a German Experience: Spring Festival 2011-part 3--Guilin

Proof. Foreigners are often recruited to model for products simply because, well, they're foreign. Here's a great example of what my friend, Annie, called "Frankenstein selling chewing gum".

Does this logo look like anything you might recognize? Apparently this is a real and legit company. It's ranked better than the complete knock offs that use Adidas's logo without the quality.

In China, on your year you should wear something red to bring you luck. Learning this, I decided to buy something red in every city I visited.The most common, comically, is red underwear. Every store has a large section of bright red underwear with the Chinese character 福 (fu=luck) printed on it.

Images of China. Those supplies to the left are all on one small cart.

Again, another city is celebrating me, the rabbit!

And for that celebration, they've finally made a bottle as it should be. Do you think I could import that back into the US?

When my friend finally arrived after her 33 hour train ride (yuck!) we went to the dragon backbone terraces--rice fields in the side of the mountain that, from a distance, resemble the scales of a dragon's back.

Our hostel group that went to the dragon backbone rice terraces for the day (two Koreans up front, and two Americans currently teaching in Suzhou.)

We came as everything was covered in a sheet of ice, making the stairs very wet and the view unforgettable. Due to the warm sun that day, each one of us suffered from an ice cube to the head due to it falling from the trees overhead.

In preparation for the spring festival, the members of the village (in the rice fields) butchered their spring pigs for the feast to follow. I was also told that a week before the New Year (about this time), some religious families will have a meal (or just offer candies) to the Kitchen god so he will report to the emperor the family's good deeds.

As we climbed the hill, Annie found puppies and couldn't help but to stop and play.

What Annie has by her bedside. Phone, in case someone calls. Glasses, without which she's nearly blind. And hammer.

In Guilin, the Lijiang river flows, which allows for the most beautiful views. We arrived and were told we had to wait 4 hours because someone politically important wanted to take a cruise. Thus, they cleared the entire river just for this person's passage.

The hill of 9 horses. Looking at the side of this hill, a truly astute person can find the silhouettes of 9 horses. (A Chinese person's description always continues with is "Mao was able to find all 9".)

The famous scene on the back of the 20 yuan bill.

And in true Chinese fashion, here is the exact view from the back of the 20 Yuan bill. Note the stinking wire cutting completely in front of it. Oh, China.