Woke up this morning feeling a bit better. This was good considering we had a 90 minute ride back the airport in Guilin and then a 2.5hr flight to Beijing. It probably served me well to miss a day and a half of food based on how we have been eating. We have come full circle and are back in our original hotel. What was at first strange now feels oddly familiar.

I wanted to post some pictures from our bamboo raft tour of the Li River. It was nothing short of stunning. The landscape is just so beautiful. The guides direct you upstream using a long bamboo stick by pushing from the bottom of the fairly shallow waters. The water was very clear and quite serene. The tour took roughly an hour but in the end seemed brief. The bamboo rafts are a main tourist attraction in the area so there were quite a few people on the water. A number of the Chinese people on the rafts asked to take our picture. In particular, Christi felt like a movie star as many of the Chinese people are enamored with her blonde hair. Like most landscape photos, the pictures below still don’t fully represent the beauty of the area.

Last night, the rest of the crew went to the show on the Li River. The gentlemen who choreographed the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games did the same for this performance. They all said it was really wonderful. The show started with bamboo rafts drifting in carrying lanterns with the mountains lit in the background. It sounded very cool and hated that I missed it. The other Todd claimed it to be one of his favorite events of the whole trip. This is a good thing since they were celebrating his birthday.

We elected to dine Italian tonight as we are spent on Chinese food after two straight weeks. Although, Christi made a valid argument that while in China shouldn’t it just be called “food”. We head to the airport tomorrow afternoon and will spend our morning waling the streets of Beijing. Please pray for safe smooth travels for us tomorrow.

I attached the two dogs on a scooter as I forgot the other day.