***The following paragraph may be too graphic for young readers. Parental discretion is advised.***

Now, not too much has been discussed about the facilities in China. Most of this is due to the fact that we tried our best to use either the bathrooms in the hotels or to wait until we were home. On the train, the bathroom was pretty decent: the seat was clean, the hole led directly to the visible train tracks, and it was early in the morning. The train station in the late evening after a full day of travelers and their full bowels, my friends, is another story. Unimaginable, mephitic nastiness. I had to hold my breath for as long as I could and then breathe through my mouth lest I vomit and add to the impossibly vile smell. The toilet was full and the seat was suspiciously wet. Even thinking about it now is making me queasy. Remember the scene in “Trainspotting” – the Filthiest Toilet in Scotland? This was China’s equivalent. Disgusting story short, I was out of there as fast as humanly possible without touching anything, without fainting, and without regurgitating my lunch. Now, back to our regularly scheduled, less vulgar program.

Upon our arrival in Shanghai, we whipped out our last slip of paper: "Please drive us to the Peace Hotel." Our cab driver was angry for getting caught in a non pick up area to pick us up and received a ticket for his pains. He then proceeded to drive very fast and insisted on honking for no reason, even when there were no cars around. We reached the hotel, had dinner at the opulent French restaurant, and rested our weary bones.

On our last day in Shanghai, we sought out the Yuyuan Market. We passed a leper on the way begging for money. It was the first time I had seen anyone with leprosy and she looked almost cartoonish with such big pink patches on her skin and bloated lips. We moved on and used our limited Chinese to find the bazaar, one of the few places in Shanghai that retains the old, Chinese architecture. We saw a woman selling puppies (noteworthy as they were the only animals I had seen on the entire trip) that were actually dyed different colors to attract attention. One tiny newborn was painted with black and orange stripes and looked like a minuscule, shaking tiger. We tried to take a picture of it, but when the woman saw a camera rather than cash, she quickly closed the flap to the cardboard box she was carrying the puppies in and scurried off. At the Shanghai Friendship Store, my father discovered the antique section and spent so much time browsing there that before long, he had a flock of sales people following him around and whatever item he spent more than a few seconds lingering over, they took out of the glass case to show him. Of course, he wanted to look at everything. We were there for a while.

We finally dragged my father out of the museum-like store, walked back to the hotel, ate at the nice Japanese restaurant, and retired to our rooms for a nap. Dinner with Mr. Wu was a pleasant surprise; he was not the evil spy we thought he might be (well, we determined that he was not evil at any rate). In fact, he was very nice. He talked about his son in LA, how proud he was of him, how he was sorry his wife could not attend but she was at work (Aha! Wife is alive after all!), and how much he liked our family. He brought over some pictures of his family for us to look at and told us about life before and during communism's heyday, about Mao, and about his work as an engineer. We passed around addresses, took some pictures, and ended our lovely stay in Shanghai.

In the pre-dawn morning, we packed, took a shuttle to the airport, had icy cold bananas for breakfast (yes, it is as unappetizing as it sounds), and two hours later, we arrived in Guilin in southern China. The scenery is incredible and rolling with these tall, rounded peaks and gentle valleys you may have seen in traditional Chinese landscape paintings. After checking into our hotel and arranging for the next day's tour of the city, we crossed the gorgeous Li River and walked along the banks. We were approached by no less than three "students/teachers of English" who wanted to talk to and practice their language skills with us. We did some window-shopping and were goggle-eyed when we saw the variety of the exotic medicines that were sold at the pharmacies. We did some windowless-shopping at the huge open-air market as well and ended up negotiating for some fresh fruit and vegetables for dinner. Back at the hotel, our evening ended when we arrived just in time to see a bride and groom emerge with an entourage, a drum band, and two paper-mache dragons in tow.

We met our English speaking tour guide Ms. Tan in the morning and began with Elephant Trunk Hill, a mountain that is shaped with a hole in the middle so that it resembles an elephant with its trunk dipped in the limpid Li River. We saw a monkey perform (stand, salute, sit) and a cormorant, which is a slender-throated black bird that fishermen use to catch fish. The cormorant had a ribbon tied around its neck so that when it dives in the water, it can swallow the small fish, but has to return the larger ones to the fisherman and get a treat as reward. At Fubo Hill, one of Guilin’s famous limestone karst, we climbed over 300 steps to the top of the peak for a spectacular view of city. Our thighs were aching and quivering by the time we made it back down. The next visit was to Solitary Beauty Peak and then to Reed Flute Cave, which was a cave so large that during WWII, it served as an air raid shelter when America's Flying Tiger squad was based in Guilin. The stalactites and stalagmites jutting out along the chilled route through the cave and the crystal formations were fascinating. When we emerged from the cool quiet of the cave, we were accosted by loud, ear piercing sales pitches from people selling postcards, reed flutes, and wooden whistles. Even a little three-year-old girl, barely up to my knee, was hawking "Hello, one yuan. Hello, one yuan" to sell her whistles.

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