We took a bus from Vientiane to Vang Vieng a few days ago. Despite splurging on the VIP bus (which means they don’t pack the aisles with standers and it has air con) Caleb still got motion sickness on the “4 hour drive”. We actually left our guesthouse at 9:00a.m. and arrived at 4:30p.m. A lot seems to do with the waiting for the bus to actually fill up before we depart. A couple of times the bus driver inexplicably pulled over, got out, and returned at few minutes later with a bag of peanuts or a beer or something. We have an 8 hour drive coming up when we head to Luang Prabang so I’m not sure how that’s going to turn out.

Our current guesthouse is very quaint and pretty but somewhat rustic being outside of the main village. We’re surrounded by mountains and jungle. We only have to walk 250m to the back of the guesthouse property to view bats flying out of their cave every day around 5:30p.m. We walked to town a couple of days ago and booked a tour that included a cave with a natural rock formation of an elephant, which also doubles as a temple of sorts for the locals to pray to Buddha.

To get to and from there involved a hike through a Hmong village and rice fields. These villages are very poor and the boys begin to see that not everyone has a nice house to live in. I’m also glad we have our sandals as it’s been raining cats and dogs ever since we’ve arrived (with periodic sunny breaks so we can venture out).

From there we kayaked down the Nam Song river which was peaceful and a welcome way to cool off in the 37C humidity. The views were spectacular and the flat photos that I took really do not do them justice but I’ve included them anyway to give you an impression.

Our guide, Aae (pronounced like the “e” in “men”) had us stop partway down the river to take us to the base of one the mountains where we did cave tubing (floating through the underground streams) and a bit of spelunking. There was a slide carved out of mud at one point and Caleb was brave enough to go down amid the cheers of others in the group. At other parts the roof of the cave was so low I was practically crab-walking, which the boys enjoyed immensely because they could scamper along with no difficulty. The pinnacle of my stress revolved around this sliver of a crack that everyone had to squeeze through. It was about 3 feet tall, 1 foot wide, and 6 feet long. This is, of course, an approximation because it was so irregularly shaped. The boys and Barb breezed through and didn’t even realize that this part of the cave was any different that the rest until they heard the guide telling me, “Exhale before you go through and think very, very thin”. I managed to crouch and contort fairly well and edged my way sideways until about halfway through – and then I got stuck. I was also wearing my lifejacket so that didn’t help matters. Aae started pushing me from  behind and the kids pulled from the front. We were at the end of the tour group but I felt embarrassed nonetheless. Eventually, the slipperiness from sweat and mud helped slide me through. We would have gotten a picture except I was carrying the camera when I got stuck. Aae took our picture when we emerged from the cave somewhere in the jungle. As you can tell I’m pretty happy to be above ground! We cleaned up a little in a stream before resuming our trek.

We reboarded our kayaks and continued downriver until we reached the town where we dropped off our kayaks and hopped on a tuk tuk that took us to the “Blue Lagoon”. This was simply a local waterhole farther up the mountain that got it’s name from the purity and colour of the water. It also, unfortunately, is a major tourist trap. We arrived quite late in the day (~3:30p.m.) so people we starting to filter out slowly as we arrived. It’s basically a mountain stream that is not very wide but is exceptionally deep. People just jumped in and drifted for a short way before doing it all over again. There was a huge tree with a few overhanging branches that people were leaping from. Caleb and I decided to try it and managed to go off the higher of the two branches which was about 20 feet high. Then we drifted with the rest of the rabble. The water was much cooler, coming from the mountains but it was so clear and clean compared to the muddy silt of the Nam Song which was high and fast due to the rain.

By the time we returned to the guesthouse the boys were all but exhausted so today has been a “down” day in which we don’t run around but instead focus on the boys’ math, geography, and social studies.

While we were walking in town we saw a sign (in Lao) that showed a picture of a circus and today’s date was written on it. We decided to see if the circus was in town and checked in the local paper and found out it was.

We walked out of our road and caught a tuk tuk to the circus. It cost us 50,000 Kip and it took us 10-15 minutes to get there. We saw a big dome, with lights shining on it.

Using some hand gestures, we managed to get our tickets and we asked what time it opened. They said 7:00 p.m.

