Guilin Countryside During my Mother's visit to Guilin, I asked if she'd like to take a stroll around the block. Since I live near the countryside the "stroll" takes about an hour and a half without stopping to take photos, which we did. I think it ended up taking over two hours. It was really nice though. There is something about Guilin's countryside that is just mesmerizing. The people are so friendly and generous. Many times I have been asked by local villagers to stop in for a drink, or to share dinner with them. They are incredible people. They are [View Full Entry]

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Guilin's Fubo Hill Guilin’s Fubo Hill Park My Mother came to Guilin to visit me and my new baby last month. She knew of Guilin’s famous scenery and asked me what we could go see. Last year we took the Li River cruise, so we decided to check out Guilin’s five famous mountains. The first one we visited we Fubo Hill. Its name means Folded Brocade Hill because the mountain looks like layers of folded brocade. The park is rather small, but very nice and offers wonderful views of Guilin and the Li River. The Park’s namesake, Fubo Hill is locate [View Full Entry]

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Liuzhou's Dragon Pool Park Although barely known, Guangxi's City of Liuzhou is one of my favorite places to get away from Guilin for a couple of days. When I first visited the city, I hated it. It was four years ago and the city was dirty, dingy, and the air was brown. It was really bad! In the last few years, the city has been working to clean itself up, and what it has been doing has worked! The city moved the airport and major industrial areas away from the city proper, the parks have all been redone, a huge [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 sp [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 sist [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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Xian's Big Wild Goose Pagoda Xian in China's Shaanxi Province is famous for its terracotta warriors, but it has many more things to offer as well. Two of Xian's many ancient sites, are the two wild goose pagodas, the Big and Small Wild Goose Pagodas respectively. I got a chance to visit both of them. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda, built in 648AD, is set in the middle of a large temple complex. The pagoda has seven floors and visitors are allowed to climb it. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was built to house the Buddhist sutras brought to China from [View Full Entry]

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Xian's 8 Immortals Taoist Temple The 8 Immortal Taoist Temple in Xian was one of the places I had never heard of until I went to Xian. I saw it on a map I bought at the train station and wanted to check it out for a couple of reasons. First, It is a Taoist temple. I have visited a lot of Buddhist temples, but few Taoist, so I wanted to compare styles. Second, it was a temple dedicated to the 8 Immortals. When I was a child, I worked at a museum that was once the home to Col. George [View Full Entry]

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Xian's Ancient Cultural Street of the Academy Gate Xian's Ancient Cultural Street is a shopping street that runs along Xian's ancient city wall, and ends at the Confuscian Temple that is now Xian's stele museum. I know what you're thinking. Ugh! Another tourist trap, theme park, shopping street. I have to tell you that I hate those places more than you could possibly imagine. This street is different. If it was not, I would certainly not add it to my blog. This street is lined with beautifully restored ancient buildings. They are not cheap imitations, but are cove [View Full Entry]

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The Town of Tongli Part 1 Tongli located outside Suzhou in Jiangsu Province is one of my favorite destinations in China. I loved this village so much! It is so beautiful. It is one of Suzhou's famous Water Towns. There are as many canals in Tongli as their are streets, and the dozens of ancient stone bridges that cross them are each unique and beautiful. We took a bus from the city of Suzhou, which took less than an hour. The bus parked in a huge parking lot for busses, and everybody was let out. We then had to go on [View Full Entry]

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