Guiyang, Guizhou Province, CHINA 8:10am

Guiyang literally translates into expensive capital {it is the capital of the Guizhou Province}
Guizhou translates into expensive province

Yesterday, we left Taipei at 7:30am, flew out at 10:20am to Hong Kong, took a ferry from Hong Kong to Shenzen and flew to Guiyang. Our hotel was the Hawn Mandarin Inn.

Today we're off to the caves {Zhinjin Cave}.

China literally translates to center of the world. America in Chinese literally translates to beautiful world.

The Chinese say of Guizhou that:
There are not three days with sun
There are not 3 miles that are flat
The people have do not have three things (to rub together)

It turns out the Guizhou is the poorest province in China with parts that have been cut off from the rest of China due to the mountains until the last one or two years. There are only about 118 days of sun a year, and over 200 days of clouds or rain. It doesn't snow here and there are no earthquakes or monsoons. From May to August they grow rice, and in October they harvest oil and mustard for cooking. 80% of herbal medicines are grown or can be grown here. {I'd like to apologize here for any misinformation as well as describe the circumstances under which I came to China as I don't believe I say that in the journal. In going to China, I was part of a Taiwanese tour group that Jenny's grandparents often travel with. That means the entire tour was in Chinese, and aside for Jenny, her brother and her mother I was the only one who would speak English. I knew NO Chinese when I left for China aside from hello, thank you, and she's not home right now (for when I had to answer the phone with Jenny not in the dorm when her grandparents called her). That was about as much English as the other members of the tour group knew save for one older gentleman. I didn't know he could speak English until four days into the trip. Anyway, there were maybe 30 people altogether on the tour.}

On the way to the caves we saw water oxen and farmers.

Guizhou was originally known to its people as "black gold". However, when an official went to present the province to the Emperor, the Emperor mispoke and named it "expensive province". What the Emperor says always goes (and if you argued with him, it could have meant death) so no one corrected him. Hence the poorest province in China recieved its misnomer.