This morning we left for Fenghuang, it was another long bus ride where I pretty much listened to music and read my book (8th book of the summer). We arrived in Fenghuang in the afternoon. We got off the bus and had to pull our luggage through bumpy streets. The location of our hotel was along some roads that followed a river and allowed only pedestrians on the streets. I stayed in a small room with Paul and Jeff and the first thing I noticed were the amount of mosquitoes in our room. I hate mosquitoes with a passion so I set off on killing every mosquito in the room. It seemed like for every mosquito I killed three more appeared. Me and Paul went around the room for about 30 minutes, checking all surfaces and hiding spots in the room, meticulously swatting at mosquitoes. After we were finally finished, I would modestly estimate that we killed at least 50 mosquitoes in our tiny room. But at least I could sleep in peace now. We had dinner and then had the chance to walk around the area. The streets were full of people, with vendors also selling different things off to the sides. Most of the activity seemed to take place around streets near the river. A group of us stopped in a bar and ended up playing dice. I pretty much just watched though because they were all talking quickly in Chinese and I couldn't follow along. The beers they served were at room temperature so they were difficult to drink. It was a fairly boring night for me so I walked home at about midnight. Before I got to the hotel I stopped to eat some beef skewers and then headed to bed.

The next morning we went sightseeing around Fenghuang. We started by taking a boat down the river, it kind of reminded me of Venice because the only transportation was by boat or walking. We got off downriver and toured various ancient buildings. I'm writing this about 2 weeks after the actual trip so my memory seems a bit foggy about many of the details. Just walking around and looking at buildings. Since I can't remember much it couldn't have been too exciting anyways. I do remember dinner though because we ate with some people from the local government, and because I had my first experience with bijou, a very strong Chinese liquor. People seemed very happy and there were lots of toasts. At first I sipped the alcohol which burned and left a bad taste in my mouth. Next time I was called up and took a shot of it with one of the government people. This time I just downed it and it felt much smoother. I saw the main table take many shots of bijou as their faces grew redder and the table got louder. By the end of the night there were lots of drunk people. We got back to the hotel and many people went out but I decided to stay in and watch movies on my laptop.