Xinping, China

Things have been a little chaotic on the blog with a bunch of skipping around, but today we are going to wrap up our last vacation day in Yangshuo.  If you remember last, we ended Saturday evening just the way Saturday morning started- with lots and lots of rain. We were happy to wake up Sunday morning and see foggy skies with no rain!! YAY!!!

We decided to go ahead and hit up the small town of Xinping (it is famous because it is where the background picture of the 20 Yuan bill was taken at the heart of the Li River). As we headed out with our trusty taxi driver, we were stunned to see of all of the cars/people stopped on the bridge to the Yulong River.

Turns out that there was some kind of major traffic jam, so we turned around and our driver meandered through several small towns rather than taking the major highway.  This was kind of like a dream come true for me because I had wanted to rent scooters to ride through these towns - but with all the rain, we decided it would not be safe enough for the girls on the slick roads.  And after seeing how long it took us to get there, we decided we definitely made the right decision.

Our driver dropped us off right here, writing down 1:00 on a piece of paper which Wes quickly deciphered meant to meet him back here at 1:00 and we were like, huh? And I am saying, these are not pictures that I saw on a blog ;).  But with no one to translate for us, we just got the strollers out and started walking :).

Pretty quickly, we found the Lee River and watched a few ladies doing their morning wash (the girls were bright eyed wondering who would wash their clothes in a river).

We saw much bigger boats made of pvc pipes instead of bamboo and had motors instead of rowing (quite lacking in charm from a few days previous), but we knew we wouldn't be able to ride them with Everly's size.

After walking the wrong way down the river (I had a pretty funny map that I used in order to try to communicate with the locals), we got headed in the right spot determined to find the exact same spot where the picture on the 20 Yuan bill was taken.

It was a super peaceful walk, we stumbled upon several people painting.

As Evsie's would say, "Ta-Da".  This is the spot, despite all of the fog!

Two pictures in, and there was a sudden downpour. We gathered the girls, all of our stuff (no small feat) and scampered to huddle under an awning to wait out the rain.

When the rain had stopped, we finally wandered on to the qaint, small streets we had been looking for.

I actually sampled this -I still has no idea what it is, but bees love it! And there was honey next to it- maybe it has something to do with a beehive?

This small city was so fun to explore!

We saw these local, Chinese berries everywhere -and finally stopped to sample one and then of course bought a bag for Em's and Ev's.  The girls just called them Chinese strawberries ;).

They were actually hand weaving these scarves while we were there- for 25 Yuan each (that's under $5!!).

Then, we stumbled upon a food cart that had garnered quite a crowd.  We have learned one thing in China- always go where the crowds go. And you cant go wrong with quail eggs (I love these things!).

We stumbled upon this shrimp/quail egg combination and decided to go ahead and order.

We took it to a local coffee shop to share and it was crazy delicious.

We giggled over the spelling of caramel macchiato.

And then promptly ordered the two most delicious coffee's we have had our entire stay in China - just look at it, it was beautiful!

And I quite enjoyed drinking it ;).

We also got the mocha (hot and not iced) and I am a sucker for pretty designs - it makes it taste better, I promise!

Loved the name :).

They had an awesome courtyard for the girls to play in out back.  I poked my back there to check on them and they had garnered quite a crowd of onlookers.

After meandering quite a bit more, we made our way back to the 20 Yuan spot to try to get a few more pictures.

Saw a few more painters.

Despite the fog and mist, just like the rest of our trip- the landscape was truly stunning.

Close to1:00, we made our way back to find our taxi driver deciding to take one last walk along the Li River.

On our drive home, we once again saw a bunch of commotion which was centered around these rock climbers.

Talk about terrifying! The girls eyeballs were popping our of their heads just talking about it.

We made it back to our hotel and had a snack on the porch before heading up for naps.  Emma had been asking for watermelon so when the girls woke up, we headed out to buy some from one of the local vendors.  As we started walking, Emma told us that she needed to throw up so we stopped for her to try and then when she couldn't throw up, she would tell us she was fine and still wanted watermelon so we forged on.  Humbling parenting moment- always listen to said daughter.  I held my Emma's hair out of her face while she puked along the main rode in our village no less than five times.  Poor baby-I felt so bad for her.  I had talked myself into believing it was from eating the China strawberries earlier in the day while simultaneously trying to psyche myself up for the bug passing from Emma to Everly tome.

Meanwhile, this girl was all smiles! And pleased as punch about our watermelon purchase.

She stole daddy's hat on the way home and I instantly became obsessed with her in the tomboy look (obviously, you can tell that they wear dresses all the time!).

The cutest, right??!??

We decided to order the girls spaghetti with the sauce on the side and strongly discouraged both of them from eating any red sauce given the prior events.  This girl can down some noodles :).

That night, we made it nearly incident free (Emma got sick one more time) but I was relieved that Everly and I did not get it. That next morning, we hopped on a 'hairplane' and headed home! The girls did great on the airplane ride and during the wait time - I really do feel that by the end of this experience they are going to be seasoned traveller's.

We had so much fun traveling together and we are so excited about our next adventure: Hong Kong and Borneo (can't believe it is less than a month away!!).