Chapter 28 - "Vacation" Day in Liye

Well this weekend I had an extra day, so Lee & I decided to travel to a little town not far from Huayuan. This place was recommended to us by a friend so we decided to travel and go check it as a day trip on a lovely Saturday.
To find out what time out bus left the station we had to go check it out on a Wednesday night and since we were late getting out of school by the time it we go there it was closed of course. Dont worry it was only a 2 mile walk back to our flat or apartment! Pssshhh I do that all the time. Then we never made it down there on Thursday and Friday night so we asked a student when the first buses left the station. She told us 9 or 10 so we decided to take her word and set the alarm to be at the bus before 9.

Being dumb boys of course Lee and I stayed up to like 230 that morning watching movies and then got to sleep around 3. Five very quick hours went by in a snap of the fingers and the annoying alarms were blaring to get us up and ready for the adventurous day. Started the 2 mile walk to the bus station and already at like 830 in the mornig it was super hot in the sun! I knew it was going to be a very hot day! When I had reached the bus station I could already feel the sweat starting to gather on my back between me and my backpack.

The day prior we had Stone, the guy looking after us, write the chinese characters "Will you please show me which bus is going to Liye" on this piece of paper. I went to the ticket lady and showed her the paper and all she did was just point to the buses. Yeah that helped alot! Lee started calling people and I started stopping random people to ask if they could help us find the right bus. Finally this young guy had very good broken English and showed us to the right bus.

Once on the bus I soon figured out why the ticket lady didnt give us a ticket because thats not how it works here in China. You sit on the bus and then once you are on the bus the driver's helper goes around and collects money from all the riders. Now these buses are luxury buses and normally fit like a good 20 people comfortably. With only about 7 people on the bus when leaving the station I thought the ride there was going to be great! HAHAHA this is China and even a simple bus ride is never how it seems. We drove through town picking up people left and right.

Soon our comfortable bus ride of 7 people was soon over taken by sweaty, smoking, and yelling chinese people. Once we hit the edge of town we stopped picking up people and hit the road and started our way to Liye in a bus that holds 20 people filled with 27 people inside. In my crammed, sweaty, and very uncomfortable seat I was thankful to have at least one pleasure and that was I had a window seat where of course I had the window open to the max. Its amazing how this is normal for the chinese. It is normal to overcrowd, be uncomfortable, have someone smoking and blowing it right into someone's face, or its so muggy inside the bus that the windows on the inside have a grease slimey feel to them. This is normal for them and we are so lucky of how spoiled we as American's are. And thats putting it nicely. The 2 hour bus ride took about 2 hours and 40 mins! The driver of the bus must of know something special was happening in Liye that only he knew about. He raced and passed every car possible.
Once in Liye it was an instant dejavu of when I walked down the streets of Huayuan. People staring, or kids running to their parents and tugging on their clothes and once they had their attention they would point directly at me. Hahahah love it! Since it was a tiny tiny town it only had one main road and no stop lights. But this little town was so beautiful! Alot cleaner than Huayuan and the buildings were the ancient chinese style of buildings so I was seriously walking in a town that was like more than 200 years old. There were taxis but they were these electric golf carts of all different colors. Very funny looking. Like the golf carts you see at the Idaho Center when a concert is happening. For starters we walked down the street getting weird looks and and we came to this open plaza place. Probably the spot where they did their dancing at night time! Well from there we saw the river and went to the banks and lit off some fireworks that welcome us to Liye. After that we came across the tourist actraction which was closed but I guess it is ancient chinese burial grounds. Wasn't able to enter because it is closed on weekends but I got a cool pick of the gate and the fence surrounding the place. It being super hot I wanted to hunt down some nice ice cold ice cream. Back to walking down the streets and people building up the courage to say hello to me. Found a market and some old shoppe and even found a few gifts for some people. Cant name anyone in particular but I can tell you one! I got ME another cross stitch! No this one is an eagle and its like 3 times bigger than my first one. I will start it once I finish mine or run out of thread while I'm here. Now since we don't speak chinese it was really hard to find anything to really do. But we did make the most of it and had a blast. Went back to the river and had a few snacks were a groups of students came and started talking to me. So I did a few magic trick for them and met some really nice new friends. Great kids! Beofre I knew it, it was time to get back on that wonderful bus and head back home.
The bus ride home was about the same as the one to Liye! Overcrowded, smelly and my knees to my chest! Yet I still got a window seat :-) The seats though on this bus were alot more uncomfortable and made this bus ride worse than the first. Being in the stinky old bus and being uncomfortable I was able to over look China at a beautiful sunset and see the true beauty that China has shown me in the past 3 months and believe it or not I was able to close my eyes and get a little sleep on that bouncy, stinky, uncomfortable bus ride.

It was amazing day and a day that I will never forget and the little town of Liye will always be in my heart.
Well I love you all and miss you tons! Hope to hear form you soon! Thanks for reading my blog.
love,
Jordan