from various places that are traveling with us. We stayed at the Kowloon YMCA in HK for a couple of days exploring places that I had already seen but it was still a fun time I really appreciated seeing my friends and getting to have a taste of home. The highlight of my time with them in HK was the seafood dinner we had on Lamma Island and the day at Repulse Bay with my buddies.
From Hong Kong, we took a flight to Guilin. Guilin is famous for it's beautiful natural scenery. However, when we got in at night, the area looked really sketchy. It was the first time in my life that I saw obvious places of prostitution. It was funny at first but then just creepy. It is definitely a new thing to see those places. We could identify them by the purple lights illuminating from open businesses. I think we stayed at the
nicest hotel in town, which was still sketchy. The next day in Guilin, we took a river ferry exploration down the Li River. This whole area is famous for it's jagged rock hills that jet up out of the ground. We also took a small tour of the rural area. 
This was poor China. Quite different than Taipei or Hong Kong.
At night we took a train to Wushan. The train was very cramped. I had just a small bed that was the top of three bunks.
I just slept all night considering it was a 12 hr. train ride. At first it was very claustrophobic but I was tired from all the travel so it was fine.
We arrived in Wuhan early the next morning and spent some time exploring there. Wuhan is very polluted, very crowded, very Chinese. It was a good experience but out of my comfort zone. I loved it though. In Wuhan we traveled to famous place called
the Yellow Crane Tower. It is one of the three most famous towers in China. From there we took a long bus ride to the Three Gorges Dam were we would board our 5 star cruise along the Yangtze River, China's biggest and the 3rd largest in the world.This cruise ship was so insanely nice. Never did I expect to travel on a 5 star cruise for this trip. Apparently all the 4 star cruises were booked so we took the 5 star one. It would take us all the way to Chongqing(near Chengdu, look on a map). For the first night we remained docked and the next day we had a tour of the largest dam in the world, the Three Gorges Dam From here we would leave up the river.
The cruise was very very nice. I was really taken aback. Most of the other travelers were coming from the Olympics.
.It was very surreal. Each day, we would stop at a different location and have a short excursion. One day we took a small boat up a tributary of the Yangtze. It felt like we could have been natives navigating the 
river. Very cool. Another day we visited Fengdu, or the "Ghost town." It was mostly just idols and deities that were worshiped. Here was the supposed afterlife connection from physical to Heaven or Hell. So many evil statues, many depicting Hell torture scenes.
The cruise would end after 4 nights, 3 days. We finished in Chongqing. From there we went to the Buddhist cave carvings in Da Zhu.
It was just more history and statues. This place was a place that people would stop at before heading out on their journey along the Silk Road. This would be there prayer location to ask for protection for the long journey and also to thank the gods after they returned.
A 5 hr bus ride would deliver us to Chengdu. Then following our Sichuanese dinner(Spicy!) we would arrive at Sichuan University. We are staying the International dorms. I just met some Koreans and some Japanese wing mates. We communicated through Chinese. This event will really challenge me to get better. I'm really excited. I'm in the market for a used bicycle right now. It should be fun. I've been super busy so it will take some time to get back to everyone via Email. Know that I am doing my best and I will get around to every email. So if you send me something, I will reply. It just might take some time. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. Dzi-jian!
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