We decided we needed to get something to eat before the show. We went to find a restaurant. We found a small place but they only served drinks. We decided to walk a different direction. I was worried that we would be late for the start so we decided to head back on a different path. We found a lady at the side of the street with lots of fruits. We bought some oranges and headed back to the circus.

When we arrived back in the parking lot we noticed that there was a restaurant that they had set up beside the circus, and we had not seen it before! We were worried we didn’t have time now to eat there so we thought we should just sit and eat our oranges. Daddy walked around to see some of the other vendors who had set up in the parking lot and we some delicious looking “Pao” (steamed buns with meat) but we weren’t sure whether they would be safe to eat.

7 o’clock came and went and the doors never opened. 7:30 came and went and still the doors did not open. Finally at 8:00 p.m. the doors opened and everyone pushed and shoved their way through the small opening. We knew we had assigned seats so we decided not to get in the large crowd but waited until near the end.

The seats were benches, which no one found very comfortable! They had painted lines on to mark each person’s section and your seat number. Daddy was excited because there was a live band in a booth above the circus ring! We were sitting four rows back and it was easy to see. I had a sausage roll under my chair, which I was not too excited about.

The band started to warm up, so we thought the show was going to start but it wasn’t. We had to wait another 30 minutes. Finally, at 8:30 the lights went out. Then they went back on again!!! There appeared to be technical difficulties. They went out again and this time the show started.

The music was so loud that my mom put in ear plugs! One of my favourite acts was the dogs. They wore suits and had to jump through flaming hoops. Another favourite was a man who had giant clay bowls and he would balance them on his head.

I didn’t care for the animal acts, which seemed cruel to the animals. They had a monkey riding bikes, snakes that wrapped around their trainers, and the dogs. (The dog act was good but I still didn’t think they were very kind to the dogs.)

At about 9:00 people started leaving the circus act. By 9:30, the place was practically empty. We thought people either didn’t like the circus or their kids were getting too tired. When the show finally ended at 10:00 p.m., however, and we left we figured out another reason why people had left early. There were no tuk tuks to be found anywhere and we were a long way from our guest house.

We first decided to risk the “pao” because we were starving, and then we started walking “home”. Finally we saw a tuk tuk and started waving but it was full. Another one passed that was full as well. After about 20 minutes of walking, I spotted a tuk tuk turning the corner, going the opposite direction, but it was empty. I waved at him and………….he turned around!!! We were all so thankful and I felt great that I had seen him.

Then Mommy reminded us that the gate of our guest house closed at 10:00 and we started to worry that we might not get in. We pulled into our bumpy laneway and walked toward our guest house and the gate was………….OPEN!!! Thankfully!

It was a rather frightening and stressful experience but the circus was great!

Today we visited the COPE centre beside the Centre for Medical Rehabilitation. This is where people go who have had a bad experience with bombies or have had an accident and need artificial arms and legs. We watched a documentary called “Surviving the Peace” which was about the bombs lying all over Laos and the damage they cause. They are a huge safety hazard.

What I learned was that 2,000,000 tons of ammunition was dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War and it was the most heavily bombed country in the world. Even though Laos was neutral when the Vietnam War was going on, when pilots of the fighter bombs could not reach their targets (for various reasons such as weather, or they couldn’t find them) they would drop the bombs over Laos because it was not safe for them to land with their plane filled with ammunition.

The U.S. had signed an agreement that Laos was neutral and not part of the war, however, the US actually targeted Laos and bombed parts of the country because Laos was communist and they didn’t want communism to spread. This went directly against the treaty and should be considered a war crime.

After the bombing, the U.S. did ask if they could help to clean up the damage, however, Laos often refused because of the feeling that the U.S. was just seeing this as charity work.

Each cluster bomb case that was dropped contained up to 680 “bombies”. The cluster bomb cases had fins so that when they dropped they would spin which would arm the bombies inside. At a certain point the cluster bomb cases would split letting out a shower of bombies over a large radius. When the bombies were dropped they could spread to an area equivalent to 3 football fields. Each bombie was meant to explode on impact and each one had a killing radius of 30 m.

It is estimated that 10-30% of the bombs dropped did not explode, which left several million bombs in the ground, undetonated. These unexploded ordinances (or UXOs) are made of metal, which is worth a lot to the Lao people. Children buy cheap metal detectors and go out searching for scrap metal that they can get money for. They often come across bombs and when they pull them up they explode and they lose their lives. Other times, children come across bombies and use them as play toys – then they explode. People use the metal for a variety of things: as animal troughs, supports for their homes, dishes, farm tools, etc.

