October 1st Holiday

October 1st is a national holiday - Mao Ze Dong officially declared the beginning of the People's Republic of China on this day in 1949. Chinese people get a week vacation to celebrate the birth of their great nation. I left early (September 26th), missing four days of class, and took a plane to Guanzhou, in the south of China (Guangdong province) and then a six-hour bus ride to Zhan Jiang, my former student's hometown, where his family warmly welcomed me. Over the next week, we prepared my student's cousin's wedding, which took place October 2nd. On the night of October 1st, I was sick to my stomach, threw up a bunch of times, and went to the hospital from 6-9:30 AM, missing the very important part of the wedding where the groom, with his male buddies in tow, woos the bride and her bridesmaids and takes them from her chambers (a hotel room) and sweeps her around town, using nine cars and taking photographs in nice-looking places. I missed that. But I was there for the dinner....

The day after the wedding we left for an aunt's house, who lives near Guilin, a famous back-packers' destination. It's set in a beautiful location - super strange-looking but very beautiful hills. We took a 4-hour boat ride down a river. I took around 40 pictures - and you'll think they all look the same! Don't worry, I'll edit....

It was also a grastronomical experience. I ate everything from congealed pig's blood to dog and horse meat to miniature crabs (shell and all) to...dog's tails! And it was all quite tasty.

Left the line that goes from my camera to the computer, so I need to buy a new one. Until then, no pictures I'm afraid! The magic number of pictures allowed on one post is 9. We'll see how many posts it takes to show the pix from my vacation...I took over 1 GB of pictures!