In short, our trip was incredible. It gave us the much needed breath of fresh air (literally and figuratively) that a city of 16 million people just can’t offer. We had four days off from school, and though we didn’t have much time, we packed our trip to the max and had a blast!
Quick sidenote: one of the aspects of living in China that we can’t quite wrap our western minds around is the concept of working on Saturdays. In order to get four days off, we had to work a 6-day work week, so our days off were Sun, Mon, Tue, and Wed. It just felt so wrong to work on a Saturday, (although the two day work week when we came back was not so bad ;)!
Our river cruise ended in Yangshuo, which is a beautiful small town set along the cliffs of the river. We enjoyed the festive atmosphere, the bright colors, and the fun little shops on the narrow streets with the looming cliffs up above (during the day that is, the blasting karaoke music on those streets at night didn't give us the same quaint ancient Chinese village feel).
(click on the picture to see it better)