The UXOs are preventing the country from getting out of poverty because the farmers are unable to plow huge sections of land due to the bombies. Farmers live in fear every day that they will step on a bombie while they are working. As an example, one man was building a fire behind his house. He was unaware that there was a bombie under the ground and he’d walked in this area many times before; but on this day the fire reached the right temperature and the bombie exploded. He lost his sight and it damaged his hands and legs. He was in the hospital for a month and they thought he would die. Now his wife has to work in the field because he is unable to do so. This is so sad because they are risking their lives every day to go out and tend to the crops so that they can eat.

We arrived in Nanning for our final stop in China. We got here from Guilin by high speed train (we topped out at 207kph) and it only took 2.5h to get here. The journey was relatively uneventful, although the whole personal space here seems to be a lot smaller than back home. People just seem to bump and smash into you and don’t say “Pardon me” or “Excuse me” or anything. Same goes for their devices. Maybe it’s just me but I keep my phone or laptop or iPad relatively low so I don’t disturb others but not so much here. On the train people were chatting loudly into their phones, playing games on devices quite loudly and one girl was even singing along to her Chinese pop tunes right behind me. I guess it wouldn’t have been that bad if she stayed in tune but no luck there. 

We had very minor trouble finding our hostel. We booked at the “Green Forest” hostel but apparently they’ve changed their name to “Traveling With” hostel. Apple maps shows Green Forest, the taxi driver had no clue, but at least we had the address in Chinese. We drove past and managed to find signage for Green Forest.

We walked into a grotty alleyway (our accommodations seem to revolve around these filthy dirty passages) and we saw the entrance to the hostel – and to borrow a line from Kung Fu Panda 2 – “Ah, my old enemy…stairs!” Turns out the hostel was on the 3rd floor of the building and there was no lift. I, of course, am carrying my pack, my guitar, and the 80lb duffle bag. The place seems to be run by teenagers who speak very limited English, though one girl seems much more proficient that the rest. Their inexperience is showing through their difficulty in making change when we pay for things, not bringing a stir stick or spoon when we ask for milk or sugar for our tea, and other minor things that a few training sessions would likely take care of. To be fair they do have an English sign posted stating that they are still developing and in the progress of getting their business set up. On the plus side they have a very decent pool table with a slate top so the boys were quite excited about that.

Oh, I forgot to mention that three of us got our hair cut at a local barber shop in Guilin. The boys were a bit cranky and worried that the barber wouldn’t know how to cut their hair. We assured them that the barbers here would likely know how to cut Asian hair better than anybody. We got in the chairs and they wash your hair by dumping a handful of shampoo on your head and then massage it in using a squirt bottle filled with water. Connor especially liked this part as it was like a head massage that lasted for a full 10 minutes. Then they took you out back to rinse your head, back to the chair for a warm blow dry and then pass you off to the barber who asked what we wanted done. I saw this young fellow who worked there with a chic hairstyle very similar to the boys’ so I pointed to his head and then pointed to the boys’ heads. He smiled and started cutting.

After the cut they washed, rinsed and blow dried again. Connor said that he would definitely come back the next day to that barber shop for another cut – everything except the actual cut. In other words he really liked the head massage! A few locals have commented that we have two handsome boys and I tend to agree. Of course, I am their dad so I’m biased.

Our move to The Giggling Tree in Yangshuo has been good and we’ve gotten to do a few things locally that are closer than our last hostel.

We’ve been doing a lot of walking and biking, most recently to scale a site called Moon Hill. It’s called that because it used to be a cave but it has gradually eroded into a hole in the mountain that looks vaguely like the moon. It had rained torrentially the night before so the host of the hostel warned us that the bike trails would be muddy and hard to navigate. We, of course, decided to try it anyway and it wasn’t all that bad until we got to the place where we cross the river and we saw this:

Yes, that’s the road where the river is supposed to go under but is flowing over top instead. Some local lady decided to brave the walk but we weren’t as confident.

