May Holiday - Guilin


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May 7th 2010
Published: May 7th 2010
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In celebration of Labour Day as well as the opening of Expo 2010, the city of Shanghai was given an extra long weekend! So, I went to Guilin and Yangshuo---a break from big city noise and craziness.

April 29 evening-May 1 afternoon:
We (me, lizzy, angela & her husband Jabi) left on Thursday night after school & took the Maglev to the Pudong airport, which took like 5 mins. Our flight to Guilin was about 2 hours long.
The first thing I noticed when we got out of the Guilin airport were these flashy, neon-lit palm trees lining the parking lot entrance. Anyway, we had pre-booked a taxi through our hostel and I think it took about an hour to get to our hostel. We drove along a very dark, meandering road, with no traffic lights....and with the windows down, we got to enjoy some fresh air (something we've all been missing) and with that, sometimes a whiff of farm-smells too.

We stayed at the Oasis Hostel. It was only 90 RMB per room per night. The hostel was located on the 4th floor of a building, so from the outside it did not look like there was a hostel. The elevator had its only personality and every time, it would open & close the doors 3 times before it would shut all the way. hehe. The key to our room was quite unique---it was a flat metal card that you had to insert into the side of the doorknob. At first, we had trouble figuring out how to open the door since you cannot easily see the key slot.
After we dropped our things off in our rooms, we went out to grab something to eat (and it was already around 1am). There was a restaurant/food street across the road from our building. We ate some dumplings, Guilin beer fish, fried rice, eggplant & long beans...

The next day Lizzy and I ventured out to the Seven Stars Park. (Angela wasn't feeling too well, so she and Jabi stayed at the hostel to rest.) Jenny, who worked at the front desk, suggested that we take a public bus to the park. It was very easy to take the bus since there was a stop right outside our hostel---we took the #11 double-decker bus and it only cost 1 RMB! It was a 10-15 mins. ride. When we
flashy palm treesflashy palm treesflashy palm trees

outside the Guilin airport
got out of the bus, a Chinese lady immediately approached me (because I look like I can speak Chinese) and tried to sell me "cheaper" park admission tickets. I don't know how they could offer these "cheaper" and probably illegal tickets especially when the park's ticket booth just steps away, but we didn't go for it.

The park was huge with many things to see. The map had a suggested route and it indicated the must-see places with the word "HOT" in red font. haha. We walked through different hiking paths (and btw...as we walked through the various paths and series of stairs, there was like no one around. I think most of the visitors & school groups just stayed in the main square of the park). We saw a small cave with carvings...walked pass Camel Hill...we climbed the steps to see the Tomb of the Heroes.....Along the way, we got "lost" several times because the signs in the park are so confusing and misleading. It was pretty hot that day and with all that walking & hiking up and down hills and stairs....I was sweating like mad.
We also went to the zoo and saw 3 pandas--though they
beer fishbeer fishbeer fish

it was very flavourful and a little spicy
were snoring away in their rooms. There were also lesser pandas (aka red pandas), monkeys, birds, COWS???, tigers, lions....

The map showed that there are waterfalls in the park, but we couldn't find them (at first). Initially, we thought we had walked the wrong way and had missed the waterfalls. But after lunch, we walked past an area that we had already been to...and there it was...a big waterfall! How had we missed it earlier? Later, we realized it is because the waterfall is fake. They turned on the water at a certain time which made the waterfall appear. So disappointing. And as we were leaving the park at the end of the day, the waterfall had disappeared.

As I mentioned earlier, we got "lost" a few times. In some ways, getting lost was beneficial to us. For instance, we ended up on a path that had MONKEYS!!! Earlier, we had noticed signs that said MONKEYS DANGEROUS! But these monkeys ignored us and were just going about their own business. They were playing and having fun. Lizzy and I were alone with these monkeys since no one else came to walk along this path. We stood there snapping pictures, trying to whisper when we talked, and watching the monkeys playing & jumping around from tree to tree. We spotted some baby monkeys up ahead and started to walk forward...and suddenly a bigger monkey (I'm assuming it was the mother) jumped out and hissed at us. Then another monkey put up his arms and snarled at us too. And both of them ran towards us and simply put, they chased us away. We ran away screaming, trying to go as fast as we could, down all the steps. It was scary and so funny at the same time! hahahaha

The Seven Stars Cave was the last stop we made in the park. It's a big cave and seemed to go on forever...there were some interesting formations & very "interesting" interpretations of the formations (for instance, one of titles we came across was "Old Man in a Theatre"--neither Lizzy or I could see an old man let alone a theatre in the rock formation, even if we tried to use our imagination). It was nice to see the cave, but it was not overly impressive since it didn't look very natural with all the neon-lighting and paved pathways throughout
somebody was eating chickensomebody was eating chickensomebody was eating chicken

who throws bones out a window??? why?
the cave.

That evening we all went out for dinner and for the night market. The restaurant where we had dinner at was huge. They also sold fake sunglasses and there was a rack of random sweaters on sale too (strange, eh?) They had the Expo opening ceremony playing on the TV's...at that moment, I was glad to be away from Shanghai and all the expo noise & crowds. With our stomachs full, we headed to the night market. It's probably one of the largest markets I've seen. There were 4 lines of red tents running up and down the entire length of the main street. I didn't buy anything except for some beans for my upcoming IB unit (the beans have pictures and chinese sayings engraved on them and supposedly when the bean sprouts, the pictures and writing will appear on the pods too).

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast, checked out of the hostel and then walked to the bus/train station. It seemed like a long walk to the station, especially because my legs were tired from having spent the previous day doing so much walking and hiking in the park and because my backpack thus felt so much heavier to me.

We were heading to Yangshuo and would be staying there for the rest of our trip. We were told the bus would cost around 15 RMB. Once we reached the station, several people called us over and somehow they knew we were heading to Yangshuo (I suppose that's the most popular destination from Guilin?). I'm not even sure if we took a legitimate bus. We didn't have to buy tickets...and at first they said we had to pay 30 RMB or something like that. We tried to talk the bus man down to 15 RMB but he refused, so we said ok to 20 RMB. When the bus started moving, someone threw a few plastic kiddy stools down into the aisle. Jabi and Angela explained that if more passengers come on to the bus, they'll be sitting or standing in the aisle. That is absurd! Anyway, we ended up paying 18 RMB for the bus ride and when the lady came to collect the money, she wouldn't accept any coins...so I didn't/couldn't pay the full 18 RMB. ahah.

It took a little over an hour to get to Yangshuo and
Guihai Stele ForestGuihai Stele ForestGuihai Stele Forest

there were carvings of Chinese characters (perhaps they are Chinese sayings & poems) all over the cave walls
I expected that we would be in the quiet countryside. We could see mountains and hills, but there were so many people, bikes, motorbikes, music, shops, etc. hmmm....a little too much hustle & bustle than I had expected.
Thankfully, our hotel was located away from the busy streets. It took about half an hour to get to our hotel--we drove along dirt paths and passed by rice paddies and small villages. Our hotel--The Outside Inn--was in the middle of a village called the ChaoLong village. We were surrounded by Karst mountains and farms and cows and chickens....time to live the rural life!?


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lesser pandalesser panda
lesser panda

so cute! why would they call it the "lesser" panda? one of them kept on coming up to the window and put his paw up to say hi. :)


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