Yangzhou

The hotel room was spare. It was poorly lit, there were few amenities and though not frigid as the days in Xi'an, the window was open when we entered and the damp chill mountain air was cold comfort. As we said, we piled on the comforters and crashed, a full day of buses and planes having drained our energy reserves.

Torrential rainfall throughout the night woke us several times, and finally drew us out of bed early. We stepped onto the balcony and stood agape as the conical limestone karst mountains loomed over us, to our left and right, partially obscured by fog and clouds, as the Li river, straight across from the hotel, surged from the night's rain. The street below was relatively quiet save for a few colorful umbrellas passing by. Just as we were laughing to ourselves recounting the previous day's terrifying lightning strike in flight, the deafening sound of firecrackers below our window precipitated a reliving of that moment with uncanny timeliness. Shortly thereafter, a six piece band clamoring away from inside a small SUV rolling slowly down the street signaled the opening of a store, the birth of a baby, the unclogging of a toilet or something of the like... the Chinese celebrate everything by detonating ordnance.

The days in Yangzhuo were gray but brightened by the picturesque scenery, a bamboo boat ride and the amazing food. Beer fish, a local delicacy mimicked throughout China, was the culinary highlight. It consists of a fish of your choice, in our case catfish, caught locally from the river, poached in beer, and served in a chafing tray over tealights with treasured Guilin chiles, peppers, onions and tomatoes. It was some of the spiciest food we've had since arriving in China.

-Ken and Davida