Yingde, China (12.06 - 12.07)

The past 2 days I was in Yingde (英德), China to go to the Yingde Karst Cave and Hotspring Resort (英德溶洞溫泉). We took the train to Fanling (粉嶺), Hong Kong and that's where the tour bus picked us up. The bus took us to Shenzhen (深圳), China to cross the Hong Kong and China borders. It was a 2.5-hour roadtrip to Yingde. We stopped by a tea farm for lunch and a little bit of a tea-tasting. Apparently, Yingde is where Lipton tea tea leaves comes from. It was off to the South Mountain Ten Thousand Buddhas (南山萬佛子) site. There was nothing to see. You'd think the place was abandoned, if it weren't for the few monks looking after the place and the few workers carving wooden buddhas. We found caves that crossed mountains, and walked through one of them. It was the only thing that was fun on the trip. Otherwise, this rest stop would've been an utterly pointless washroom break. The stop does represent Yingde well. Yingde is a small city, which seems more like a village. There's lots of farmland, chicken, geese, tea, rocks, sheep, and cows around. There's also lots of dilapidated houses and roads. It seems to be quite a poor city. We were then off to the resort. The resort boasts the world's only limestone hot spring. Truthfully, I don't think the place is a true hot spring resort. The pools were lukewarm or cool. Half of the pools were closed. The rooms, though, are pretty. Each room is a "house" with a very nice balcony. Our group's rooms were upgraded twice, which evidently has a private hot spring pool. Though, we lacked a view since we faced a construction site. After not being satisfied with the hot spring pools, my mom and I had a heavenly foot massage. I had a male masseus, for the first time, and he pretty much made love to my legs. There are these little fish that eat your dead skin. They nip at you and it tickles, a lot. I couldn't stop giggling ... literally, "hehe" giggling.

The next day, we had a 7 am wake-up call, and had leisure time until 10 am. We pretty much had breakfast, took pictures of the hungry fish and what little scenery there was, and relaxed in the room while my mom used the private hot spring pool. We left the resort at 10:30 am, had lunch in some restaurant at 12:15 pm, and another long roadtrip to Shenzhen. We stopped by Mori (???). I have no idea what they were selling, nor had I heard of it before. Apparently, they could make tea, wine, and juice from this certain tree using its leaves and fruit. We finished up at 5:30 pm. We had a stop at an aloe vera factory but since they closed at 5 pm, we didn't go. We were quite happy. The tour dropped some of us off at Huanggang (黃崗) and some at Lo Wu (羅湖) to cross the China-Hong Kong border. My aunt and I crossed at Huanggang since it's faster and easier. We took a shuttle bus to Wanchai and caught the 2X bus to Shaukeiwan.

The end.

12.06 Yingde China
12.07 Yingde China