Continued

Sorry it took so long to get around to making this next post. Getting started with classes has been a little hectic. So, after an entire free day of biking and driving mopeds, the next day we took a 4 hour bus ride to the Long Sheng Rice Terrace Fields. Before we began the hike, we stopped by and watched a Yao minority group performance. One of their beliefs is to never cut their hair, so most of them have hair that is longer than they are tall. One of our friends was called up on stage to get "married" to one of the women. After that, we began the 45 minute hike to the most scenic spot for the rice terrace fields. From the top, the view was great; however, it was a little hazy making the pictures of the mountains in the background not as good. The next day was a traveling day. All I did was wait the entire day. We finally got into 上海 Shanghai around 1:30 a.m. The next morning we woke up to go to the first of our company visits. The first stop was 旺旺集团 Want Want Group. They are actually a much more legitimate company than they sound. I can't remember exactly which product, but they hold 70% of the market share with the next closest competitor around 2-3%. After eating lunch and changing clothes, we went to Chenghuang Temple, but it was just a complete tourist area selling everything you could possible imagine.(Yes mom I bought a mask :D)

Just to talk about the food briefly on the trip. The first meal we had in mainland was $3 yuan for a bowl of noodles. Morning noodles are on of the specialties in Gui Lin. At this particular restaurant, it was served with a choice of beef or pork, peanuts, and some sauce. In Gui Lin, dog meat is also a very popular dish which is usually eaten in the winter. Some slang used in Gui Lin is to actually call friends 狗肉 dog meat. So while we were in Yang Shuo, we set out to find some dog meat. We spot a restaurant called 狗肉饭馆 which literally means dog meat restaurant. Well its a little bit down an alley then you have to turn up the stairs and find the restaurant. Conveniently located on the right side of the poorly lit stairs is some throw up. We then go up and find the restaurant, and it turns out it is closed. Fearing for our lives, we run back to the main street. The food we ate in Shanghai is similar to what we usually eat in Hong Kong, but they have one specialty called 小笼包 Xiao Long Bao. It's a dumpling with regular meat inside, but they also put some soup broth, and they are incredible. We had a restaurant that was relatively cheap and served them about 5 minutes away from our hotel. It was 1 yuan for 1 dumpling. We ended up eating there 3 times in our 5 day stay.
More to come! I promise you won't have to wait as long as this time