Just as Bill called for people to get out of the water, the storm hit with a vengeance. The lightning was followed closely by thunder and we could see it striking the mountains all around us. Buckets of water began to fall from the sky. I was concerned until the captain of the boat ducked behind a cove created by an island and we all remarked that this was the first safety precaution we had seen someone in China take.

I had felt a lot of anticipation for my 30th birthday. Probably six months ago, I heard a program on NPR which I had listened to as a pod-cast. It had a woman on it who mentioned something about life consisting of seven-year increments.

Avril replaced “thank you” with the Chinese equivalent “xie xie” and the fans went nuts. She tried to say one sentence in Mandarin which apparently meant “How are you all doing tonight?” but the crowd fell eerily silent. Without using the correct pronunciation, the Chinese do not understand (I didn’t understand her either). Slightly embarrassed, she tried saying it again but in English and the crowd, yet again erupted.

We all chatted for maybe an hour and a half and then the French guys invited us to follow them to a crepe restaurant around the corner that they recommended. A Dutch woman and another woman from either Australia or New Zealand (based on the accent) joined us. We all had one dinner crepe (not sweet, mine had mushrooms, ham and parsley) and one sweet crepe. Both were excellent! The food was from Brittany and I learned that that region of France is famous for sailing so I added that to the list of reasons why we want to go to France (right now the list contains the wine, the Tour, the food and the melody of the French language.)

While you could tell that at one time it was a farming village (these terraced farm plots date back to to the Yuan dynasty…about 800 years ago), the village has clearly been transformed into a tourist village today. It was disappointing but I guess you cannot blame them. Winding along the path to the village was a plethora of shops to buy goods “made in the area.” Many of the village homes are now hotels complete with air conditioning and Internet access.