snapped a few shots.

Then one of the girls (Sunny) and I decided to climb all the way ON TOP of the arch, as high as you can go. It was a MUDDY climb. I was wearing my flops, and I was using every ounce of my balance to keep from slipping off the side of the 2 foot path and tumbling down the 200 foot sheer drop on the side. Really, it was kind of hairy, which is why it was so enjoyable :)

The view from the top was definitely worth-it











We eventually made our way back down and biked back to Yangshuo (which went a lot quicker since it was now all down hill).