Hello everyone!!

It's my first post in a while--I'll try not to ramble.  I've finished my semester at Sichuan University, taken all my tests, etc.  Now I'm traveling throughout southern China!!  My trip can be divided into five legs, based on city.  I am visiting Guiyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Xi'an (there's room for one more city in my itinerary, but I haven't decided where to go yet...).

I'm currently on the first leg of my journey, in Guiyang.   I left Chengdu on an overnight train to Guiyang--I bought a "hard seat" ticket, and boy did I luck out.  Not only is the "hard seat" padded, but there are 3-seat benches that are pretty comfortable to sleep on, if you're not sharing the bench.  On that first train ride, my train car was not packed, so people could move around.  I was able to sleep a little bit.

These past two days in Guiyang--I've actually been outside Guiyang.  On January 19th, I visited the Dragon Palace Caves scenic area.  Boy what a treat!!  Although the round trip from Guiyang was around 5 hours, I really enjoyed myself.  On the way there, I sat next to a local boy who was also headed to Dragon Palace, and he asked me if I wanted to join him and his friends.  Of course I said yes!!  So, not only did I get to enjoy the majestic scenery of Dragon Palace, I also got a great guide and good company.  The terrain in Guizhou is very different from America.  Everywhere, steep hills shoot out of the ground, almost randomly.  They look like mini mountains, they're so steep.  As a result, farmland has to be terraced.  Both the tamed and untamed geography was beautiful.

Visiting Dragon Palace took about 4 hours.  The first hour, our group wended our way to the Cave entrance.  Here, we took a little draft boat into the cave (the caves were carved out by a river, and are still full of flowing water).  There were three sections to the Dragon Palace Cave, and we visited each.  After that, we decided to hike to Whirlpool Lake, which was on the other side of the scenic area.  It amounted to a good 2 hour hike up and down the mountain sides, but we made it.  Near the end of our hike, we encountered a large Buddhist shrine inside a shallow, dry cave. 

Finally, our group reached the Whirlpool Lake.  Our hike was not done, though.  From that point on, we had to find the exit.  There was no way we were going to hike 2 hours back to the main entrance; the local boy knew the back entrance was nearby--we just had to find it.  We decided to walk down the only road there was, and hoped for the best.  Happily, the road led us out!  We were able to flag down the bus back to town, and safely got home.

On January 20th, I visited Huangguoshu Falls National Park.  Originally, I planned to visit Huangguoshu on the same day as Dragon Palace, since they're in the same area.  Unfortunately, the excessive time spent travelling to and from these places ruled out that option.  Getting to Huangguoshu was a little trickier than getting to Dragon Palace.  First, I had to take a bus to the next city to catch a charter bus to Huangguoshu town.  Thankfully, the charter bus dropped me off right outside the ticket office for Huangguoshi National Park, but since I was on my own this time, I had a  little trouble understanding how I was supposed to actually get into the park.  All I knew, was that I had to take another bus.  Somehow, I found the tour bus station, and off I went.  Randomly, I had the entire bus to myself....

Huangguoshu National Park has three main features: Douputang Falls, Huangguoshu Falls, and Rhinoceros Pool.  Again due to time constraints (the last charter bus back to Guiyang left at 5:30pm), I only visited Douputang and Huangguoshu Falls.  Getting to Huangguoshu Falls involved a long walk down a long staircase.  I got a LOT of leg exercise, and I'll probably have sore knees tomorrow, but Huangguoshu Falls was worth it.

On both days, I didn't make it back to my hostel until 9pm.  My hostel is pretty small, and I'm currently the only guest.  I'm guessing the reason is that everyone is going home for the Spring Festival, instead of travelling.  Spring Festival is only 10 days away now. Even my hostelkeeper was going back to her home village.  Since I stayed in Guiyang until January 22nd, I had to buy a hotel room for my last night.  It was as expensive as my train ride, but what can you do...  I chose a small hotel near the train station, so no worries.

My last day in Guiyang, I stayed inside the city, and explored Qianling Mountain Park.  This park literally holds an entire mountain in its bounds.  Inside are also a "zoo" (little more than a series of concrete cages on a concrete plaza) and a Macaque Monkey Garden.  I say "garden", but this two does not quite fit its name.  In reality, the monkeys live all over Qianling Mountain; they are most common near the stairs up to the zoo, begging for food from visitors.  And the visitors are happy to give food.

I had a lot of fun in Qianling Mountain Park.  After following the crowds for a little while, I spotted a worn stairway climbing the steep mountainside.  I decided to follow it, and get away from the monkeys and people.  After about a 20 minute climb, I reached the mountain top.  There were no more people; I felt like I finally had some peace and quiet.  The only other creatures up there were a few monkeys.  Incidentally, I think I met the local monkey king.  He was a thick-built monkey, and not afraid of me.  As I walked up the stairway, he calmly walked down, right past me, without giving way.  It was awesome.

The next day, I boarded a 28-hour train to Shanghai.  Once I finish my Shanghai leg, I'll post again!