We arrived at Guilin at about 4:30am. Instead of being like most tourists and taking a cab to our hostel, we decided to go against our nature and follow Phil who claimed to know how to get there. We walked around asking for directions with our broken Chinese skills but got opposite ones from the cab drivers in their attempts to get us to hitch a ride with them. After 2 hours of walking we finally found our way to the hostel which ended up being just 5 minutes away from the bus station.
We decided that it was already to late to go to bed, so we left our backpacks in the room and headed for the city. We started the day by eating some Pork Buns off a street vendor for 1yuan each ($0.16). Afterwards we walked to the central part of the city and into the wet-markets. These were pretty traditional Chinese ones in which they sold a variety of products from ROCSC( fake crocs) and AILE (fake Nike and Adidas clothing), but also sold a variety of spices, fish, meat, turtles, frogs, etc.
From there we followed the street along the river and ended up in a park with giant pagodas inside it. We decided to check it out to see what it was. It was some monastery to provide homage to Confucius which had a bunch of meditation gardens, tea houses, obelisks, temples, and a peak with a pagoda on top. We decided to climb the peak to get an overview of the city, and by the time we got up we were disappointed by the view. Even though it was nice, it wasn't what we expected to find. We went back downhill and entered a temple that had a bunch of pictures of monks, each with a year on it. There where 60 of them so we assumed that it was some sort of cycle and each year was a specific monks year. People prayed to them and put money in the box beneath their name. Surprisingly this cave ended up inside a gift shop, which reminded me of pretty much every American attraction.
After the park we kept walking around the city. We went to another place that had a big lake with two giant pagodas in it. We ate some lychee and walked around for a while. It started to pour hard so we took refuge in a KFC. We walked around a bit more, then headed back to the hostel, had some dinner, watch a movie and then went to bed.
The next morning we took a boat tour to Yangzhou which is world renowned for its scenery. It was one of the first tours in China and even though the city only has 100,000 inhabitants, it gets roughly 15 million tourists every year. The greatest attraction it offers is the view of all of the mountains through the river basin. This view was made very famous by its inclusion as a default desktop picture in the new Windows computers, and the back of the 20yuan bill.
There was one specific mountain that was called the 9-horses mountain. The tour guide said that Clinton could only spot 3, so if you could see more then you where capable of being the next US president. Here is the picture of it, and try to find as many as you can.
After a 4 hour tour we finally arrived in Yangzhou. We walked around the city's main street for a while and then decided to go to the countryside. We went to a famous bridge called the Dragon Bridge and then walked across the rice fields. It was a gorgeous view and apparently many couples got wedding pictures taken there right before their wedding.
Afterwards we went back to the hostel and headed back home to Hong Kong. We arrived at the border at 5:30 but it didn't open until 6 so we just sat there for a while. They opened the doors at 6:00 but didn't let anyone in until they rang a bell. As soon as they rang it, the 500 people in the door started running to be the firsts in line. That scene is something everyone has to experience at least once in their lives since it is truly one of the funniest things i've seen.
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