Steve's Day 4 - Goodbye Guangzhou, Hello Guilin

(Steve)

Like I said, none of us was particularly sad to leave either Guangzhou or Thomas, though I still feel obliged to thank him for dealing with four stupid foreigners for a day. He got us through the airport without any hassle, and then we were on our way to Guilin. I was a little bored on the plane so I took way too many pictures of clouds (they were some cool clouds, though), but I got really excited as the plane started to land. See, from the air both Toronto and Chicago had looked very similar, but because I didn't have a window seat on the final leg of our flight I hadn't been able to compare them with Hong Kong. I did get to compare Guilin... and the difference was astounding. The geography around Guilin is incredible: the hills just rise strait up out of the ground, and they're all over the place. Covered with vegetation, too. And the city, instead of being laid out grid-like like the other two, just hugged the hills wherever it could fit. Definitely a sight worth seeing.

We landed and got all our stuff, and then we met our new guide. My first impression of Rico was that he seemed much more likable than Thomas. It's nice that I was proved right. After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we went out to lunch. Our second Chinese meal; our first really good one. The amount of food was still way more than we could possibly finish, though, which has been the case in most restaurants that the guides have taken us to. After lunch, Rico took us to Fubo Hill, one of the cliffs rising up right in the middle of the city. First we checked out the caves that the river has carved out of the base; I was amazed to see little shops set up inside. Then we climbed the hill. That was a lot harder than any of us expected, but the view from the top was incredible. The city's landscape seems like something out of a dream.

The girls were hungry when we got down, which wasn't a problem because there were people selling baked sweet potatoes EVERYWHERE. Molly had wanted one since we first smelled them in Guangzhou, and she finally got her chance. Next we went to Elephant Trunk Hill, so named because the front of it looks like an elephant drinking from the river. We decided not to climb it (Rico told us the view wasn't as good as the one from Fubo), but we wandered around the side. More little markets in and around the caves - one woman was selling clay statues that peed when you poured water on them. Rico took a picture of the group from the viewing point on the riverbank, then we piled back into the van for a much-needed rest at the hotel. That night Molly, Candice, and I went out on our own for dinner, and we finally had to face the fact that we're in China. We only received one menu at the restaurant, and none of us had any idea how to ask for another. It was eye-opening and a little scary to see how unable to communicate we were. On the other hand, we got dinner for three people for 68 yuan, which is abotu $7.50, so that's a pretty good deal. Finally, the three of us went to a show displaying the cultures of the various minority groups in the Guilin area. Some of the acrobatics were incredible, but the dancing wasn't all that great. Molly said she hoped the show in Lijiang would be better - it was. *End Day 4*