Moon Hill was all steps but they were carved stone, under a canopy of trees so the sunlight didn’t actually dry them so they were slippery beyond belief! The hike was pretty arduous (we stopped to rest about 6 times) and Barb said it was good practice for our hike up to Machu Pichu when we get to Peru. Unfortunately, EVERYTHING is practice for Machu Pichu as far as I’m concerned. I must have gone thru about 2L of water just climbing up the silly thing!

Coming down was almost as hard but seemed to work the calf muscles more than the quads on the way up. Doesn’t matter, my legs hurt for two days afterwards anyway.

We stopped at a local eatery. We couldn’t understand a thing on the menu but they had pictures so I pointed to stuff that looked somewhat familiar and indicated how many we wanted. In the end it turned out alright with us getting a chicken dish, an eggplant dish, a bean cake dish and a big bowl of rice for everyone to share.

From there we biked down the highway to the Gold Water Cave where we had a tour of the caves (over 5km of caves with new passages being discovered daily) but we obviously didn’t walk them all. Our guide was supposed to be English-speaking but it was limited so I think we got the shortened, less-detailed version of the tour. Part of the tour included a visit to the mud baths. Apparently it’s supposed to have minerals and be very therapeutic both for the skin and for your general health. I wasn’t so sure about that though. We changed into our swim suits and stepped into the mud bath pool which was pretty cold. It was squishy underneath the feet, smelled like sulphur (and worse), and the little floaty bits gave the overall impression of a sewer. However, when in Rome…

From the mud baths we rinsed off and followed the cave path to the hot springs. We tried to get a picture but all we got was white mist so I won’t include one here. Apparently the temperature got as warm as 40C in the warmest pool. The water was clear and still smelled of sulphur but much less so and was a nice contrast to the mud bath. The only downside were the masses of people in the pools with running, screaming children everywhere and the parents all ignoring them like that was the norm. Caleb and Connor were looking at them like “we would NEVER be allowed to act this way in Canada or anywhere for that matter”.

We left Yangshuo shortly after that to head to Guilin, a very clean (compared to Beijing) but touristy town who’s main industry is shuttling people by boat to — Yangshuo! We checked into This Old Place International Youth Hostel and walked around for a bit. We discovered that there is a pedestrian Night Market nearby that runs every evening from 1900-0200. In fact, the whole area where we are staying is well lit with multi-coloured lights and looks quite pretty. Here’s a couple of night shots at the market.

This particular hostel doesn’t have a guest kitchen so we’re pretty much eating out at restaurants all the time. We’ve managed to try a couple of local places, again not knowing anything but ordering blindly and hoping we hit upon something that we like. So far it’s been pretty successful. We even went to a place that specializes in roast goose so we had that one night and it was amazing!

Yesterday we had a fun cultural experience of going to the “Impressions Show” on the river. It was VERY expensive but it came highly recommended. The show was designed by the same man who put together the opening ceremonies show for the Beijing Olympics. A small van came and picked us up along with another Chinese family at 6:30 and we drove through the “streets” of town, swerving around people, bridges, and tuk tuks. Once there, our driver said something to us in Chinese. Fortunately one of the men in the other family could speak a bit of English and he told us we were to follow the driver to get our tickets for the show. Well, that was a feat! The street was packed with thousands of Chinese tourists all shoving their way into this same laneway where you get your tickets. You just have to push your way through. Once we had done that our driver handed us a piece of paper, which we had no idea what to do with! The same helpful man said we could follow him to get tickets. We again swerved and shoved our way through the crowds following a large #8 sign and our helpful Chinese man. The #8 stopped and everyone RAN to get their tickets. Helpful Chinese man took our paper and fought his way in to get our tickets as well as his! Then he told us we had to go to the seating area and find our seats. I wasn’t sure where the boys were supposed to sit because there were no numbers on their tickets but as we got closer the Helpful Chinese Man stopped and picket up 2 folding wooden chairs for his 2 boys so we did the same. Then we fought through another crowd of people to get to our seats. Fortunately we were sitting beside the helpful Chinese man! The boys had to put their wooden chairs and sit where our feet would normally go – a little cramped for Clay but I managed OK!

When the show started no one stopped talking. Of course we couldn’t understand anything because it was all in Chinese! I had read a summary of the story ahead of time and explained it to Clay and the boys but even with that we couldn’t really figure out what was happening! It was quite amazing though. We were all sitting on raised seats looking out over a section of the river in front of the beautiful karst mountains. When the show began the lights went out on our side of the river and lights lit up the mountains. About 600 famers and villagers are used in the show and they come out with their flat fishing boats and fishing nets and move to music. It was really something to see.

