Rain, Rain, Go Away. Come Again When I'm Far Away

We had a nice, relaxing day in Yangshuo yesterday. I slept away most of the morning and then we read and wrote for a few hours before lunch as it was pouring outside. Eventually when an energy bar could no longer suffice for lunch, we darted out to the restaurant across the street. The lady there was very insistent upon which dishes we should taste (beer fish among other things) but we ended up with an amazing garlic eggplant with green beans dish and some pork and peppers. Not too shabby!

We returned to the hotel to read for a while longer and then headed out to a cooking class. Our guide met us in the lobby before taking us to a local market to show us around. We saw some intriguing vegetables, including the largest zucchini I have ever seen and some almost fluorescent purple eggplant. We tried not to think too hard about the bunnies in cages and flat out refused when she suggested we go around and see the dogs. She walked us over to a van where we met up with some other tourists and left us there to be driven 15 minutes or so away to the cooking school.

It felt a bit like a chemistry lab where we all had our own burners and small amounts of each ingredient. The chef demonstrated each dish and then we got to try them on our own. We started off with egg wrapper dumplings, followed by steamed chicken with dates. The garlic eggplant was particularly delicious and both the bok choy and the pork with carrot seemed like dishes I could try at home. We got copies of all five recipes and had a lovely meal at the end. We even met a fellow Canadian my dad went rock climbing with today.

He got up around 8 to head out to the rock climbing shop while I slept for a while longer. I eventually got up and headed out to hike up a mountain with a pagoda at the top. The views were amazing! (I also found the dilapidated theme park I was sure had to be around somewhere). I wandered around for a while longer through the shops, getting fairly lost and made it back to the hotel about an hour before my dad.

We read some more and played a game of Chinese chess (he is getting quite good) before venturing out for dumplings and an onion pancake for dinner.

Tomorrow we head back into Guilin to take an 18 hour night train to Kumming. Should be fun!