My thoughts last night about Yangshuo being a great place were right.  In fact it is soooooooooooo much better than I thought.  I absolutely love this place.  The river is beautiful.  The mountains are gorgeous.  The town is so cool.  It is a total tourist trap of a town, but I don't care I love it.  I am a tourist and I do feel trapped here by the beauty and uniqueness of the landscape.  So I guess they are doing their jobs around here.  I even enjoy being ripped off by the vendors who pretend to be hurt when you haggle with them over prices.  It is all part of the experience and beauty that is Yangshuo.  Today I have spent the day so far just walking around the town and shopping for a few souvenirs.  There are so many cool things to buy I need to be careful.  Which is why I am taking a break right now from shopping.  So I don't go broke trying to buy the town.  I would buy it too if I could fit it into my bag.  This place definitely makes China worth coming to and should be on everyone's itinerary when traveling to China.  I would come back here in a heartbeat.  Anyways, enough talk let's see some pictures already.  This is a picture of the town and in the background you can see some of the Karst Mountains.



Here we have the Li River with the Karst Mountains again.  Tomorrow I will be going on a bamboo raft down the Li River.



While I was eating breakfast on the patio at the hotel I spotted this water buffalo herd grazing on the grassy bank of the Li River.



After walking along the river for a while I went into town and came across West Street.  West Street is a very touristy street and it is where all the action is around here.  The street is lined with vendors selling all kinds of goods.  There are also restaurants and coffee shops.  There is even a KFC and McDonald's.  This is a daytime look at West Street.



While walking down West Street I came across this lady who was hand painting little glass jars from the inside.  I was told this is an ancient Chinese art form.  The painted jars were absolutely beautiful as you can see.



And finally a picture of me as I have heard rumors that some of you think I never even left and I am just making all of this up.  I got this picture in front of a stone lion as a special request to my nephew Ben who wanted me to take a picture with one.



Check back in a few hours as I plan to post some pictures of West Street at night.  It is suppose to be quite a sight.