As it came toward the end I was a bit worried about how thousands of us crammed into this small space would get out but when we were about 10 minutes from the end it became clear it wouldn’t be a problem = as had happened with another show we saw, the Chinese just started to get up and leave – I guess they were also worried about getting out – so if you wait until the end there is hardly anyone left! It was very pricey but definitely a memorable experience!

Today we went to the Golden Water Cave and Moon Mountain. Moon Mountain is a mountain with a huge hole in it. It got its name because the hole is shaped like a crescent moon. We had to do an hour long hike up the mountain to the hole. On the way up we kept making fun of the signs. They said things like, “Caution, rainy days is slippery” and “Beware of slipping!”. The view was excellent at the top of Moon Hill and there was a 74 year old lady selling sprite from her little Styrofoam cooler at the top (so we had to buy 1!). It was great but I don’t think I’d be interested in going again. It’s one of those one-time see sorta’ things.

The water cave was great as well. We had an English guide (thank heavens!) to show us the five km long cave. My favourite parts were the mud bath and hot spring. The mud bath was amazing! I got filthy dirty but I had so much fun. Scientists have shown that mud is good for your skin. They have shown that it makes your skin smooth and relieves aches and pains. Also, in the mud bath you can lay back in the mud and spread out your arms and you will float! Seriously! My dad who is 230 lbs laid in the mud and he floated up to the surface. It was great!

The hot spring was my favourite part of the cave. A hot spring is pretty much water that has been heated up by an active volcano and it comes up to the surface. The spring was 30 cm deep and about as hot as a hot tub. Beside the hot spring was the “ice cold” spring that felt freezing after you went in the hot spring.

Overall, Moon Hill and the Golden Water Cave were both great experiences and I’m glad I had the opportunity to see them.

Ah, the wisdom is seeping in 😉

We left our Xi’an apartment early in the morning to catch a taxi for the airport but this time I asked our helpful hosts to write out “Could you take us to the airport?” in Chinese characters the night before so I could show it to the driver. Our hosts couldn’t very well refuse since our apartment had a leaky ceiling from the apartment above and I managed to negotiate a discounted rate for our stay (bargoons! just warming up for the markets in Thailand, Laos, and Indonesia!).

We carried our gear down to the street, flagged a taxi (which was pretty quick at 7:00 a.m., before rush hour), and I managed to say “Chih-cheong” (airport) and the driver nodded in understanding. We loaded the luggage and I showed the driver my written request to which he kind of looked at me like I had two heads and had this look of “I understood you the first time, fool”. Well the rest was pretty mundane. We got to the airport, flew to Guilin, a driver from our new hostel drove us to Yangshuo and we arrived safely by mid afternoon.

Our hostel is called The Cosy Garden. It’s a typical hostel where there is a shared kitchen, you can cook your own food and clean up after yourself. We noticed there are a lot of Europeans on holiday here with a few French families and couples here and there and a German lady I said “Hi, how are you”, “I come from Canada” and “I’d like a beer please” in German to. Needless to say she hasn’t said another word to me.

The hostel is set about 2km outside of the town of Yangshuo so you have to walk or rent a bicycle to get there. We walked there the first time and found a local eatery out on the street of this trendy restaurant alley. We were told that one end was very touristy with expensive Western-style (i.e., North American) food and the other end was much cheaper and had local fare. Well we walked the row and decided on a local menu, primarily because it had pictures of the dishes they were offering and we could just point to the ones we wanted. Barb and the boys ordered steamed pork dumplings and I had the “outer covering intestine beef noodle”. I know it doesn’t sound that appealing but it tasted great – a little spicy – but great.

There was a group of families sitting at the table near us and they were having a blast watching and laughing at us. Finally, this 12-year old girl, who was cajoled by her mother, plucked up the courage to speak English to us. Apparently they have English lessons in school from kindergarten until grade 8 and the mother wanted the daughter to practice it out in public with real, live English-speakers. She said “Hello”, “Nice day, isn’t it?” (even though it was evening) and “How are you?” amidst a lot of giggling. Being a teacher I’m used to working with children so I listened patiently and answered her back very slowly and clearly, enunciating each word clearly so she could understand. Then in return I would ask “jegga jowshima?” (what is this) so I could learn some new Chinese words like spoon, fork, etc. In the end it was fun and by the time we left all her little brothers and sisters were saying all the English phrases they knew to us. One little boy even said, “I’ll be back” in his best Arnold Schwartzengger!

