We had already packed our bags the evening before, so we had a little spare time before our departure at 10am. We took a little walk around the block – although it was quite a big block – we were out for about 40 minutes. En route, we passed through a small park where a couple of people were practicing Tai Chi, and there were a LOT of birds – Song Thrushes – in small cages hung in trees. This is known as “Bird-walking”. They were singing very loudly, but I couldn’t help thinking that although I am sure they take good care of their pet birds, it is cruel to keep a WILD bird in such small cages, and hang them in a tree for them to see the huge expanse of space they could be free to fly in, but they’re not. I’m sure they think it’s kind to give the bird fresh air....I just wasn’t expecting to see such tiny cages. I wonder if they’re kept in larger cages when at home, although I doubt it.
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| Streets of China |
Our walk took us around what most would probably consider to be the heart of China – we saw how everyday people live at street level at our own pace, instead of the usual fleeting glance on the coach. We had a closer look at the high rise apartment blocks with the washing hanging outside the windows, and the family / home run businesses and workshops spilling out onto the street with the apartments above, also hanging their washing outside the front windows or even on the streets – these apartments looked slightly more run down....or perhaps they were just very old and not too well maintained externally, I have no idea.
It was a nice walk, if only just to see how everyone lived. Aesthetically, the streets aren’t very attractive – at least to Westerners anyway – but this is how they live. Between the workshops there were random people with tiny tiny stalls or tables awaiting business like cobblers and people with sewing machines offering to mend or alter clothes. The strangest thing we saw was a man out walking with a bird on his shoulder. It was a real black bird just sitting there...I know, I should have stopped him and asked for a photo!
We arrived back at the hotel with 45 minutes still to spare, and when we went down into the lobby everyone was buying a map of China from the “Shopping Arcade” – which was really just one shop selling a random assortment of items, some of which we wondered if they had acquired via lost property...! So I went to buy my China map before they were sold out!
We left for the French Quarter which was very nice, very clean and had a nice Mediterranean feel to it. Strangely, most of the restaurants had Italian / English menus in their windows, so I was wondering if there were any Italian people working there. Anyway, it was in the French Quarter where I bought my first Starbucks drink in China! Hooray! As it was quite warm outside, I decided on a Vanilla Cream. Back on the coach, we headed to the airport to check in. On the way, Jane gave us all a box of 2 muffins and a banana for our lunch.
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| French Quarter |
My Vanilla Cream had filled me right up, so I only had the one muffin. After checking in at the airport and going through security, we waited 30 – 40 minutes before boarding the plane. I had the second muffin and shortly after, we were all given a drink and a small box with a snack inside, consisting of a small tray of cherry tomatoes, and a slice of carrot cake! Yet more cake and it wasn’t even Friday! Yum!
After only 2 hours in the air, we’d had quite a bit of turbulence but we had landed safely in Guilin and our suitcases were just as we had left them. The random in flight entertainment consisted of a cartoon Mr. Bean, Ice Skating from 2 years ago, some odd Wallace and Gromit style animation about a clumsy polar bear, traditional Chinese singing and dancing, and some random thing starring Michael Douglas which I think was an entire movie cut down to fit about 30 minutes. With adverts....!
Back on land, we stepped into immense humidity (WOW!) and we were introduced to our local guide in Guilin, Jessica. She seemed impressed with the Chinese which Jane had taught us! We got onto our new coach and our first impression of Guilin was a very good one, despite the mist. It is very very green, covered in grass, trees, shrubs, rice paddies....we were south of the Yangtze where rice is the main crop (in the north the main crop is wheat). Guilin is very hilly, although when you get to one of these hills close up, they look more like large craggy overgrown rocks – they are known as karsts. Some aren’t so big, others were absolutely HUGE and I also noticed there were some graves on the side of others – the decorations from the Qing Ming Festival the week before were still hanging on and showing off their colour.
The part of the Guilin suburb which we went through towards the centre is currently under much construction – lots and lots of accommodation being built. So far Guilin has 700,000 residents and they aim to have 1 million. The houses in the suburbs seemed to be built right at the base of these huge karsts. The city centre started to look familiar, just like Shanghai with apartment blocks (although not nearly as high), and washing being dried outside the windows. I have to say the apartment blocks seemed to look nicer here, but perhaps they were just newer here than they were in Shanghai?
We checked into our hotel and went straight to dinner on the 2nd floor, and the food was delicious! For the first time, I felt STUFFED. We collected our bags and went to our rooms. Our first reaction was to the dead cockroach in the toilet bowl! Eugh! Fortunately he flushed away easily. Yuk!
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| Cormorants |
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| Cormorant Fishing |
We took our anti malarials and headed out to get onto the coach to see the Cormorant Fishing – I never knew they did this in the city, I always thought it was done quite far out in the countryside, or away from built up areas at least. It was enjoyable to watch but at the same time I couldn’t help wondering if our boat was making too much noise as one of the fishermen didn’t catch any fish at all. What must they think to us watching them go fishing?
Back at the hotel, we packed our rucksacks for our 1 day stay in Yangshuo. Tomorrow we would have a 4 hour river cruise there from Guilin and we hoped the weather would be kind to us!
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