Got up early to have breakfast and walk the
pedestrian market area of Yangshou without getting hassled by the
vendors. Met up with the rest of the group at 10 to start our day of
touring.
First, the drive back to
Guilin, on the backroad not the highway we
came down on, passing fruit groves more than the rice paddies that we
had seen south of Yangshou. Oranges (large and small) and pomelos are
ripe now, kumquats are just about ready, and the apple, cherry and peach
trees are all in bloom. The road was full of potholes so it was a lot
of bumping up and down. The drive took about an hour.
We stopped at a gallery-art school to see how Chinese
paintings are created. A young artist demonstrated with ink and brushes.
There are 3 kinds of painting…portraits, landscapes and flowers and
birds. The bamboo is a favourite subject because it means longevity.
Then we toured the gallery, browsing through the beautiful paintings and
of course we walked out with some purchases….some of us more than
others!
Then on to lunch at a local hotel in Guilin. We tried an
interesting tea that was made from a local fruit that we don’t know the
name of in English, that is used as an artificial sweetener.
Elephant Trunk Hill was next on the agenda, a park where the Li River
and Peach Blossom River meet, with a hill that looks like an elephant.
It looks like Los Arcos, in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and several
formations along the Great Ocean Road in Australia. Then on to the
Reed Flute Cave, an amazing cave….one of the largest natural caves in the
world. There were little scenes of stalagmites and stalagtites that were
given names as to what they looked like….. A Snowman, Mountain Sunrise
over Jungle Lion and Bumper Harvest of Melons and Vegetables.
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Dragon Eggplant |
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Bamboo raft and boatman |
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YingYang soup |
There was one big open area called the Crystal Palace that featured a short light/music program.
By this time we were ready to see our new hotel…the
Guilin Bravo Hotel, on one of the four lakes in the city. We have been
put on the 4
th floor….there is never a 4
th floor
in China as it is a bad luck number…so we figure they only put “round
eyes” there! (we have just had some drunk young Asian gentlemen rattling
the door trying to get in. Maureen scared them when she opened the door
and said “wrong room!”)
Dinner was next on the agenda, our last dinner with this
group…tomorrow 3 are heading back home and 2 are heading to Hong Kong
and we 4 will continue on to our last stop…
Chengdu. Well, this meal was
the best yet….in the Long Zhe Tea House….first course was the Ying Yang
soup (see picture) and then a vegetable, nut, chicken dish shaped like
Elephant Trunk Hill complete with a carved raw carrot pagoda on top,
then a veggie dish shaped like a heart and then a bamboo raft with rice
wrap basket appetizers and a little boatman. Then tempura eggplant
shaped like a dragon with a sauce on the side. Then several more
delicious dishes ending with water chestnuts coated with a sweet sticky
batter…..all very yummy. All this in a bookstore/restaurant with a woman
playing a pipa zither in the background, Auld Lang Syne and Red River
Valley were some of her songs along with traditional Chinese songs.
Then back to the hotel and a quick trip to the local
supermarket for a bottle of Great Wall white wine. We have decided that
we like Guilin the best so far….a very pretty city, it’s very green and
not as smoggy as the others we have been to and “smaller”, only a
million people! At night all along the river and on the lakes it is lit
up.
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