Guilin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong

Hey, everybody. I'm reporting from my hotel room in Hong Kong. Unlike China, this place charges for Internet access ($5 US an hour) but the connection is very fast. That being said, I have quite a bit of touring I have to update you on. Let's start in Guilin.

On Monday we took a cruise down the Li River. The first thing we noticed was how clear the water was. It had a visibility of about six feet, which, when compared to the Yangtze’s cappuccino-looking waters, was definitely a breath of fresh air. The scenery, civilization, and wildlife alongside the river were amazing. On the boat, we tried some Snake Wine. It is hard liquor with snakes preserved inside of it. Surprisingly, compared to the other Chinese liquors we’ve had, it was drinkable, although rather strong. It had a bit of a bite on the way down. We had a free lunch on the boat, where we sat with a couple from Chongqing. Thanks to my Chinese ability we were able to communicate with them a little bit and they were gracious enough to even buy a few extra dishes and let us try them.

When the boat stopped we trudged through a crowded market in Yangshuo to hop on the bus back towards Guilin. On the way back we stopped at a rice paddy for five minutes to see how rice is grown. After about an hour and a half we arrived at the Reed Flute Cave, which we were supposed to visit the day before but couldn’t because of our flight delay. The cave had many interesting stalactite and stalagmite formations, many named after various creatures, plants, or objects they resemble. Many of them had an assortment of fluorescent colors shined on them, which looked cool if not a little unnatural. We left the cave and rode over to a Pearl Market, which was informative about pearls of different qualities. The guide lady spent time in California, and it definitely showed.

Afterwards we arrived back at the hotel. We stopped at a bank and the mall before trying to find a restaurant. We did about a half hour of wandering before we finally decided on one place. The eggplant dish we ordered there was flavorful, spicy, and delicious. We then stopped at a supermarket on the way back, where the lady there got her daughter (who could speak a little more English) out of the shower to help my mother with buying some snacks for the plane the next day. Then we stopped at a bakery, where I got a whipped cream filled bun with pineapples and cherries on top. It was good. We then headed back to the hotel, had a few beers, and went to bed.

The next morning started with a wakeup call at 5:15. We packed up, had a quick breakfast, loaded on the bus, and headed to the airport. Our plane left on time and the flight was less than an hour. In Guangzhou we met our tour guide, Gloria, and headed outside. It was a little rainy out. We got on the bus and stopped at a park, an old Chinese academy turned into a museum, a place for lunch, a medicine market and a shopping street. The medicine market was interesting; they had things like live black flies, scorpions, turtles, and dried seahorses on sale.

When everyone was done shopping (at clothes stores; no one was buying live black flies) we headed to the train station. Due to the special status of Hong Kong our tour guides could not come with us on the train. This was doubly hard because we had to say goodbye to Sam, our escort for the entire trip in mainland China, and because some of the other people on our trip weren’t very comfortable riding on a train in China without the help of someone. We got to Kowloon (the mainland part of Hong Kong) all in one piece, went through customs, and met our tour guide, Maria. She's a very Type A personality and does everything according to a set order - which shows, since she's been a tour guide for 21 years. Thankfully, her experience also manifests in an ability to find good places to go near the hotel. After we settled in our room we headed to Knutsford Terrace, a Western restaurant street. We chose an Italian restaurant, where my mom had halibut and I had rigatoni. It was absolutely fabulous. Afterwards we had a couple of drinks and called it a night.

This morning we went on a tour of Hong Kong with our tour guide. She did a great job showing us the sights of Hong Kong (including Victoria Peak, Wan Chai, Aberdeen, Repulse Bay and Stanley) and giving us an idea of what Hong Kong is like (living conditions, differences between the rich and the poor, history, and all sorts of miscellaneous tidbits). When my mom and I got done with the tour, we went to a Dim Sum restaurant recommended by the tour guide. Thankfully we went there and not later because Dim Sum is apparently only a breakfast/lunch sort of thing. We had a wide array of dishes (including chicken feet and deep-fried squid) and hopefully didn't make too big of fools of ourselves.

That pretty much brings us up to right now. Tomorrow we have a free day, so we're using it to tour Lantau Island, where we'll see a fisherman's village and a Buddhist Temple. Then Friday, it's off to Taiwan. I'll probably update tomorrow evening or Saturday in Taiwan. Keep in touch!