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Published: April 29th 2008
Well, our first internal flight in China was just great , thanks. Still altogether odd that a (relatively) small city in China has an airport at least as big as Auckland's. We're both starting to understand both why 'big city' people around the world giggle at Auckland and also why its such a great place to live. Someone slap me quickly if I forget such lessons.
Anyway, we arrived safely at our hostel in Guilin - only minor incident was the taxi driver taking some sort of shortcut .. which involved driving away from the smooth, well-lit road onto rutted back country lines with no lights ... hmmm. Had us a little concerned but all came right pretty quickly and we got there in the end.
After the relative ease and relax that Sanya was, Guilin is definitely back into it with a vengance. Today was sightseeing around town - the beautiful (and clean!) Li river cuts through the town, with the focal point being a large rock that resembles an elephant. Seriously.
Everything in the town seems to be elephant themed and there is a massive park built around the formation. Funny moment was meeting a 74 year old from New Zealand travelling around. She's with a tour group but we both decided that if we could still go to a mainly non-english speaking country in our 70's then we could consider ourselves doing very well. Props to her.
Lunch is worth mentioning. It was kind of like a buffet but you pay for each thing you eat. They caught on pretty quick that we spoke english (well, at least that we couldn't speak chinese) and we ended up getting a personal dining consultant who told us what was and wasn't good and basically walked us through the whole thing - awesome! The beef was a little spicier than intended but Andrew was a happy man! Slightly concerning is all the chickens, turtles, ducks and rabbits(!) in cages outside the restaurants .. I don't really enjoy seeing what I"m about to eat alive when I walk in but guess we'll get over that .. oh, and we say a small bear on a chain in the city today - we took the moral high ground and didn't take a photo but it was a fairly random thing to see while walking through a park ....
It been pretty hot, so we're taking it easy at the moment. The hostel has a guitar so andrew is well occupied.
Oh, and we heard about the big train crash in China the other day - sounds pretty tragic and fairly concerning but in case everyone was wondering - it was nowhere near where we are. Sit near the back of the train now I guess!
Anyway, drop us a line - we're loving hearing from people!!
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Jeremy Bradley
non-member comment
Eat the rabbit!
Woo, sounds like really fun times! Have you eaten rabbit yet? It's pretty good, although I wouldn't know how the styles it in China. I'm having Nando's for lunch, with the peri-peri chips. Mmmm!