Spring Festival

While Christmas in China is becoming a more and more recognized holiday, there is no real Christmas vacation to speak of. Even New Year's only garnered us a two day break from classes. The big winter holiday in china, strangely enough, is the Spring Festival. From about January 5th to February 9th, school was out for the Junior students. Almost all of the foreign teachers here in Shenzhen took advantage of this long break by traveling around South East Asia. I was no exception. Our trip (which included me, Phong, Danielle, Jodi, and Jess) consisted of a 4 day visit to the town of Yangshuo in Guangxi province, a weeklong stint in Vietnam, and about 5 or 6 days in Cambodia. It was pretty amazing. From the weather to the food to the cultures, nothing was the same as in China. First, some pictures of Guilin, home of the famous limestone (I think) peaks that rise seemingly from nowhere:

One day in Guilin we rented mopeds and went exploring around some of the tiny villages that dot the area. We took a cooking class and saw traditional fisherman who train cormorants to fish for them. They raise them from chicks and tie a small ring around their necks so they can't swallow the fish. Supposedly they get to eat every 7th fish or else they refuse to work. After you watch them for a bit, the fisherman bring them out of the water and let you hold them. Crazy.



After Guilin, we went to the city of Hue in central Vietnam. My Buddy Phong has a lot of family that stay there, and we were lucky enough to be the recipients of their warm hospitality for 3 days. We were fed mountains of delicious food, including pho (vietnamese noodles) and these weird fruits that were delicious and have never seen before in my life.

Next on the tour was Saigon, the biggest city in Vietnam. Here we visited the American War museum, went to see a town with a huge complex of Viet Kong tunnels, and toured the vast Mekong delta on many different boats.

After Saigon, was Cambodia and then finally Hanoi, which I'll post about soon.