So I’m back from my summer holidays, and even though it’s a luxurious two months, it still seems to go by so quickly.
I was in the small village of Yangshuo in Guangxi which is in southern China, studying Chinese. I’ll write another post about what it is like to go to a month-long intensive Chinese course soon, but first I wanted to share some pictures.
Yangshuo is beautiful. I first went there almost seven years ago during my first winter holiday in China. I stayed for a few days and moved on and I had great memories. But being there for a month gave me an opportunity to really explore the karst peaks, the secret spots of the river, and tiny ancient villages in the countryside. Except for the jagged karst mountains shooting up everywhere, the land is flat and is perfect for biking adventures.
So before I delve into the reason I went there, the studying, here are some pictures I wanted to share of some amazing sights I saw this past month.
So it was a great summer. It wasn’t as active as my summer trips usually are, but it was very peaceful and quiet. Yangshuo is a big tourist center, but it’s not a city and there are more bikes than cars on the street, which is always a nice change from the big city life of Xiamen. But my purpose there was to study Chinese, and in my next post I’ll talk about what that was like!
Great pictures! I’ve never seen scenery like that, with all the mountains (hills?) around in those shapes. Very cool. Was there a particular period that was Yangshuo’s heyday?
I’m not sure although I will say it has changed a lot from even 6 years ago when I was there the first time. The town is basically the same, no large buildings or large apartment complexes which is nice, but it is SOOOO touristy now. Like I’m not sure one local person makes a living outside of tourism. Luckily the tourism is centered around a few places and it is such a big,open county you can easily get away from the crowds, but before it was a much sleepier place then it is now.
Bummer. I like sleepy!