Baijiu

Everyday I wake up, this is the view from my apartment. It's going to be hard to leave Yangshuo.

A night of baijiu (say it like "bye Joe") is such a special Chinese experience, you can't say you have truly been to China if you don't know the jo. The locals call it rice wine, a name far too innocent for a spirit at 90 to 120 proof. You really can’t mix it in any drinks, the only way is shots. But the cool thing, baijiu is the cheapest alcohol in the world. There is a shop in town that sells the Beijing special for 45 cents a bottle, easily enough to make you go blind for the night. Not that I often had to pay for it, the bars in town have a tendency to give their baijiu away. How could anyone take money for it in good conscious?

This is china, so you never quite know what you are getting into when the baijiu begins. Is it mass produced or local moonshine? Is it straight or cured for months in fruit or snakes? Echo’s mom at the Karst Café makes the best baijiu in town, and Echo has a tendency to poor it down my throat, look what happened during the ghost festival.

A bunch of us from chinaclimb went mud caving yesterday, the best cure for a hangover I've found. No great pics here, but jake and I went in wearing nothing but a loincloth and brandishing fearsome swords. Everyone was scared, I bet you can imagine why. Even after three showers I still have mud in a few special places.

I think the motivation to climb is entirely gone. I've only climbed two days in the last week, and the weather has finally cooled off. I hope I can get some of these climbs I've bolted before my time runs out. If not, eh, I'm not even sure I care anymore.