The weekend in Yuxi

We arrived friday night at about 10 o'clock. Everyone else, the two Yuxi gappers Rebekka and Rebecca and the two Kunming guys Daniel and Micheal, had already checked in. Our rooms were pretty good, the beds were still like woodern boards, but the toilet worked and we had a real shower and bath! As a group we wandered around the streets for an hour or so and had dinner in the only open resteraunt we could find.

The next day we walked around for a bit again, found some really awsome markets and bought cheap DVD's. We also found a beautiful lake. In the afternoon we caught the number one bus to go to 'Cafe Fin Du Monde' (bizzarly this means Cafe End Of The World). I guess it's the place you'd go if the world was going to end? Anyway, it is the only western resterant/bar/cafe in Yuxi we know of and it's really cool! We played chinese checkers, ate pizza, had REAL SPIRITS! and cocktails. We went off and did i can't remember what all afternoon... OH that's right, I posted my postal voting application and then went and bought a pair of loafers (lost mine somewhere somehow it seems!), a cool suit coat jacket thing and a blue jacket. All really cool and really cheap. That night we went back to Fin Du Monde (there is ABSOLUTLY NOTHING French inside or about it other than the name.... very strange) and stayed until the bar closed at midnight.

The next day we were the guests of the girls GAP teacher, who took us (along with about 20 students and staff) up to the biggest mountain outside of town. There we climbed a grueling 999 steps to a lookout and had a spectacular view of the surrounds. We had a lunch and expected to call it a day, yet there was MORE in store. Next we were taken to the largest and most beautiful caves i've ever been to! They were huge, at times we had to crouch through tiny passeges naturally curving through the rock and at other times we would cross giant halls of stalagties and mites, some carved into amazing animal-like figures and gods and the like. After THAT we went for a walk past a waterfall and i got wet and we collected some tadpoles (who died on the way home).

That was pretty much the weekend, oh but i forgot to mention that the hotel tried REALLY hard to rip us off of the 1000 yuan deposit the school generously paid for us. They pretended like they didn't understand us and tried to fob us off until after about 10 minutes when it was clear we weren't going to leave without it they finaly paid up.

Anyway, I have to go teach a class in 10 minutes so I'll post the rest of pictures later... unfortunetly i don't have any of the cave, but i think Piers does so i'll ask him.

Tom