Asia Trip: Day 139 - Shenzhen 深圳=> Guilin 桂林 (6/1/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Slept in until 9:30am and talked to my Dad

• Bought an apple and iced coffee for brekkie

• Worked out at the playground again

  • Made friends with a bunch of kids and an eighty year old man

• Practiced Chinese with the girl at the front desk of the hostel for a few hours

• MADE IT TO THE TRAIN STATION

  • Waited for 45 mins

  • Got onto the train and conned my way in being on the bottom bunk

• My phone randomly shut off out of nowhere

  • Probably the government watching me

  • Listening to old iPod music - ALL OLD LORD HURON

  • LORD HURON AND CHINA TRAIN RIDES = PURE BLISS :)

• The guy across from me consistently looked at his phone for the entire twelve hour train ride

  • His eyes were constantly glued with a furrowed brow

Being on this train in China listening to Lord Huron is so wild. It brings back so many memories of studying abroad, living life, and carrying out my dreams.

It also serves as a point to see how much I’ve grown and changed in the past five years. I’m stoked to see what the next five years have in store. The start of this train ride started with a torrential down pour of rain. I was also the only foreigner in the entire train station and on the whole train. This FEELS like a real adventure.

I love the train rides because you get to see the countryside. You get a chance to see the extremely rural and undeveloped parts of China whiz by at 200 kph. I feel the travel more, I’m confined to the ground, not the air and feel the distance between the places.

Some of the fondest memories of my entire life have been spent on a train in China looking out the window watching the world swirling past me. You truly feel like you’re on the other side of the world; this feeling is so foreign and so special.

Asia Trip: Day 140 - Guilin 桂林 (6/2/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Arrived at 5:30am, still dark outside, hungry, no data, with no hostel and no plan

• Wandered around and tried looking for a McDonalds, but found a hole in the wall restaurant

  • They had no WiFi so I went to the travel agency next door

  • Booked a hostel and found out how to get there

• Rode the public bus to the hostel - awesome

• Walked throughout the local park in the AM to the hostel

  • So quiet, so peaceful, so many old people

• Checked in and then checked out (slept until 1:00pm)

• THE WOMAN AT THE FRONT DESK HELPED ME FIX MY WECHAT

  • I haven’t used it in four years, so I had to have someone verify me

  • Then part of that process was the person verifying me had to verify themselves

    • They had to add their credit card information, their DOB, and other extremely personal information

• Met an American and chilled for the day

• Climbed Laorenshan 老人山

  • AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL

• Came back, got a few drinks, got a bunch of new music and passed out

Photo’s Above: scenes from wandering around downtown Guilin

Photos Above: scenes from hiking up laorenshan and seeing the entire city

Asia Trip: Day 141 - Guilin 桂林 (6/3/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Slept in until 9:30am

• Rented a bike and made my way to DaXu 大圩 (rode 40km on a pedal bike)

  • SO HARD, BUT SO MUCH FUN - v sore

  • I rode along the side of an eight lane super highway - brushing shoulders with dump trucks, eighteen wheelers, and other extremely large machines

• Got to the ancient city and wandered

  • Met some v friendly and flirty older ladies

  • Met a lot of older people - bribed them for photos

• Biking back to the city was a struggle - v tired and sore

• Chilled and rested when I got back

• Got food and desserts (snickers)

• Watched inception with people at the hostel

• Booked a trip to the rice terraces - will be SO COOL