Traveling in the US can be a very lonely act. Traveling anywhere in general can become a lonesome journey where one aims to lose themselves in solitude and to escape the general madness that can stretch from downtown to far borders of any suburb.

I feel that a substantial difference between our trip compared to others is the degree of openness, how much we are seeking others out, and always up for meeting someone we can connect with and possibly be friends. Because although many of us from the US seem to believe that simply flying to some destination, eating the food, buying the goods, and taking pictures constitutes traveling – we're missing a substantial chunk of the experience. We're getting the postcard fed to us by the chamber of commerce and nothing more.

Chances are good that we won't ever see or hear from some of these people again – but because the initial connection was made, because that wall which separates strangers is no longer there with these people we now consider friends, everything changes – and we experience China as it really is and not what is reported on the news.

Because although the media is partially correct in their delivery of facts, they are unable to convey what it is like to meet these people. To know them and find that common denominator that we share, even though we live on other sides of the planet.

We have handed out roughly 20 friend cards – and hopefully we'll hear back from everyone – some have already been writing and we still have so much time, and fortunately, many more cards to hand out.

So tonight we're here in Guilin, just north of Yangshuo and a day before we fly out for the next city - even though we experienced something different, something less pleasant and hopefully forgettable in the town of Yangshuo - everything else about this portion of the trip was worth the trouble.

We've met many other travelers from other parts of the globe. While there are obviously many obnoxious people that I am happy to never meet, the ones who have somehow broken past my own barriers have been quite excellent. Just because we're traveling doesn't mean that we haven't run into an A$$hole every now and then - so we keep away and turn to the other people that we'd rather meet. All of the people in these pictures.

So aside from eating our way through China, it would be accurate to say that we're... friending our way through China because that's also what we're doing. And the diversity that we've come across has been quite awesome.

Ireland, England, Australia, Nanning(China), and people from nearly every region of China - and then of course Alonzo Davis, an artist from Baltimore back in the 'States.

It's always good to have friends in far off lands and while it's been very convenient to meet people over the screen and through the internet, it's always better to have that face to face connection, when things seem to be effortless and the distance doesn't seem so great. When the distance between each of us seems as though it could be the reason we actually keep in touch.

But Leah makes it easy when she can turn anyone into a friend - even the vendors trying to sell us their wares... here's a good clip of both her Mandarin speaking skills, and her ability at haggling and friending the vendors. Have a great night.