About a week ago China celebrated their National Holiday. This means that every business and school closes for 7 days so people can go home and/or go traveling. It's one of the worse, if not the worst weeks to travel. However, it does give us an opportunity to see a new area of China. Last year I went up north to ride on the camels, this year I went to Enshi.
I know, it's like I'm always on vacation, but this is the last one until Christmas for me :) Enshi is in the same province as I live, but quite a ways west. It's surrounded by mountains so the best way to get there is by train. After an 8 hour train ride we were met by a friend at the train station. He took us to our hotel and treated us to dinner.
The trip was awesome! I got to meet another friend and have dinner with him, see his family and his home, and even try some special Enshi breakfast food- dog meat! The first day we hiked around the "Grand Canyon" and the second day we went deep into the country-side and saw the real country life of some people. Country life in China is much different than America!!
The final meal was the most interesting meal I've ever had. We were given a stack of shallow, clay bowls. These bowls were meant for drinking alcohol (although sprite is also ok :) ). After you finished your drink you would smash the bowl on the floor. So during the meal you would hear bowls shattering all around. It was pretty neat!
Enough with my words... enjoy some pictures!
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| people |
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| people |
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| everwhere!!! These pictures show the number of people hiking on this 4-hr long trail... |
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| After narrowing the people down to one lane, we had more space to walk... beautiful views! |
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| My friend, John Wayne, with his family in their kitchen |
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| to the left is the kitchen, to the right is a walkway to another kitchen and a bathroom |
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| a path in the country-side |
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| country-side... notice the lack of roads? |
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| corn field and path |
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| Great Wall of Enshi |
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| We got to hang out with this girl as her parents (Linda's cousin) drove us around. |
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| Linda |
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| The bowl |
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| You drink from it.... |
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| ... and smash it! |
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| Our table |
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| The bowls after we were finished with them :) |
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| delicious!!! |
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| I got even closer to Linda on this trip. She's a blessing! |
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| A bridge near our hotel. |
