RICE FIELDS! I was so excited to explore the rice fields because I had learned all about them in my AP Environmental Science class I took my senior year. I had so much more to look foreword to because I knew a bit more about them than the average tourist.
We started the day off waking up at 6am so we could catch the 4 hour bus ride to the fields! It was bit rough waking up that early because the night before Kaylie and I stayed on the rooftop of the hostel until 2:30am. We were talking to some guys from England and different parts of America (while avoiding ol Oscar boy from my last post). They were so hilarious and just happened to also be English teachers as well. I loved talking to them because we shared stories about our crazy Chinese children and they gave us some tips for teaching.
Anyway, we got on the bus and tried to sleep for a little bit and attempted to drone out the tour guides voice. Once we got there we were once again swarmed and asked for pictures. We waited for 5ever and then hopped on another bus to go up the mountain. It took another hour on the bus because the traffic was insane. The entire country had a week off from work for the holiday (I think it was China's birthday???) and I'm pretty sure every one in the country was trying to see the rice fields at the same time.
Okay this sounds so dumb but like... I didn't know we were going to be hiking. I wore a dress. We had to climb more stairs than I could count.
It was really cloudy and I wish I could've blamed my glamorous sweat marks on the sprinkling rain, but I couldn't.
We had to walk through a village to get to the top of the mountain. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant and as cliche as it was.... they had the best fried rice I have ever had in my entire life. It was so fresh and even more delishhh.
We reached the top and the paparazzi began. This girl was in love with my eyes and it was the cutest thing ever. She followed our group around for awhile and kept asking to take pictures with each of us.
It was so green! I wish I could wake up to this view each morning!
Climbed even more steps....
We only had two hours to explore the fields and we spent about 45 minutes at lunch and another 45 minutes hiking to the top so we didn't have much time to look around or actually walk through the fields. I was really bummed about that, but being there and getting to see it in person was amazing.
We hiked down the mountain and made it back to our groups meeting spot right on time except there was so much traffic our bus couldn't get up the mountain to pick us up. We waited for another 45 minutes and almost died from dehydration and then cried tears of joy when our bus finally showed up.
So our bus driver was a bit anxious to get down the mountain. If I can figure out how to I will upload the video of him driving down the mountain. SO SCARY. He was driving so fast and not even braking around corners. Seriously terrifying. One guy started yelling at the driver to slow down because the rest of us were freaking out, but the language barrier is so real. Anyway, our bus driver had a need for speed. This picture shows the real life game of chicken I participated in. He almost ran this car over trying to prove a point. He was yelling out the window and just going crazy because he couldn't get down the mountain fast enough.
The traffic became so bad it was a standstill. The driver turned the bus off because we were sitting there for so long. It was so uncomfortable and miserable.
Ex. 1 of us losing our minds
Ex. 2 of us losing our minds 5 hours later
I loved the rice fields. They were so beautiful and I loved seeing ways of agriculture that aren't common in America. I loved loved loved applying what I learned to my real life. I loved walking through the little hill side village and seeing how hard the people work to live. It made me appreciate my life and luxuries back home. The 12 hours on a bus vs the 2 hours at the rice fields was not ideal though. If I ever find myself in China again I would stay at the hostel in the fields and explore the fields for hours upon hours.
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