Climb Every Mountain

Hello Friends and Family,

Well it has been quite the last few days. We had a great time this past weekend with a two day tour of a small town called Shanglin outside of Nanning. We traveled with a Canadian, a man from Florida and a man from England. Each were teachers that had been living in Nanning for a while and we enjoyed listening to their traveling stories and gained good insight into the best places to travel. We visited a beautiful lake called Dalong (Big Dragon) Lake, pictured above, and took a boat around and explored the lake. Afterwards we explored a beautiful cave and swam in a mountain river. We had a great time together and enjoying the incredible scenery. The next day we took a van up into the mountains of China and hiked up to a village that was up in the middle of nowhere. They were excited to see us and the village had some incredible views, as well as river pools with large rocks to explore. Kealy even played basketball with a four year old chinese boy, and afterwards he gave her some of his milk from a cooler.





While traveling with this tour group, we learned of another opportunity occuring this week to travel to the Sichuan province of China, a province in the western central part of China that borders TIbet. The tour is a week long and we weren't sure whether to ask for the time off, but the trip sounded so incredible that we asked and were granted the leave. But we have to make up the classes that we will miss, so the last three days we have been trying to cram two weeks of lessons into three days. Needless to say we are tired, but we leave tomorrow night for Chengdu and a week full of exploring; visiting a panda breeding center, seeing the world's tallest buddha statue, as well as visiting many natural wonders and cultural gems. You can visit our travel blog for an itinerary of our upcoming trip, as well as more pictures from Shanglin.

So, we will be offline for one week. We will miss you all terribly and if we get a chance might be able to send an e-mail from an internet cafe. We have been here one month, as of today, and it has been intense, but good. We are learning so much and growing together in our patience and our love for each other. We are learning to be flexible and realize that plans sometimes change and that life is good because we are together and we know that whatever we face will bring good. We love you and miss you.

Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson