We took a scenic Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo.

There were beautiful landscapes (including the image on 20 yuan bill), some rain sprinkles. It was relaxing being on the top deck. I even saw some cormorants with local fisherman.

Lauren was impressed with the bathroom on the boat.

Our hotel was on West Street which is the main night market and shopping street. It was a little confusing finding our room (when we didn’t read the top part of the sign).

We went cycling in the countryside by a river and through rice paddies, blazing hot and sticky (93 and 90% humid).

We stopped at a 500-year-old farmhouse and got to learn from the family that lives there.

We ordered four custom Chinese name stamps (chops).

Sarah (born in the year of the dragon) is the top left stamp–An Yueqin

Lauren (a sheep) has the bottom left stamp–An Yili

Emily (a pig) is the bottom right–An Xinyi

Rachel (also a pig) is the top right–An Xinrou

They turned out really nice. Emily and Rachel can use them on their homework at school because those are the names they use in the Chinese part of their classes.

In preparation for our cooking class, we walked through a local market with live and butchered animals. They even had sliced up dogs and other animals hanging up. There were bags of live frogs. Some of the kids were really bothered. In addition we saw all sorts of spices and vegetables.

Then we got a cooking lesson at Cloud 9 with each of us making jiaozi dumplings, egg rolls, and chicken/veggie stirfry. Tasty! There was a time when we all had our woks and spicy food smoking so all of us started coughing and had a hard time breathing.

We went to a rural family farm where we did some farming (hoeing and planting sweet potatoes) cooking rice flower cakes, and small basket weaving.

Then we went on a tour of Silver Cave.

I got Lauren to join me in “fish therapy” foot massage.