Communism - It's what fun is!

Quite fun, but I would not want to repeat this exact experience.

It involved 2 weather extremes. I'll just take you through our day.
First we rode the bus for an hour inland through the country side and canyons. Then they dropped us off here:

The water wasn't deep, but mucky.

The mountains were really amazing. So green. It was beautiful.

Then we suited up.

 For paint ball.

Let me paint the scene for you. It was 95-ish degrees, really hot because a typhoon was pushing the hot air inland. The humidity was probably in the 70% region. And we put medium weight camouflage on that had to be zipped up to our necks and sleeves down to our wrists. Then we had to walk up to the paintball "arena" and stand in the sun for 20 minutes while things were explained to us in Chinese. Pretty much, don't shoot too close.

This was our field of battle.

 And then we had to put helmets on. Needless to say, we were pretty miserable. Dripping sweat. Garments soaked, streams of sweat down our backs and chests and ....other places. I have a new respect for our soldiers. I am a whimp. I have no idea how our armed service men spend time in the  130 degree heat in the middle east. They truly are heroes.

 We were told to pull mean faces.

Our team got the green helmets and thus had an advantage - and won.

This is Yimi. 

Then it was time for lunch.  It consisted of the usual Chinese food - oily vegetables, rice, and meat like product that came from animals. When I say meat-like it means you are lucky to find meat on a piece. they cut up the whole animal - bones, skin, fat, everything and cook it. It's pretty gross speaking as an American. I have a hard time with it. Most everything tastes the same because it is soaked and cooked and served with so much oil.
Selena was there to tell us what everything was.  She's so cute - she loves to wear this pink hat.

Then we had time to play. They tried to teach us a Chinese card game that they called poker. It's no more poker than Phase 10 is. It's more like hearts. My brain wasn't working so I didn't really get it.

(Daniel's shirt is wet with sweat. Yes sweat. It was that hot.)

Then we got to cool off and swim before rafting.

These girls cover themselves from head to foot to avoid getting sun - they want to remain fair skinned. This is Selena and Sammy.

 That white thing is a row of styrofoam barrels strung together. They challenged people to cross it. Some of the girls were in the process of crossing when Brian and Mike rocked them off. Fully clothed. They ended up floating around trying to learn to swim. Then we hopped in the rafts. They were two seaters. Sometimes we faced each other but when we went down the chutes we had to both face forward.

Then we all headed towards the dam.

 Then we headed won this chute one raft at a time. As they let the water out of the dam the level of the river rises and makes it pretty fun.

This is the part where I wish I had some pictures. It was a semi-deep canyon with just the road. They were building a new canyon overpass road that we were under for a good portion of the ride. As we started it began to drizzle. This lasted for about 15 minutes or so. Then nothing for a few minutes. Then black clouds, bright lighting (while we are floating down the river mind,) and thunder then a typhoon down poor. It was like a shower. For those of us who had been swimming it was fine. And Daniel and I were in swimming suits, so we were fine. I was glad they gave us the silly hats to wear because it kept the rain out of my face.

Molly and Yimi sporting the hats. This was from climbing the next day, but they were the same hats.

It was amazing to raft in a down poor. It was pretty to see the waterfalls start, the water poring off the road. The rest of the day was fairly mild too. It took the heat off. Then we had more free time (where I took a sort of nap on the bench on my back - did you know that learning to sleep on your back could really benefit you some day?) Then we had a barbeque.

Now when I say barbeque, I mean Chinese barbeque. The first problem is that the Chinese eat some weird foods, like squid on a stick. The second problem is the many of them don't have the patience to let the coals get to the even simmer level and spread them out for even cooking. It was frustrating Daniel. I didn't cook or eat much.  This is what I did. hehe. I love Daniel's Iphone4.

Daniel cooked quite a bit and cooked for me. I liked the bread with oil and garlic powder. As Daniel said, leave it to the Chinese to fry something on the grill.

 Those things that look like pork chunks or beef chunks are - just not the part of the animal that I like to eat, you know, the meaty part. The chicken wings were good when seasoned right and once Daniel figured out to best cook them. He wrapped them in foil with a little oil and seasoning then when they were cooked unwrapped them and crisped the skin on the flame.

 Yes that is a fish that you see towards the bottom.

Then the sun set.

I didn't have my nice camera, so it's not the best picture, but it was beautiful.

Then we left. We were pretty beat and Brian had a business lunch the next day. And we wanted to go to church. Daniel and I both took 3 hour naps on Sunday afternoon. We were dead tired. After we left they did a bonfire and Paul did this:

It's wire that was wrapped in some flammable material. I'm sure it was cool to see.

So there you go. Team camping in Anxi Zhimin China. I'm not over eager to repeat the experience, which is too bad because we are going rafting again on Saturday July 9. I will say that the rafting was the best part, even if it was raining like mad. We are going with Brent, Steve and Joyce from Clearfield. It will be fun!