The Rice Terraces

What is this?.... This is what we saw as we got out of the bus. We drove 4 hours to see these rice terraces but instead we drove 4 hours to see a cloud as Annie so realistically put it.

Luckily the clouds rolled out about an hour later. It was clear for the time we were there then as soon as we were getting on the bus the clouds were coming back in. We are so lucky!

The Rice Terraces. This was just one side of the mountain that was covered in them. It was quite the site to see.

Right when we got off the bus all these ladies flocked around us trying to sell us everything they had. This little lady wasn't as pushy but she stayed right by Debbie's side the whole 5 minutes we were there. She was so cute I just had to get a picture of her.

Oh, the animals we have held...

Check out our little crowd. When we were getting our pictures with these birds it felt like you were getting a photo shoot from a handful of Chinese people. Debbie and Annie actually got them to "Oo" and "Aw" with their posing skills.

A waterbuffalo...

Weird birds that were going to peck my eyes out at any moment.

A CAMEL! We wanted to have a ride on it's back but instead we got to hold the string. Oh well, we got to pet it so that should count I guess.

Monkeys! It was so cool to actually be able to hold a monkey. These monkeys were quite the posers. Their feet feel so weird. I was scared they were going to pee on me the whole time but I left without any pee stains on my clothes.

We all have this new goal to get pictures with as many animals as possible. We crossed a lot off the list this trip. We are still looking for a place that has elephants and baby tigers. Hopefully we can find them somewhere. However, as of right now I am pretty happy about the monkeys.

The bike ride to the mud caves

This Banyan tree is huge and incredily old. There are areas of the tree just covered in little red envelopes put up there by women with babies. When ever their little babies would cry at night they would go put the little red envelopes in the tree hoping that by doing this that their babies would sleep that night.

In front of the huge Banyan tree.

This is just another example of the beautiful mountains in Guilin. I couldn't help but feel like I was in a Dr. Suess book the whole time I was there.

We biked for most of the day. It was so nice to be in the middle of all these beautiful mountains and wide open spaces. I loved not being in a crazy city for one day.

Our Awesome Group!

Our group with some of our native coordinators. We have all become such good friends. Celina is on the left of me, Candi on the right, Cherrie and Eden are in the hole... We are missing Tina, Kari, and Linthy. They teach us Chinese every day and help us with anything that we need. They are lifesavers!

On Monday we all went over to the park to take a bunch of pictures because it was Tiann's last day. This is our full group from left to right... Seantay, Kate, Tiann, Annie, me, Debbie, Candice, and Katie.

This is a picture of all of the kids we teach and the Chinese teachers.

After opening when all the kids found out Tiann was leaving they all rushed over to give her hugs. Half of the kids were crying all day because they were so sad she was leaving. We are going to miss her.

Sanya

I WENT SURFING!

Lindsey, Kate, Mandy Amy and Emily. We were just waiting in the van for our surf instructor to get over his drug high so we could go back home. He was a funny man.

SURFING! This was definitely the highlight of the trip. We drove for two hours to this pretty beach where the waves were bigger and there weren't any people. We surfed all day. It would have been the best day of my life if I hadn't been sick. I would have gone out so much more. It was still a blast.

Jeanette, Debbie, Katie, me, Annie and Kate just enjoying ourselves on the beach.

There was a guy just walking up and down the beach with this alligator. The last day Katie stopped him and forked out the money to get a few pictures with him. One by one we all got the courage to do it. He loved us because he got a lot of money from us and it gave him some good publicity. BAH! I KISSED AN ALLIGATOR! My excuse is that I was sick... I wasn't in my right mind.

The Journey to Sanya

This picture of our head teacher, Debbie, explains exactly how our trip down to Sanya went. It was only supposed to be a 12 hours away but it turned into a 24 hour death trip.

Annie's face kills me in this picture. At this point we had been on a claustrophobic bus for17 hours and now we are on the ferry where we sat for another 2 hours just waiting on the harbor. When we actually started moving it was another 2 hours until we reached the other side because we stopped out in the middle waiting to come it. We don't know what the hold up is. We just wanted to get to Sanya.

Here is our second sleeper bus where we spent another 4 hours. So all in all we spent 17 hours on a bus, 4 hours on a ferry, and another 4 hours on another sleeper bus. We decided to pay the extra money and fly back home. The flight only took an hour it was beautiful.

Cute pictures!

This is Travis. We affectionatly call him the "Mofia boy." He just is so mischievious. Sometimes he spots you from across the room and slowly sneaks over to you. He never loses eye contact until he slips his little hand into yours. Then he won't let go until he absolutely has to. Goll! What a cute kid.

Jennifer and Kenny. I love teaching this class because they get so excited. The best is when they do their exercises. They do these cute little routines. Jennifer loves to shake her bum. I love watching them.

This is the little baby class. They are all 2 or 3 years old. Bubbles were a big hit! There wasn't even one that was crying.

Nathan... our little smiley boy.

It's raining it's pouring. This is Emily is her cute rain gear.