I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday!! Thursday of this week was International Labor Day, so we had the day off of school. It is an interesting holiday as the people who work the most: the servers, street sweepers, bus drivers, garbage collectors, etc. do not have the day off but everyone else does. It is usually a week off, but this year we only get one day, Thursday. This means that any students have to make up their Friday classes on Sunday (it cannot be a holiday without makeup classes). So over the holiday, we had planned a trip to Guiyang (the big city nearest us), with some of the freshman students to eat American Food, KFC. We have been planning this trip for over a week, and it grew to 9 people, which we found out is not a good number. With more people seems to come more problems. We were taking the train on the holiday which is already strike one for bad things. The train on the holiday is always overly crowded so we did get tickets, but we did not get tickets that had seats. This meant we would probably be standing crammed in among others for 1.5 hours. This was the anticipation, and there were some good and some frustrating and struggling times. We learned some good lessons though and a lot more about the students we were with.

Here is how the trip went. We planned on meeting at the school gate about an hour before the train left to ensure enough time (even though we usually go 1.5 hours early to make sure). As was expected, one student was late, so we waited a little and then took off without her. The bus ride to the train station is about 30 minutes, so we arrived at the train station with about 20 minutes to spare. The student who we missed was still on her way and two others were off doing some shopping before we left. We waited and waited and called them, but they did not come. We finally decided to just get on the train, but went indoors to find out the train had already left. This led to a little frustration on my part, and lots of uncertainty. What should we do, when can we get on a train, can we exchange our tickets for money or should we just take the bus (it is 5X as expensive). We finally found out that there was a train that was leaving in 15 minutes, but could not exchange the tickets and they did not have tickets for the train, so we had to get boarding passes and get tickets on the train. By the time we got all of these things done we had to beg them to keep the gate open so we could get to the train--thankfully many people were helpful and we made it onto a train for Guiyang. It was definitely very crowded and we stood for quite some time in the aisles as people tried to wade through us trying to find seats also. As it turned out, there was a couple from a nearby college (Liupanshui) who were English majors and as the kids tried talking to me started a conversation. It ended up that they gave me part of their seat so we could talk. It was very interesting and the time went very quickly. The family that was near us kept giving me fruit though-so I ended up eating 2 bananas and an orange. Patty also ended up getting part of a seat, so it turned out well. We ended up seeing other students on the train also, so that was fun.

When we arrived in Guiyang, we had no idea where to go to find KFC and the directions were not good, so we wandered around a little before getting a bus to drop us off there. The KFC restaurant was super small inside but with tons of people. They even had a cop to help make sure no fights started between people trying to get tables. There were constantly people walking around trying to find tables or pushing their kids around in the high chairs begging people to leave and give them their table. It looked impossible to find enough room for 9 people. But anyway, I went up and ordered food (they had a meal special 12 pieces of chicken, some corn, bread sticks, oreos and one liter jugs of pop for 64 RMB so we got 3 of them. Now we needed to find a table. Luckily we found one and we squished into the one and had KFC. Ahh...it was amazing!! It has been ages since having KFC chicken, but I have to say Asian KFC is much better than in the US. You can get it with spice and it just tasted soo good. It was definitely a feast and we enjoyed it greatly and before long it was all gone with a huge pile of bones and wrappers. We even got real ice cream.

After the feast, we decided to go to QianLing Park, because none of us have been there and they are supposed to have wild monkeys. When we arrived a large crowd of people were leaving, but the place was packed like going to the State Fair. It was definitely a fun time with the students though. We had so much fun--like riding on the Peacock, taking pictures by the water and the 2 mile underground walkway. It ended up being a super long uphill walk to the zoo and wild monkeys, but we did finally make it. The zoo was awful to say the least--there were only a couple animals in super small concrete cages. But we did get to see camels and Patty almost went for a ride (it was only 3 RMB, 50 cents). On way back down, we saw our fill of monkeys. There were dozens of them out, some even brave enough to come and take food out of people's hands. Many of them were fighting as it is getting close to mating time. They are definitely amusing creatures to watch in the "wild."

The girls in the group really wanted to go shopping after this at the famed never ending shopping stalls, so we tagged along to trudge through endless lines of stores for anything you could imagine. It ended up that Patty was the only person that bought anything (sandals--size 43--she was happy that she could find some that fit). By the time we finished this, most of the people wanted to go home which was a huge ordeal. We did not know if we could find a way back to Anshun. We tried the bus station across the road but found out their last bus left 10 minutes ago. We had 40 minutes before the last train left, so we decided to give it a try. We were so tired by this time, that most of us passed out on the bus and we arrived at the train station 15 minutes before it left. We were running around trying to get tickets, running up the stairs to the platform, and we made it just in time. Boy did it feel good to be able to sit down again after almost 12 hours of racing around. We made it back to Anshun safely and had to bargain with the taxi drivers forever to get a reasonable rate back to the college (the buses had already stopped). We slept so soundly we did not even know last night had a rain storm.

We decided in the morning since it was still a day off that we would go to NingGu again to see new places because it is so beautiful. The youcai flowers have all disappeared but now many farmers are planting rice, so we headed out on a path towards a village and decided to try new places along the way. As Patty will attest, I am a frustrating person to go exploring with. We always end up on the path rarely taken or climbing through muddy fields and up steep, rocky hills. This time we ended up in a grove of cherry tomatoes with the only way out being climbing down many muddy fields. By the time we found a "real" path we were full of mud but still smiling. We ended up near a river and some tall mountains and decided we would keep walking and see what we could find. This time it turned out to be spectacular. We ended up on the other side of a mountain in an old village that they have turned into a camp for tourists. It was super beautiful with many little caves and rivers,and a huge grove of bamboo (no pandas though). We walked around the area and then settled down by a small waterfall to eat some food we brought. We tried to find a shortcut back but ended up going in a long circle of nearby villages. We did end up going to a cave on the way back. It looks like they just got it opened, as the railings were new. For 5 RMB a person we went into the unknown led by a man with a lighter and a few lights on the walls. It was something for your eyes to get used to, as a lighter does not give off much light. The cave seemed quite big, but they only had a few rooms accessible for people. A few stalagmites and tites, but it was not super exciting. They would say it was a "mamahuhu" (so-so) tour. We arrived back at the bus stop sore but doing okay. Our little walk turned out to be almost 8 hours out up mountains and through fields. Patty is now in bed early sleeping it off.

We hope you are blessed in all of your labors, whatever they may be. It is good to know that we do not labor alone and that we labor not for a prize that will wither or disappear but for something eternal. It is also great to see what 'Awe'some things he has created for us and how he works.