While studying for Chinese, Fanny suggested that maybe my bug bites were from bed bugs. Paranoid, I checked my bed before going to sleep and there were things moving around. Very tiny, but still moving! UGH! In panic mode, I looked up what bed bugs looked like and how to get rid of them. In the end, I dry cleaned some clothes to kill the bugs and moved what I needed into the living room. I slept with my head down on the table for the night and ended up exhausted during my Chinese test.
After talking to Justine, Guo Xiaojie, and Shen Laoshi at school, as well as the maid and landlord, they determined that it wasn’t a bed bug. That gave me some relief. They also sprayed my room with Raid and changed everything except the bed frame and mattress.
I managed to get some relaxation at night when I went out to dinner with friends at Ajisen Ramen. It was pretty yummy. They had some delicious looking shaved ice, but it probably would have required three people to finish it.
I actually slept in my bed at night, hoping all the bugs were gone. Unfortunately, I was still pretty shaken by the thought of bugs and ended up inspecting my bed and sheets.
Final day of an amazing trip. I was so sad to leave Yangshuo and Guilin. When we were leaving the hotel, the Speed Queen Laundry guy came out and helped us with our luggage. He even waved goodbye to me! The bus ride to the rice paddies was kind of long, but it was really comfortable because almost everyone had their own pair of seats since some people left earlier. As I should have seen coming, we were met by another climb at the paddies. We climbed halfway to get to the restaurant for lunch and another halfway brought us to the top.
The rice paddies were amazing, to say the least. It was one of the most impressive things I saw in Guilin, along with the Li River. Unfortunately, we were told they didn’t have a good rice season, so it wasn’t as beautiful as it could have been. We ended up seeing a lot of the rice paddies because we trekked from one section to another. We hiked for over an hour and ended up very far from where we started. The trek down took about half an hour itself.
I felt so tiny among these rice paddies
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Rain + hole in shoe = disaster. That pretty much sums up my day.
It rained all day for the first time since I arrived in Shanghai. Rain storms aren’t fun in NYC and they’re even less fun here, mostly because it becomes even more hazardous to cross the streets with all those bikes and mopeds. Anyways, I got my first dose of heavy rain when I went out between classes to Trust Mart to get a hiking backpack. It isn’t exactly a short walk out to the front gate where Trust Mart is, so I got soaked. I tried my best to tread through the rain carefully so the water wouldn’t get into my shoes, but it was raining too heavily. Luckily, I did find a hiking backpack. Too bad my luck seemingly ended there…
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With the orientation presentations done, it was time to visit a water town outside of Shanghai. We had a choice between Xitang and Tongli. I originally signed up for Xitang, but most of the people I knew were going to Tongli, so I did a last minute switch. I’m glad I did. It was probably the hottest day yet since I’ve landed and Tongli had plenty of trees. Xitang, on the other hand, had barely any from what I heard.
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