Summer Vacation- July 2022 (Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing and Guizhou)

A hoy hoy! Here are SOME of the pictures from our MONSTER summer 2022 trip. We decided that regardless of CoVid restrictions and the fear/ stress created by the idea of another quarantine or worse, we were traveling this summer. So we contacted our old friends from our Peace Corps days, booked some plane tickets and got our butts straight out of Guangdong Province. We didn't really have full plans set out and kind of played it by ear (ordering train tickets and booking hotels a day or two ahead of time), but this was our outline for the trip. Lijiang (Yunnan)- Kunming (Yunnan)- Chengdu (Sichuan)- Luzhou (Sichuan)- Chongqing (Chongqing)- Guiyang (Guizhou)- Guangzhou (Guangdong) all over the span of July 1 to July 22 (ish?). Here are all the pics. 

I intentionally left the CoVid pictures OUT, but just know that every province has their own INDEPENDENT Health-Travel Code that does not recognize test results from other provinces. Since we traveled across a total of FIVE provinces, this proved stressful and time consuming. Luckily we still found some fun in between :) 

The first and second legs of our trip were in Yunnan Province, Lijiang and Kunming. Ashley and I visited Kunming and the Stone Forest during our first stint in China, but this time we decided to take the girls to see some of the "natural beauty" of the Middle Country that we missed; Tiger Leaping Gorge, Jade Dragon Mountain and some of the other interesting stops along the way. 

And we're off!

Lijiang Ancient Town

Sketchy Glass Bridges

Manufactured Waterfalls

Ashley and some blue tires

Rafts on the River

Visiting Unique Places

Countryside

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Immense power

Girls and the Driver

Waiting out the rain in a cafe

Our new GZ friends, the Li Family. (Elys and Lis!)

Cool kids

Family selfie on Jade Dragon Mountain

Snowy Peak of Jade Dragon Mountain

Spruce Meadow

Blue Moon Valley

Lijiang was great and the weather was perfect. Next, onto Kunming!

Cuihu Park

Cora on the skylift up West Mountain

Top of West Mountain looking over Kunming

Unplanned

Chengdu, our third stop, was mainly based around seeing friends and trying to reconnect with our Peace Corps experience. Of course we were familiar with this province but it has changed SO MUCH. There was a lot of effort and coordination put into this leg of the trip, but it worked out greatly. 

Jinli Street is the same old tourist trap

Lea did NOT like the heat. To be fair, we got to Sichuan during the start of one of the worst heatwaves on record. 

Sichuan Opera provided brief relief 

Famous Liu Bei Wall (?) 

Chengdu Museum had some really cool exhibits 

Tianfu Square! Not a lot has changed here. 

Horace and his family! 

Chengdu Hot Pot 

Horace was my old Dean and friend from Luzhou. He is living and teaching in Chengdu now. 

Ken took us to visit the new areas of Chengdu. The city has grown EXPONENTIALLY

Sichuan Dishes at their finest 

Great to see you Ken! 

A bunch of old students from LVTC. It was great to see them, they are all doing great and have their own families now.

Van Gogh in Chengdu!

Amy & Panda 

Panda and the Girls

The Whole Group

Anyone want to hit up the indoor wave pool?

We even got to see Nathan! We visited the Sanxingdui Museum north of Chengdu. 

Statue 

Famous Tree Thing

So many faces

More Sichuan food!

Ashley's host Mom!

The old family, reunited (sans Cici)

A lot of swimming on this trip. 

Nostalgia was pretty strong in Chengdu, but heading down to Luzhou hit even harder... when we left in 2013, Luzhou was a small village of 800,000. Today in 2022 it has ballooned to over 3 million!

Of course, Alcohol City lives up to it's name. 

"Hello, we are your Foreign Devil Guides to the International Alcoholic Drinks Expo." 

More Sichuan Food (Old Students Ben & Helen and an old coworker, Cici) 

Downtown Zhou at the White Tower!

There is a new, fancy and high tech LVTC. We got a tour. 

Luzhou Hot Pot with Ivy and her daughter

Getting lessons from a Calligraphy Teacher (Ivy's Husband)

Lea, Anna, Cora

The old temple is still operational (barely)

Path to the Yangtze is unchanged 

The Yangtze River still pushes on

The spot where our apartment used to be (it's a big road now)

The courts remain, but many buildings are missing. The old college is a middle school now. 

Baizitu Square is the same, but it is surrounded by many new residential developments. 

The girls even got to visit the bus station :) 

Next stop, Chongqing, Ashley's original site placement and our marriage location. We stayed in her old stomping grounds, Shapingba District, and got to see some familiarity. 

Shapingba looks the same

We got to Suzie's kitchen! She has been hit hard by CoVid, but was still happy, remarried and making pizzas! This place was THE foreign hangout... but there aren't many foreigners around these days. 

The next part of our Chongqing stop was pretty much at the will of our old student & friend, Cyndi (to Ashley's left). We spent a lot of time traveling together before and she made plans for us (without our knowledge or consent). It turned out to be a lot of fun, but we had to let go a little bit. Another student (Zoe) and her husband (Superman), came long too. 

Camping on Wulong (Fairy) Mountain. Actual camping. Quite an experience in China. 

Plenty of obstacles for kids to wear themselves out. 

The whole group

Zoe, Cyndi, Lea & Cora

Fairy Mountain Treetop Walk

Nice view 

Nationalism

Taking a break 

Entrance to "Three Natural Bridges Scenic Area" in Wuling Mountain Forest Park. A piece of Transformers 4 was filmed here (the one with Marky Mark) and there were transformer statues scattered throughout. Definitely NOT the highlight of this stop. 

Old Post Office in the middle of valley

:)

My sword

Ashley and Superman

"Why can't we ever order for ourselves?" -Lea. We also added a new former student, Iris to this dinner. 

These five kids can make noise. 

Our fifth stop was Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou Province. It was on the way home and Cora's teacher lived there so we had a friend to show us around. Guizhou was one of the Peace Corps Provinces, but we never visited it. It is home to multiple of the Chinese "minorities" and had great weather like Yunnan. Joyce pretty much planned all of our trip, which was nice. 

Guiyang at night from our hotel window

Qianlingshan Park

We did see some pandas

Lea connecting with her family, the "Monkey Avalanche" 

Co and Lea posing with a family of monkeys

A monkey soliciting Cora for a skittle

Lea booked it, but Cora froze (please zoom in on her face)

Joyce scared the monkey away and Cora woke up! (while I took pictures) 

Hongfu Temple

Posing with a Goddess Statue 

Temple Gate

Girls got to batik, a form of art native to Guizhou

Batik teddy bears dying

Yelang Valley

Song Peilun, the artist responsible for Yelang Valley

Well, the park was a bit flooded

Actually, it was REALLY flooded

Silly faces

Qingyan Ancient Town

Last dinner of the vacation...

It was a great time. I think we went to 5 AAAAA rated places and 6 AAAA places. The girls did great traveling in planes, buses, cars, and trains. After a 5 hour train ride home, we were all happy to sleep in our own beds. Thanks for staying awake for this ridiculously long blog post... more than ever we are anxious and ready to finish this upcoming school year and make our return to the states. Love and miss you all!