From the food stall we walked up to the market and picked up some fresh local mango and bananas that we could have for breakfast and headed back to the hostel. Thankfully, most of the accommodation have air con units installed in the rooms. Unfortunately, Caleb and Barb felt horrible in the night and seemed to have food poisoning. A day later Connor succumbed to it as well. We concluded that it wasn’t the local food we had but rather the shared kitchen at the hostel. One French family seemed to have two of their kids out of commission and one of the front counter girls was also ill. A day off and lots of (filtered) water later everyone was back to normal.

Other highlights include Barb and Connor renting bikes to explore the dirt trails up and around the limestone mountains and getting caught in a torrential rain storm, all of us going to the Yangshuo river and light show where they explained and demonstrated the local history and legends of the region and starting Math lessons with the boys. Yes, it’s still summer holidays officially but they’re keen to do some math so we gave in.

We moved from The Cosy Garden hostel to The Giggling Tree hostel, also outside of Yangshuo. This one is even further outside of the town and is much more scenic and peaceful. It is run by a Dutch family who have committed to a 20 year lease before they will return to the Netherlands for a bit of “regular” life. It’s a very nice place to stay but more expensive than our last place. And because it is more remote it is harder to find local food or markets to get our own food. Everything so far has come from the hostel kitchen.

The boys are currently swimming (this place has a pool, which was a very welcome surprise for them – Barb knew it had one but wasn’t sure if it would be suitable or a breeding ground for disease). It’s 33C, feeling like 38 with humidity. We’re all healthy and continuing on as planned.

A few days after we got to the hostel in Youngshuo my mom and I decided to go on a bike ride. We followed the paved road for a while but then we thought we’d go off-road on this dirt path we saw on our map. The path was very rough and had sharp rocks jutting out all over the place. To make things even more difficult the path was also quite hilly. As we travelled along the path we saw dark clouds move in and the rain began to pour down on us. We didn’t mind getting wet because it was 35C and the rain helped to cool us off but all that water made the path muddy and very slippery. At points we had to push our bikes downhill due to the mud. What should have taken us an hour to complete actually took three hours due to the rain. We were exhausted when we finally returned to the hostel. I had to take a shower afterwards!

It was finally my birthday and I couldn’t wait to see the Terracotta Warriors. The bus picked us up and we drove for 2 hours to get to the Terracotta Warriors. We stopped at huge rock saying, “The Emperor’s tomb is that big hill over there”. The guide showed us which hill to look at and told us that it was manmade and you could take some pictures. We got on the bus again and traveled back to the Terracotta area. Caleb and I had to go with the guide to get special entrance tickets and she took us somewhere and told us to sit on a bench and wait. She came back to get us and finally we met up with our parents again.

When we got to the Terracotta Warriors there were 3 pits that you could visit. We started in pit number 2 which showed you 5 warriors that they had pieced together. In pit 3, there were about 36 warriors. They were all commanders and officials. We went to pit 1. It was a huge dome with 2,000 warriors pieced together. It was very interesting, and they say that workers from Germany and some from China come to work on the Terracotta army every night. They think it will take 40 years to finish pit number 2 and 60 years to finish pit number 1.

When we got home I decided I wanted to play cards and watch a movie for my birthday. We watched Ice Age 4 but then it was too late to play cards so we decided my birthday would have to continue until the next day! (It was still my birthday in Canada until 12:00 p.m. the next day!)

One of my favourite activities is biking, so the next day we went to the Xi’an city wall and rented bikes. You can bike all the way around the city on the wall, which is about 14 km – which I could do! The bikes took a little getting used to because you couldn’t adjust the seats. They were quite tall and Caleb tried to use it but almost hurt himself so he decided to ride on the tandem with Daddy. I tried and managed to get up so mommy and I rode the single bikes.

When we got back we went to a special café near our apartment and had waffles. I ordered a waffle which was about the size of a dinner plate! The food was really good and you got whipped cream and syrup with it. I ate it all! After that we went to our apartment and played cards.

I would love to have my birthday in China again!