I went to Guilin from YangShuo on Monday, planning to take an 18-hr Tuesday night sleeper to Kunming, from where I would take a 4 hr bus to Dali in the Yunnan Province. Soon after arriving in Guilin, I regretted my plan to spend almost 2 whole days there. I kept busy the first day, meeting a Chinese girl in my hostel who wanted to see Elephant Trunk Hill with me. After that, we walked through Seven Stars Park to see the crazily-lit caves. It's like a huge spectacle, and not actual nature (though it's fun... almost like seeing shadow puppets [View Full Entry]

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I am back in Guilin (I was here briefly before setting off to the Rice Terraces to apply for my visa extension) to collect my passport from the Public Security Bureau (PSB). It takes a week to process, which gives me ample time to explore the city and relax a bit after almost two weeks of hiking and being on the move constantly. This visa thing is actually quite funny: When I applied for my Chinese visa in Mongolia, they asked for all kinds of documents, including an exit ticket out of China and bank statements showing that I have enough [View Full Entry]

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Guilin's Imperial Palace Few visitors to Guilin know that During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Guilin was an imperial city, a government center, home to the provincial level of imperial examinations and has its own imperial palace which pre-dates the forbidden City in Beijing I recently took a trip to Guilin's Imperial Palace. Located in the center of the city, the palace is now home to the art departments of Guilin's Guangxi Normal University. I love the palace and have been there many times in the past four years. It is a beautiful place. Although lacking in the splendor of Beijing's [View Full Entry]

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After a over a week in some of the biggest cities in China, and even Xian has over 3 million inhabitants, we finally escaped the madness in the south of the country. On Monday (23rd) we flew to Guilin, for a day, and then took a bus a couple of hours out into the countryside. The city and the country are both incredibly hot and muggy down here, with temparatures in the early 30s and humidity 70 plus. Just walking quickly makes you sweat, and there's little respite even in the evenings. In Guilin we spent most of the day chilling [View Full Entry]

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Guilin In the south of China is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. And as a Chinese saying goes “In the Sky there is heaven and on Earth there is Guilin.” The land is green and lush with craggy green karst hills and winding rivers. As with all other places we went in China the blue sky could not be seen, however, in Guilin it was because we were in the rainy season, not because of the smog. Our local guide told us how Guilin has forced industries that pollute too much to change or move from [View Full Entry]

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We left Macau and travelled by bus to Shenzhen back into China. We had to stay in Shenzhen over night as we had train tickets for the next night (visa error!). Shenzhen is another massive Chinese city but we actually quite liked it and had some really yumy food there. We arrived into Guilin from the night train (the guy in our carriage was the worlds worst snorer!) and visited the park and caves there despite the pouring rain. In the evening we went to our first chinese night club, really weird with a mix of eastern and western music, they [View Full Entry]

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On Friday I was asked if I would like to join my co-workers and some other people for a weekend trip to Guilin. We left from Liuzhou 8.30 am and took the highway heading for Guilin. The highway wasn’t in the best condition you could think, it was almost like going full speed over ploughed field. After three hours of driving we arrived to Guilin. The plan was that we would go just outside Guilin city were there is a big waterfall and climb up the mountain in the middle of the waterfall. It took us about 1 ½ hours to [View Full Entry]

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Korean Philharmonic Orchestra in Guilin On June 6th, my wife and I went to a concert held at the Prince's Palace in Guilin. The Prince's palace besides being an imperial palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, is also home to a section of Guilin's Guangxi Normal University. In one of the main buildings is a theatre, and it often hosts plays, operas, and concerts of students as well as national and international performers. The concert we went to was the Korean Jeju Philharmonic Orchestra. They are the city of Jizhou's city orchestra. Korea's Jizhou city is a sister city of [View Full Entry]

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Guilin's Wayao Wholesale Market Few visitors to Guilin know about the Wayao Wholesale Market. It is located south of Guilin City. It is a place visitors should not miss. It sells anything that a visitor to China might be looking for, but at very cheap prices. Most of the tourist shops in the Guilin, and Yangshuo areas all go to this market to purchase their inventories. The market formerly looked like a large flea market, with row after row of dirty, dingy shops which visitors would have to enter to see what they sold. Recently however, Wayao has moved. It moved [View Full Entry]

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Puisque le Tibet est encore ferme aux occidents, nous avons fait une petite boucle en Chine du Sud avant de monter sur un avion en direction de Katmandu! Ici dans le sud de la Chine, il y a les fameuses terrasses de rizieres sur une hauteur de 800m , pleins de villages de minorites tres beaux, de plantations de the, des montagnes de karst sur le fleuve LI, bref assez de choses pour passer un mois sans s ennuyer facilement! Premiere etape etait la petite ville de Yangshuo (un peu touristique mais jolie) sur le fleuve Li ou nous nous sommes [View Full Entry]

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