Last Day in China

I think this will be posted out of order but I can:t figure out all the Japanese language on this computer. Michelle, maybe you can switch it around, thanks!
I am writing this in the CaminoRo in Osaka, Japan. I got e-mails from Pat and Joyce that they have made it home - Joyce with my extra suitcase filled with things I didn:t need and things I bought in China (I still have things NOT opened from China 7 years ago! But I will organize everything, give it away, etc. when I get home over the winter) Joyce said my angel was still watching out for me and she didn:t even have to pay extra for the extra checked bag, since she`d bought her ticket before July 5th. It still would have been worth the $70 NOT to carry 2 bags now!
We had another wonderful breakfast at the Dongling Resort (check out their website in Yangshuo and you can see how lovely it really was! Haven`t figured out posting pictures yet). The day previously our van had stopped at an ATM in town so we all could get money. Then off we went for our float down the Li.
The next morning as we were packing up all our things, Pat couldn`t find her credit card (used to get the mone). After multiple searches, she took the receipts from the ATM to the office to have Jan call the bank to see if a card had been left in the machine (Joyce had done this in Xi`an and a guy had come running after her with the card! That guardian angel again!)
Anyway, Jan said her husband would take Pat down to the bank, with her passport to check. Qin, our guide would meet them there to help. To Pat`s surprise (would have LOVED to see her face! but I wasn`t present) the husband showed up on a motorscooter. Remember that LOOONG downhill driveway? Pat said she wrapped her arms around the husband`s chest, pressed her head against his back and closed her eyes for most of the trip. She said the driveway was much less bumpy on a scooter, she remembers. She never opened her eyes to look at the weaving in and out of traffic. Arriving in one piece, she showed her identity and it turns out the bank attendant found the card in the back of the machine. When the screen came up to say, Take Card, Pat had just walked away and NOT pressed it so it stayed in the machine. Relief!!
Later our guide Qin picked us up, with all our luggage in this very comfortable van with a driver. Off we went, first to stop at Silver Caves, discovered in the area in 1996 and made into a tourist site. It was a 2 KM walk up and down steps through caverns with huge stalagtites and stalagmites, pools of water with colored lights to display all the imagined creatures somebody came up with in the limestone formations.
Then Qin found a wonderful restaurant near the river before we finally left this beautiful area with the unusual karst formations for the airport. We were the only ones in the restaurant (it was early). We walked through the nearby strawberry fields where workers were laying black plastic over the beds and cutting holes to bring up the lush plants through the holes. This was while our fish was being killed for our lunch! I tried, as a good Buddhist, not to think about this! The fish was wonderfully tasty, with big bones that stayed on the plate! This had been an issue on my last trip and I generally just said I didn`t eat fish! Couldn`t deal with all the bones as the Chinese do- it seemed easier that way. Another delicious meal and off we went.
We had a smooth drive to the airport, Qin came in and helped us through the ticketing, to the security gate where we said goodbye. She was delightful and a great find. We will all go on Trip Adviser to recommend her as she and her husband are trying to do their own little startup side tour business. She was going to stay the night in Guilin with her husband. It`s so convenient with whole family living where she can just go off and leave her son with Auntie and Grandma and not worry!
Our flight back to Shanghai was uneventful and then we struggled a big dragging our bags to find the DaZhong hotel between the two terminals at Pudong airport. Here we ran into the rudest Chinese we had come across. The non-English speakers at the desk were pretty unhelpful but we settled into our double rooms. _They reminded me of those hotels I`ve heard about that are almost a drawer with just a bed. But we squeezed in, the beds were comfortable (albeit hard as the usual Chinese bed, and it turns out Japanese as well! I like them) The shower, however, was terrific with a square rain shower head and a handle as well. EXCEPT the side wall of the shower was opaque and visible to the bed area! Pat wanted no more mooning so we pulled the shade down! :)
In the morning Joyce warned us before we paid that the Chinese breakfast was not worth the 30Y so the other 3 of us went over to the airport (very convenient, all inside to the terminals) to a food court and found breakfast sandwiches. We picked up Joyce and they all we`re going to find a business office to print out their boarding passes, said goodbye to me and I went off to my earlier flight to Osaka..
Everything was smooth and I was soon waiting at the gate for a couple of hours early for my flight. It was China Eastern again and I had only a carryon (that conveniently zips apart into two pieces so it will fit in the overhead). It was about 1 hr and 40 minutes until we landed at Kansai Airport in Osaka. I changed money at the ATM which gave me 3 10,0000 yen bills!! When I asked at a travel counter where I could get change for the bus (Betty had sent me directions on how to get to our hotel) they said do you have a bus ticket? NO! and they sold me one and gave me change! Probleｍ solved! Off I went for an hour busride into downtown Osaka, followed the directions, with help from a lovely man who helped me buy a train ticket from the machine, then took me to a service office where they guided me to the right train, with everyone bowing at me! It:s hard to switch to arrigato from xie xie!!! Again Betty had provided me with a map to the hotel as I got out of the station (unfortunately she had misplace that map when she arrived the day before and she wandered around for awhile before she found the lovely covered street with shops on both sides leading to our upstairs hotel). But I came along straight there and she came down the steep stairs behind M. our proprietess who runs this with her husband and  15 month old daughter. It`s squeaky clean, shoes left at bottom of the stairs, lovely kitchen to cook in, computer free here in the common area, and a 4 bed dorm room for us.
I already did an entry for yesterday. Today is raining so we don`t have a plan yet. I think we will leave for towards Hiroshima tomorrow stopping at this canal town overnight to see some recommended sites. That`s all for now. Sayonara!